AUDREY REED
News Editor
Even though students dominate Facebook, faculty and staff are also in the online mix.
Whether it’s to get to know students, keep in touch or assign class work, professors have utilized the online networking site.
By searching for faculty and staff on the Facebook, more than 65 user names come up. Staff members from Seaver Dean David Baird to Associate Dean of Students Tabatha Jones to professors from nearly every division all have Facebook accounts. While the majority only have the basic information like name and e-mail address filled in, other professors use the site much like students.
But in doing this, many professors say that they must exercise caution in what they look at and what they put online when using the site.
Science professor Douglas Mulford joined Facebook when he was overseas in Florence, Italy. He said that in Florence, the professors and students were much closer than they are now, and since returning to Malibu, he doesn’t use Facebook as much because he has a different role at Pepperdine.
“I have to be careful about it,” he said.
Being careful, for Mulford, means not searching for his students as soon as he gets his class list or inviting students to be his friends on the site.
However, Mulford does see some use in the site.
“It’s really nice to be able to see what people are interested in. You can learn an awful lot about people by what groups they are in,” Mulford said.
Mulford, a self-proclaimed computer nerd, said he also has an account with Friendster.com, another social networking site.
Adjunct professor and administrative assistant Courtenay Stallings also is a member of Friendster and Facebook.
She said that while she likes the more personal aspect of the site, she remembers that information about students on Facebook is different from that found out in the classroom.
“I look at it as a personal site and consider the setting,” Stallings said. “I consider it a personal type of communication, not like Blackboard or PepXpress.”
Stallings said she only looks at her student’s profiles “once the grades are turned in.”
Adjunct professor of religion and staff member Bob Cargill is one of the most well known professors who uses Facebook to that end.
“I’ve always prided myself in learning people’s names,” said Cargill, who used to video tape his students the first day in class to get every student’s name correct. “(Facebook) began as a way to learn students’ names.”
But then Cargill realized that it also made students seem more real, and that’s when he decided to put personal things about himself, however recently Cargill has taken down most of his profile. Now he uses the site to coordinate his classes.
He said it fits in with Pepperdine’s trend of encouraging professors and students to get to know each other much like the fund Pepperdine has set up that reimburses faculty members for class dinners they host in the home.
“I feel if teachers want to communicate better with students, they should go to where the students are,” Cargill said. “It seems to me that more students use Facebook now to communicate than the campus e-mail.
“By having a presence on Facebook, students can easily contact me regarding questions about class, life and being a Christian.”
Cargill has Facebook groups for his religion class as well as University Church Sunday school class where he posts pop quiz hints and class reminders, respectively.
Student opinion on professors being on Facebook is mixed.
Junior Megan Barnes said she does not mind that professors can see her profile.
“I am who I am,” she said.
Barnes also said she likes that professors can use the site as a classroom tool because she already uses it to connect with students in her classes.
Senior Anne Burnley, however, thinks the Facebook should be utilized only by students.
“Professors should respect students’ space on the Internet, even though it is seen as public domain,” she said. “I think that there needs to be a strict line in professor-student relationships. Facebook is a tool that allows that line to be blurred, which is detrimental to the integrity of the Pepperdine system.”
Burnley said that she would prefer that Facebook not allow professors on the site.
11-17-2005