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Facebook isn't just for ridiculous photos of politicians' kids anymore. Now university presidents are getting into the act.
We'd usually say that a college administrator having a profile on Facebook, the big social networking site that started with colleges but has since spread everywhere, sounds pretty neat — the administration is trying to be transparent and stay in touch with the students' internet fads. We can imagine a lot of good uses for the site by administrators: posting bulletins about school events, discussing complaints, and so on. Some schools (like GW) even use the site to try to bust parties.
However, Janet Dudley-Eshbach, president of public Salisbury University on Maryland's Eastern Shore, is in hot water over her use of the site. Some vacation photos Dudley-Eshbach posted to her profile included her swinging a stick at a man hugging her daughter with the caption that she had to "beat off the Mexicans because they were constantly flirting with my daughter" and another one has a photo of a tapir with the caption "Animal with world's largest (genitalia)." Maybe it's time to look into those privacy settings, Ms. President.
Delmarva TV station WBOC broke the story (there's also a video on their website), and they interviewed some less than thrilled Salisbury students, who are probably already tired of getting steak jokes.
The stick-swinging photo looks pretty staged to us, and the tapir photo is kinda funny in an Adam Sandler sort of way, but both are probably a tad unprofessional. Dudley-Eshbach has since taken down her profile. She issued a statement expressing regret and blaming the privacy settings. Oops! After a quick search, it appears that no local university presidents have profiles on the site, so we were unable to dig up further incriminating stuff.
But chin up, Washington-area Salisbury students and alums, at least your school didn't make a terrible promotional video.
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Yes it's a little unprofessional, but so is having a Facebook profile. What's the point of it if it's all stodgy and professional? It's like the NARC who's dressed about 20 years too late. "Radical!"
Infamous former AU president Benjamin Ladner has a profile or two on Facebook - not authentic of course. Still, that didn't keep me from friending him a few years ago. No one can resist that picture of him sexily slinging his expensive sport coat over his shoulder...
Appalachian State never actually used that video for actual promotion, you know- people quickly realized that it sucked while things were still in the planning stages, but it somehow got out on youtube anyway.
Just coming to their defense on that one- I didn't go there but I know people who did.
I dunno, their school paper says it was used on a statewide tour:
link
But however it was used, it's amazing.
You are correct that the Appalachian State video was used on a statewide tour--it was shown to alumni and was never screened to any prospective students. I can tell you for a fact that many involved in the planning of this video tried to convince the chancellor that it was a bad idea, but as his pet project, he continued with it anyway. It truly is amazing the incompetence of people who purport to know the logic behind things that they are only tangentially familiar with.
You know, if those vacation photos happened to be of a trip to Mexico, I think the caption would be far less racist. (Though "locals" would have been a more appropriate term.)
I mean, I'd hate to think people were leaving that detail out to make this story seem like a bigger deal than it is.
Also funny to think about is that if the caption said "beat off the Canadians" or "beat off the Swiss" nobody'd think twice about it. People see the word "Mexican" and almost immediately think of it as a pejorative; that's racist!