If you’re toying with the idea, you might want to read “Erasing Divide, College Leaders Take to Blogging” by Diana Jean Schemo published yesterday in The New York Time.
In January, I gave my take on the topic in a post titled “Top 3 reasons to get your university/college president blogginge,” but the NYT article provides some scary examples of what your president can expect when s/he starts to blog:
“Dr. Caret’s post titled “Education vs. Training†prompted a graduate student to complain about what he called a language barrier with foreign-born teachers. To illustrate his point, the student reprinted a note in broken English from one of his professors, which ended: “Of course, some class(es) may not satisfy your thirsty in terms of your learning expectation. But even those classes will be a small stone to build your career.â€
The student asked Dr. Caret, “Can students learning a new subject be expected to comprehend the new topic when they are too busy trying to comprehend what was just said?â€
Though Dr. Caret’s site posted the letter, he did not answer the question on his blog. In an e-mail message, he said he forwarded the complaint to the provost.”
As you can imagine, most lawyers are against the idea of president blogging as reported in this NYT article:
“If trustees are dissatisfied with a president, Mr. Cotton [a university lawyer] said, blogs offer a president’s adversaries ready ammunition. A casual comment taken out of context, a longstanding problem not addressed, or a politically controversial position can all torpedo a president, he said.
“In this day and age of political correctness,†Mr. Cotton said, “it exposes the president to all kinds of unfair and unwarranted criticism.—
It might, but it could also have gotten your president interviewed by The New York Time…
Does YOUR president (or VP or dean) blog? Let us know by posting a comment!
Just some questions that have come up within our own president blogging investigation that I’m curious what someone else’s take might be…
1. For those blogs that have restricted feedback comments…what kind of feedback have you received on that? (Is it something that seems to leave the impression of “censorship”, etc.”)
2. In regards to legalities, does anyone know of a case or series of actions that resulted from a President’s blog?
Thanks!
I guess it’s definitely fine to moderate comments (with the amount of comment spam you get these days, nobody will frown). Then, you should probably add a disclaimer to indicate what type of feedback is appropriate. I think this is what they do at Arizona State University with The President’s Post (I interviewed President Crow earlier this year).
I haven’t heard about any case or series of actions – but you might want to check with your lawyers. However, some blogs did lead to the demise of presidents, but they were written by others as reported in this article published in September in The Chronicle of Higher Education: Attack of the Blog (I’m using the cache of this page in Google as the article is behind a registration wall)
Thanks for the information!
The legality concern mentioned in the NY Times article is something we’ve discussed. My research thus far has yet to support it…however, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen – for something to be taken out of context on a blog.
Thanks again.