At the start of the last academic year, housing and admissions officials found themselves wrestling with a new squadron of “helicopter parents” — people who use Facebook to check up on their sons’ or daughters’ future roommates, don’t like what they see, and call to complain.
Now that Facebook is open to everyone, those calls are coming all too frequently, USA Today reports. In many instances, parents want their children separated from roommates whose profiles show them drinking or partying. But sometimes the complaints are more troubling: According to one housing official, parents’ chief concerns are potential roommates’ race, religion, and sexual orientation.
Few colleges defer to helicopter parents, of course, but the calls still sound like a nuisance. How many complaints has your institution received? Can anything be done to calm parents’ Facebook-related fears? —Brock Read
