A faculty member at East Stroudsburgh University in Pennsylvania has been suspended for comments she made on her Facebook page. Her own page settings made the comment to her Facebook friends private, but when received by her Facebook friends, whose pages were not private, the comments were public.
While the university is concerned about there "brand" and what they perceive as a threat to students, this case demonstrates how we faculty are never out of the public eye and must watch what we say and do. Many of us have had the experience of going into a local bar only to find a student or former student who must come up and ask us what we are doing there as if they just discovered a nun in a bordello.
Interesting that the converse does not apply. If the university suspended every student who made an exasperated threat on me after getting back a graded exam, I could hold the last few classes of the semester in my closet of an office. But, I recognize hyperbole when I hear it and thankfully so do my students.
I write this blog under a nom-de-plume and have thought about if I really need to. Would the English Department faculty really attack and put me on trial for crimes against the written word? Would my writings be used against me if I should again pursue a Chairperson position?
T.S. Hall
Learning Chemistry and Struggle
4 days ago
Whether you should write under a nom-de-plume as a faculty is a hard question to answer. It's fairly obvious to just not blog if you don't have tenure. But isn't tenure for risk taking? Blogs can also get you into lots of trouble, since even sarcastic comments can be taken badly. Coming out under your actual name would boost traffic on the blog, but also put you under a painful public microscope.
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