Our daughter Karenhas always enjoyed the internet beginning with her first ‘Val Kilmer’ fan site in the 7th grade. Soon, her siteevolved to a discussion platform for her track and field friends along with publishing a popular web based newsletter. During this time, she encountered many of the troubling issues that face athletes, celebrities and almost everyone who frequents the internet. The same questions came up over and over: how do I make a good reputation? How do I prevent a bad one from developing? And How do I get old stuff ‘off’ that continues to cause problems .
Today, Karen gave a lecture on the impact of social media on reputation management to a Psychology class at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and hoped to answer some of these questions for students. By ‘iclicker’ , she discovered that virtually all of the students were on social media! Consequently, many students find themselves haunted by embarrassing pictures of themselves on the internet and some deeds … well, that they wished others didn’t know about. By example, Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps learned this the hard way. I am told, Karen offered helpful advice.
It was something to think about…
Roger Freberg
(too bad Cal Poly administrators weren’t around to listen)
From what I am told, David Conn is a reasonable and personable fellow, just the person to give what some are calling Cal Poly’s “Committee of Inquisition” a happy face. I even had people tell me NOT to find any pictures of David Conn in a clown suit on the internet, because he was a such ‘nice guy.’ However, it has been my observation that much of the problems, dare I say ‘evil’, in the world has been supported, initiated and perpetuated by so-called ‘good people’ who believe they were just doing their job and ‘following orders.’ Psychologist Stanley Milgram might agree.
For some reason, Cal Poly’s administration believes there are not enough organizations and systems to handle the various complaints on campus and decreed that a new select committee would be set up and apparently given broad powers and a curious mandate. In addition, the committee would exist without the customary review by the faculty and staff unions or the faculty academic senate… in essence, it would be accountable to no one. Apparently, it would be ‘outside the law.’ It doesn’t take a genius to realize how easily this committee could be used — backed by ‘anonymous’ or non existent accusations — to punish with impunity.
In an attempt to reassure and assuage his colleagues, the affable David Conn was quoted in the recent past Academic Senate Executive meeting as saying,”
“If accusations are made, the way we handled it is more important. It is not the intention for this to become a witch-hunt unless there is an appropriate base.”
The term ‘witch hunt’ is disturbingly powerful as is the phrase “unless there is an appropriate base.”
One of the student member of the committee jokingly referred to as the ‘Inquisitorial Squad” clearly called for action against faculty not viewed as ‘politically correct:”
With Cal Poly’s history in federal court and in fairness to students and faculty, I would urge Cal Poly’s Administration from continuing on this path as it will no doubt lead to unnecessary grief to those guilty of nothing more than a difference in opinion.
Cal Poly needs not be on the wrong side of history once again.
Maybe not every minor problem Cal Poly San Luis Obispo has with students, faculty or staff has to end up in Federal Court. I would like to hope that folks can learn from their mistakes, take advice from those who wish to make Cal Poly a better place and , hopefully, avoid stepping into it the next time.
Recently, I blogged about what many have called “Cal Poly’s Inquisition Board” to ferret out Professors and students who were deemed not “politically correct.” With the sweet sounding name of ‘Care-net’, Cal Poly was at the threshold of setting up a system whereby students and faculty would be held accountable to anonymous accusations and standards not based on law, but pernicious whim. IMHO, this would be a virtual system outside of union contracts, Cal Poly code of conduct standards and common sense… as well as the law.
F.I.R.E. ( the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) recognized immediately the arena into which Cal Poly was entering and wrote a stern and forceful letter in defense of faculty and students at Cal Poly. The result: Cal Poly is reevaluating the Care-net program.
I was able to find two cached pages of the ill fated Care-Net that are worth reading.
The only question that remains for those of us with decades of experience in dealing with Cal Poly: Will Cal Poly walk away from initiating a “Board of Inquisition”… or will they work harder to not be discovered?
In any event,there are a lot of folks watching to see the next steps Cal Poly administration takes … thanks toF.I.R.E.
The Cal Poly university administrators have had their hands whacked a few times by the likes of F.I.R.E.( foundation for individual rights in education) and they don’t like it. They have been warned and they know they can’t directly do ‘business as usual.’ In fact, Cal Poly has been given F.I.R.E.’s worst rating: red. They seem to be getting smarter, they have found a new way to insulate themselves from criticism and apparently ‘work behind the scenes.’
As a refresher, Cal Poly likes to run — in my humble opinion — fast and loose with the letter of the law. They seem to believe that they can whack you right up until the point you take them to federal court … and they have to roll over. In the meantime, they wasted lots of taxpayer money, time and become a national embarrassment. So famous is their aging President Warren Baker that he was awarded the ignominious U.S. News and World Report ‘Sheldon” award in 2003! This has been a long standing problem.
The saga continues with the establishment ofCARE-net, a nice sounding name for allowing anonymous allegations concerning fellow students and faculty. Setting up a virtual ‘court system’ for the university to put students and faculty (expressing their constitutionally protected free speech)through an unconscionable ordeal just sounds wrong! This reminds me of the unofficial Cal Poly motto “we reward compliance and not achievement.” Unfortunately it shows. READ:
