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[patchouli]

Hello All,

I plead ignorance with Facebook, although I registered months ago for a friend but never used the account I started.  I am now receiving lots of invites from students, past and present, to join and or sign their sites.

Have any of you received these invitations and how do you respond to them?

[neutralname]

If it is a student I recognize and would speak to if I passed them in the hallway, I accept.  On Facebook, I exchange messages with students who message me first, answering their questions and asking how they are doing.

[liquidambar]

If you're not using your Facebook for much, you could respond as neutralname does.  I use Facebook to communicate with relatives and people I know socially, so I would not accept invites from work colleagues or students.  Such people do not need to see my weird little updates.

[yemaya]

I'm not a regular user, but I don't accept requests from students.  It's just too weird.  Normally, I just send a polite note thanking them for thinking of me but explaining that I don't accept friend requests from students.

[neutralname]

I don't think becoming Facebook friends with students has to be weird.  Facebook is different from MySpace, which is much more problematic.  I don't see much difference between communicating with a student on Facebook and emailing the student.  You can determine who sees your Wall-to-Wall communications and I keep mine quite public, so anyone else on Facebook can see what I say to the student and what the student says to me.  I don't put up anything very personal on Facebook, but students can see who are my other Facebook friends, and what movies I have listed as my favorites.  I've had no problems from using Facebook for the year or so I've been on it.

My school is basically commuter students, and there's little community.  Students come to classes and leave.  So something like Facebook can help to substitute (albeit weakly) for other forms of community.  I welcome it.

[phdbliss]

I tell my students that they can be my friends on Facebook after final grades are turned in and they haven't complained. When they're my students, it's strictly verboten. After the semester is over, it's fine. If a student decides to repeat a course with me, we have to "un-friend" each other for that semester, but then can "re-friend" each other after.

[iomhaigh]

If they ask me and I know them, then I accept.  But, my facebook profile is bland bland bland.  I mostly use it as a PR tool for departmental events and to keep in touch with alums. 

I'm telling you -- there's no easier way to keep track of those alums who move every six months after graduation when you want to put a current student in touch with them about grad school, internships, etc. 

That said, I don't extend "friend" offers to students.  For some reason, that's where the weirdness line is to me. 

Myspace...that I avoid like the plague. 

[mended_drum]

I accept invitations, and they mostly come from recent alums who want to keep in touch.  But if a current student invites me, I accept.  We're a small enough institution that there's very little they post there that isn't common knowledge around campus anyway.

Of course, I did not expect several of my students to convince my mom to get a facebook page or for her to be gathering more invitations from my current students than I am.  This is what I get for letting her attend my classes every once in a while.

[prof_mom]

I don't accept the friend invitations from students for the reasons others have stated.

I have created a mydepartmentmyuniversity student group that I invite students to join.

[yellowtractor]

I never accept any such invitations from students until and unless they have graduated.  Until then I am not their "friend."  I have a very nice standard e-mail I use for such invitations, conveying how flattered I am that they would ask but that I don't feel able to sign up at this time.

[ursula]

I only accept if the studen has graduated, and no longer has friends and close associates among my current students.  I like boundaries.

[dundee]

I only accept friend requests from former students who will not be my students again in the future - so, they have either graduated or were students at an institution where I no longer teach. I really enjoy keeping in touch with my best students and seeing what they are achieving, but it would be weird and uncomfortable for me to be friends on facebook with current students.

[neutralname]

Being a Facebook friend doesn't make you a student's friend.  It does acknowledge a relationship of sorts, but not a friendship.  Once you get clear on that, I have yet to see what's the problem in becoming a Facebook friend with a student.  Maybe someone could articulate the feeling a bit more to clarify.

[august_leo]

I befriend them, but if they are "too active" I remove them (I don't like getting news feeds about the same people. I just don't put anything too private on my FB profile.

[sunnyday]

Just curious: how is Facebook different from Myspace in terms of one being less professional or less sophisticated than the other?  My impression was that they are more or less the same thing.