Facebook

Concepts:

Facebook, students, school, campus, employers, profiles, Malavenda, networking, social-networking, technology, phenomenon, colleges, friends, Christian Science Monitor, life.

Summary:

Facebook: A campus fad becomes a campus fact; The social-networking website isn't growing like it once did, but only because almost every US student is already on it.

Bridget Henry didn't think her school, the University of Iowa, gave students an appropriate venue to participate in the search for a new president.

Henry, a senior majoring in political science, started "Hogan's Heroes," a group supporting provost Michael Hogan for the job.

Henry and her friends tried a laundry list of ways to publicize "Hogan's Heroes" - everything from a letter-writing campaign to handing out flyers.

But what succeeded most was their page on the social networking website Facebook, which attracted more than 200 supporters.

Even if Hogan doesn't get the job, Henry learned what colleges and universities are waking up to: Facebook is no longer just a fun way for students to keep in touch.

It is now essential to the college experience, a fact that faculty and staff are scurrying to catch up with.

Soon to enter its fourth year, Facebook has matured into a warehouse of school information, a big-time player in campus activism, and a mirror of university life - good and bad.

More than 12 million users are signed up.

School officials, most of whom were either dismissive or unaware of the phenomenon, are now awake to it.

And they worry about information in student profiles, especially after hearing that employers routinely check them.

Students still "friend" others in their school or regional networks, exchange messages and pictures (Facebook claims to be the largest photo-sharing website), check class schedules, or post diary notes.

Then there are groups like Henry's, for example.

Or the one at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., that wants to revive sluggish campus social life.

Students running for campus office campaign on Facebook, as do actual politicians.

"Any [campus] behavior that you could experience face to face, you'll see on Facebook," says Pablo Malavenda, associate dean of students at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

Malavenda says the schools overreacted because they were confused - after all, he adds, social networking is the biggest campus phenomenon since phones were allowed in residence halls.

Brian Payst, director of technology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, says schools need to use the changing ways in which students communicate.

At Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., administrators sent "a call to action," asking faculty and staff to join Facebook in the hopes that it would have a "norming influence" on content.

Michael Bugeja, director of the journalism school at Iowa State University, views Facebook as one of several distractions that the spread of wireless access has allowed to flourish on campuses.

"They have dominated their niche," says Fred Stutzman, who studies Facebook for his doctoral dissertation at UNC.

The site is a hit, and within a few months it expands to other schools in the area.

One of the most publicized warnings about Facebook comes from a slew of surveys showing that employers check Facebook profiles before making hiring decisions.

A recent survey by Christine Wiley and Mark Sisson, who work in the Career Services office at the University of Dayton, Ohio, not only confirms the use of Facebook by employers, but it also points to the disconnect that exists between students and the adults who make decisions about them.

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