Kathryn Linder used to accept Facebook friend requests from her students, until the Suffolk University official considered the repercussions of blending her social and professional lives.
Linder, assistant director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Suffolk in Boston, activated Facebook’s most stringent privacy settings when she realized students could see her profile page and various posts, comments, videos, and photos.
“Eventually all they could see was my name and eMail address, so it didn’t seem purposeful to accept friend invitations anymore,” said Linder, who published a list of suggestions for how instructors should interact with their students on social media sites. “It’s important to keep in mind that it is the instructor’s responsibility, not the student’s, to create and enforce appropriate boundaries for social networking in the classroom and out.”
Few in higher education faced the dilemma of “friending” students on Facebook when college students first flocked to the site in the mid-2000s. But as Facebook accounts become commonplace among all ages, faculty members find themselves in the awkward position of accepting or rejecting students’ friend invitations, and according to a 2010 research paper, most instructors choose the latter.
Read the full story on eCampus News
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