Faculty on Facebook?

My goals for today are to: a) clean my desk (at home), b) pay bills, and c) think of an additional research idea. For some reason, the "faculty on facebook" focus just caught my attention as I sifted through the research material in my home office.

I often cut special articles from my weekly subscription to the Chronicle of Higher Education and organize them in a folder. I found an advertisement for lap desks from the Library of Congress and an article.

This article, "For Professors, 'Friending' Can Be Fraught'" by Sara Lipka, really caught my eye. My professors are joining facebook and are befriending their students. Being the millennial that I am, I have chosen not to venture in that direction. Since I actually look like an undergraduate student, I do not want to be perceived by the students and the faculty of my institution as a "young" professor. By the using the term "young", I mean to allude to the fact that many young professors do "hang out" with their students and consequently have problems controlling their classroom. As a result, I am just friends with the people from my former institutions.

Facebook can be beneficial for team building outside of the classroom environment, but I do not want to become "too friendly" with my students. In addition, I promised all of my students that I will not look at their facebook profiles, because I do not want to have my "in class" image of my students tarnished by information they choose to broadcast about themselves.

I may wait two to three more years before joining the online social networking websites that feature my current institution. Every millennial does not want to embrace the full capabilities of online social networking (i.e. - me).

By the way, I will definitely keep my blog updated on new articles that I find to supplement my research!

MillennialProfessor