The Student Affairs Blog

Bias Incident Reporting Systems

After reading an article about Bias Incident Reporting at The College of William & Mary, I am not sure what is a fair, safe, legal system to implement. The goal of W&M's system is “to assist members of the William and Mary community—students, staff, and faculty—in bringing bias incidents to the College’s attention.” In theory it sounds like a good program. They initially allowed for anonymous reporting. But that lead to an outcry from not only within the school, but from outside groups. The pressure was so great that W&M revised the system, but it's still not perfect.

Problems still remain—for one thing, the website states that “If you are uncertain whether an occurrence meets the bias incident definition, please report the occurrence.” Even with the new, constitutional definition of a “bias incident,” this statement opens the door for abuse. Moreover, although anonymous reporting is no longer allowed, it is unclear whether someone accused of a “bias incident” has a right to know his or her accuser’s identity—and the right to confront one’s accuser is an essential aspect of due process.

Other schools have similar systems such as The University of Virginia and Oregon State University. Most include reporting via email, paper, phone, or in person but all are still torn as to the level of privacy given to both the reporter and the accused. I wonder what the level of abuse is for anonymous systems or is the reaction unfounded and exaggerated? I can't find any data saying the systems are abused or not abused.

Texting is Talking - School Etiquette

I'm guilty as I've done it many times...

I'm chatting with friends and my phone buzzes alerting me of a text message. I stealthily pull the phone from my pocket and text back in hopes no one notices. But my multitasking skills are not good enough and I often play catch up in the conversation.

I'm not nearly as experienced as some students who can text, reply, and order lunch without looking at their phone. But does it mean they are being rude for not fully engaging in the converstaion, or nice because they are texting instead of calling?

Group McPotayves says texting is the same as pulling out your phone and talking, and they want to do something about it via a college campus campaign:

Group McPotayves is working on a campaign to reduce cell phone usage in class.  Here is an overview/outline of the campaign:

Goal:  To create awareness among students at Oklahoma State University about classroom etiquette.

      Objectives:
   
1.  To reduce the use of cell phones, by students during class, by five percent each semester.
 
2.  To increase awareness among incoming freshman about proper classroom etiquette by 50 percent the first semester.

Their blog is filled with a complete action plan including Commercials, PSAs, News Releases, and pre written Opinion Articles (which is kinda funny to think about). They are trying to make it a turn key campaign for your campus.

The question is, is it a problem worth addressing with a campaign blitz? What is your experience on campus?

Unique AIDS Awarness Student Program

Westmont college hosted an interesting demonstration this week as part of World AIDS Week which runs from Nov 26 2007 - Dec 2 2007.

"A group of Westmont students brought attention to World AIDS Week by placing hundreds of small signs depicting children on Kerrwood Lawn, Monday and Tuesday Nov. 26-27. The placards represented the 600 children orphaned by AIDS every day."

What I like about this and similar demonstrations, is it's impossible for someone to not pay attention or be curious. It interacts with the "car-to-class" apathetic students who never show up at any campus event. It's also cost effective and easy to host.

Is anyone else doing anything interesting for AIDS Week? Did you know it was AIDS Week?

I'll See You on Facebook - Teacher Self-Discloser, Student Motivation

Steve Thompson at College of DuPage referred me to an interesting article titled, "I'll See You on Facebook" 

The article was a collaborative project to explore if and how teachers should use Facebook to engage students outside the classroom and what if any the effects will have back in the classroom. Even though it was written in January 2007 (which in technology terms is almost ancient) there are some interesting findings relevant to  student affairs professionals and worth sharing.

The results concluded that:

...teachers high in self-disclosure [on Facebook] anticipated higher levels of [student] motivation and affective learning and a more positive classroom climate.

The danger is in the details, as too much information turned out to be damaging to the teacher/student relationship:

...instructors must balance their private information to guide the boundary management process. Teachers decide what information they want to reveal to their students in an effort to create a comfortable classroom environment that fosters student learning.

The surveyed students suggested that teacher self-discloser on Facebook should not include polarizing issues such as politics, religion, and hot topic debates. At the same time the students said the teachers should be themselves. If they are not the same person online as they are in the classroom, the students reacted negatively.

The three big no-nos from the students were:

1. A teacher should not gossip about students online
2. Use personal information a student shares on their profile against them
3. Respect a student’s privacy, so if a student doesn’t want to be your friend online, don’t push it. (I've never sought out a student's online profile to be friends, instead I give them the choice to find and befriend me.)
   

A while ago, I wrote a blog with guidelines for academic professionals that compliments this article’s conclusions and might be worth reading.

I think this research is further confirmation that academic professionals should be actively using online social networking sites such as Facebook as a tool in education.


Other interesting findings:

•  As of May 2006,  297,000 Facebook members identified themselves as faculty or staff. I haven't seen an updated number, but I would guess that the number is now near 600,000+ due to the larger acceptance of Facebook. 

• Students felt more comfortable opening up online than face-to-face.
  "Scholars found that students who communicate via [social networking sites online] with other students use more direct uncertaninty reduction strategies (e.g. more intimate questions and self-discloser) than students in face-to-face converstaions (Tidwell and Walther, 2002)" (related blog)
  

A Response to "Students Today": Professors Today

"A Vision of Students Today", done by the Digital Ethnography folks at the University of Kansas has been making the rounds for a couple of months.

Today, they posted a thoughtful, plaintive response from a UK lecturer. The full post is worth reading - a few of my favorite peices:

What is it like being a lecturer today?

66% of my students

Bother to come to the lectures

I spend all Sunday carefully preparing.

I spent five days researching and preparing.

A carefully considered reading list

Of which my students read

20% of the items.

I spent the summer

Creating an online learning environment

Full of amazing study resources

That only 30% of my students visit

And she ends simply:

Of what school teachers earn

I spent 5 years writing my last book

Which was well reviewed

And got me interviewed on TV

But I only made £50 in royalties

So you have to ask

Why I do this job?

And my answer is

Because I believe

all that stands between civilization and barbarism

is education.

Students Today" suggests that students are dissatisfied. This lecturer's response answers in kind.

Chicken and egg?

I love learning. From books, from experiences and most of all from people. I think this is normal.

I had trouble with my engagement while in formal education settings. This is common.

I've been both the bored student and the frustrated lecturer.

That their is so much annoyance on both "sides" seems a little pathetic. We can do better.

In this conversation about education reform the frustration can be a motivator initially. Over time it's hard not to become overwhelmed, by the sheer size of the idea of education reform, or the pace of change, or the politics of any given institution.

I think communities are the solution. A combination of blogs like this, conferences, and even Facebook groups, to get like minded people to break down this frustration into small task lists. Small steps with a bigger vision in mind.

Facebook Eases Freshman Woes

CNN recently posted an article about two college freshman roommates who met on Facebook first and became best friends before meeting each other physically on campus. The article argues that Facebook is a great tool to help ease the stressful transition for freshman.   

"Min is just one of the many college freshmen who will be stepping onto campuses this fall with a jump-start on their new social lives, thanks to friendships they've formed during the summer on the social networking site Facebook.com."

What is interesting to me is that all the stories covered in the article talk about organic peer-to-peer communication with no institutional intervention, for better or worse.

With quotes like

"...freshmen are arriving at school with ready-made friendships waiting for them on the first day."

and

"Facebook helps ease the anxiety of going off to college by giving incoming students a sense of what to expect."

and

"On college message boards within Facebook, entering students can interact with each other and with knowledgeable upperclassmen, trading useful tips and advice about starting school."

it sounds like Facebook is the holy grail that orientation departments have been looking for. If that's the case then why are so few using it? How could they be using it? How have you used it?

The article doesn't cover the negative side of meeting your future roommate online. I am sure for some schools that's caused issues. Does anyone have first hand experience with this topic?