Woman Sues University Over MySpace Controversy

Stacy Snyder, a former student, is suing Millersville University for $75,000 for denying her a teaching degree after the university found a picture of her drinking when she was underage on her Myspace page.

The day before her graduation, the university informed her of their decision and while the rest of her classmates received their teaching certificates, Stacy was denied. The university claimed she was promoting underage drinking by posting the picture on her Myspace page.

While a precedent isn't set yet on this issue, With the limited information I read about the case, I think Stacy is right to sue and I think Millersville had a knee jerk reaction as is oh so common with a lack of understanding among universities. Stacy was stupid for posting the picture and it's not clear if the university confronted her about it before going right to such a harsh discipline.

To pull a learning for the story, We need a bigger push to have year long training on proper internet use, including social networking sties, just as we have training on alcoholism, diversity and job placement. This is not the first or the last time this will happen. Universities should be more proactive in this training rather than wait until an issue occurs and then react.

Student Activities is on the front lines of this issue as they are embedded with the students and will usually be the first ones to hear about something and the first ones asked to do something about it.

Comments

[Kevin Guidry]

Why do we keep seeing only one side of this story presented? The high school involved has laid out their claims at http://www.cvsd.k12.pa.us/DS/tempNews/snyderLawsuit05_07.pdf As expected, they differ from Snyder's. Among other things, they claim that Snyder had a history of unprofessional conduct and had been warned previously to not direct students to her MySpace page. We'll just have to wait for this to shake out before we can find out where the truth lies between these two extremes.

[Tom Krieglstein]

Kevin, nice find, however the link doesn't seem to work. I would love to read it over if you can double check.

(Update - it's adding a period to the end of the URL. I went in and fixed it so you don't have to repost.)

I think we mostly hear her side of the story because it's a David and Goliath situation. It's a sad situation when universities are the adversaries verse the friend. It's a much bigger issue, but I am sure lawyers have something to do with it. Do lawyers and education mix?

[Kevin Prentiss]

I disagree with Tom on the original post - I don't think the solution to this particular case is training on use of tech.

If the school's side of the story can be believed, and the apology letter makes that very reasonable, this woman is missing some sense, some maturity, and some respect. It's a more fundamental issue that how she uses myspace.

I have some general sympathy for her confusion though. The world is getting informal. Informal networks are often how things get done at colleges - I can see how she could feel she was being contemporary in comparison to the fuddy duddy-ness of her supervisor.

And many in the edutech community, I would guess, would commend her attempted use of tech tools to bring teaching outside of the classroom, seems like she just did it very sloppily all the way around.

[John Spranza]

After reading the additional materials provided by Kevin, it appears to me that the university was in the right to withhold her diploma...if her review and evaluation from her student teaching did not meet the program's requirements, then she in effect, did not pass the class. I can't tell you how many students I know that fail to finish one class and do not get to walk...so it wasn't a case of the University withholding her certificate because of her Myspace page, it was because her student teaching practicum was not completed to the satisfaction of her academic requirements. The Myspace issue is a component of the reasons, but it does not appear to be the ONLY area she was deficient in her behavior while student teaching.

[Tom Krieglstein]

On the face of it, I sided with Stacy, however after Kevin shared the school's side of the story, I agree it does seem like she was missing some common sense in her actions and there was a lot more going on then just the one picture.

I do still think a BIG part of the answer is training on the new tools of the internet. If she was indeed trying to use Myspace as a teaching tool, she seemed to be using it wrong. Had she had some proper training she, and many other teachers, would be able to use it more effectively.

Her story is going to do more to scare teachers away from using the tools then helping. Thus the need for the training. I think it should be taught as part of the curriculum to get a teaching degree as an awareness piece. Something along the lines of "The World in Which They Live."