Online postings regarding student-teacher relationships require caution and sensitivity. Otherwise, feelings can get hurt, boundaries can be crossed and disagreements can turn into ethical dilemmas.
Last week, Daily Reveille columnist Laura Wilkinson wrote a column for Thursday’s edition that did not run.
The column addressed the issue of professors and students who use LiveJournal.com accounts or any other Internet blog Web site as a medium to communicate their thoughts on a variety of subjects.
Because of circumstances soon to be mentioned, Walter Gabriel, Daily Reveille editor-in-chief, Ryan Merryman, opinion editor, and myself decided not to run Wilkinson’s column.
Shaun Treat, communication studies instructor, was the sole example Wilkinson used in her column to show the effect a professor’s blog can potentially have on others’ opinions and to address the issue of where the line between public and private forums should be drawn.
Admittedly, it was a mistake for Wilkinson to be the person writing a column about this issue when she is enrolled in a class taught by the professor she used as an example in her column – and because she disclosed her displeasure with grades in his class. That is a conflict of interest we thought the newspaper would do best to avoid.
Wilkinson, who is enrolled in Treat’s Communication Studies 4160: Persuasive Communication class, said she first contacted him about this issue after the class Tuesday.
What Treat told her and what Wilkinson identified in her column was that the instructor did indeed keep a blog – formerly located at hillbillyzen.LiveJournal.com – and that his posts sometimes poked fun at students he teaches.
Although Treat does not single out particular students or let it be known who he is talking about, some comments he posts would be offensive to some students.
One post titled “Clueless Students,” posted Feb. 23, showed Treat’s “Current Mood” as “annoyed.”
The post read, “I just read an agitated e-mail from an LSU librarian in Middleton who has been servicing my clueless undergrads attempting to do research for their informative speeches. Despite an entire chapter on research sources and procedures and my own condensation into [four] different library indexes, students are still unbelievably lost because they DON’T read their textbook *and* apparently have shitty note-taking skills. I also found an e-mail or [10] from exemplary clueless students this morning asking me to ‘clarify’ the assignment. See, this is why its a good thing I don’t have dark Sith chokehold powers.”
Wilkinson wrote in her unpublished column that Treat’s blog also ridiculed quotes from her classmates’ ethics papers and insulted students’ capabilities.
Wilkinson said that when she asked Treat about his LiveJournal, he said he is learning about the collapse of public and private space, and he assumed only his friends and other instructors would read it. She also said he expressed dissatisfaction that students are not held to the same standards as instructors.
Now, I have absolutely no problem with a professor who, on his own time and in a forum he administers, chooses to comment on, make fun of, patronize or chastise his students – as long as the students are not identified by name or any other means by which an outsider could single them out.
I agree that professors should enjoy the same First Amendment rights students and everyone else enjoy.
It is not this blog-brand of commentary I have a problem with. In an email to Wilkinson, which he also copied to her editors, Treat raised his concern with Wilkinson’s “using a current teacher as a fodder for a Reveille column (however ‘veiled’ it may be).” He went on to state that “such a move could easily be misconstrued as implied blackmail or, at the very least, a vindictive agenda of retaliation for what you have vocally articulated in class as misgivings regarding grades on written assignments.”
It seems a bit hypocritical for a professor to claim he has the right to post what he likes on his public blog and then attempt to prevent a student from publishing her column in the school newspaper.
Judging from comments made by Wilkinson, particularly her stated unhappiness with prior grades in his class, Treat suggests she could have been working with a “preconceived, biased agenda that could easily become a one-sided argument delivered from a bully pulpit.”
For Treat to attempt to chill a reporter or student’s intention to publish something that could cast him in a negative light and offer the defense that the reporter used an “unannounced after-class ambush” – as stated in his Feb. 22 LiveJournal post titled “The Politics of Blogging,” with a “Current Mood: pissed off” – as a surrogate for an interview is an unprofessional slippery slope.
Treat discussed his thoughts about his LiveJournal with Wilkinson and left the interview under the impression those comments would appear in her column. It wasn’t until 1:43 the following morning that he decided to express his “lingering concerns” via the aforementioned email.
Treat also went on to state in his email – and this I find most disturbing – “as a professional educator, I should note that my own ethical obligations for providing students with a fair evaluation of course performance could be severely compromised should your column turn into a smear campaign.”
For a professor to openly warn a student that something she hasn’t actually published yet could affect his evaluation of her class performance is completely unprofessional and unwarranted.
He wrote to Wilkinson, “We need to work through your feelings and concerns more carefully before you ‘go public’ and risk irreparable harm to our [teacher-student] relationship.”
I find this ironic, considering the fact that before Wilkinson had the chance to “go public,” Treat uploaded his aforementioned “The Politics of Blogging” post that mentions Wilkinson, not by name, but as “a student in one of my classes – who just so happens to have a column with The Reveille.” The post goes on to solicit “thoughts and/or analytic insights” on thoughts raised by the encounter such as journalistic integrity, public and private comments and an educator’s ethical obligations.
Treat’s warning, which could potentially be seen as a threat, should be addressed by the dean of the Department of Communication Studies, as it is a serious matter that threatens to undermine the capacity of both professor and student to freely educate and be educated.
Treat said in a phone interview yesterday that he did not want to discuss any specifics about his exchanges with Wilkinson because he had yet to meet with her to discuss the situation further. He said he thought comment ing on the situation before meeting with Wilkinson would be a conflict of interest.
I hope this situation can be resolved accordingly and with prudence and that this incident serves as an example for professors and students on how to approach personal Internet forums.
 
Dennis is a theatre senior. Contact him at [email protected]