Facebook connects friends, but it also opens a window into students'
private lives. Don't think adults haven't noticed.

By David Boyle
Gargoyle co-editor-in-chief
Published Friday, Dec. 16, 2005, Gargoyle, features

UNI DIRECTOR/PRINCIPAL Kassie Patton and Assistant Director Sue Kovacs have both registered with Facebook.com and gained access to student accounts. The motives of Patton and Kovacs for registering with Facebook appear to be different.

Patton estimated that she has viewed between 15 and 20 student profiles, while Kovacs has examined exactly two profiles related to a specific disciplinary incident. Kovacs registered and chose to make her account invisible, which can only be viewed by her solitary Facebook friend (Patton).

“What students should be aware of is that anybody in the world can find that stuff,” said Patton.
Anything that the administrators find on student Facebook profiles is subject to investigation or discipline within the school's policies. “If it falls under the policy, if there is anything in athletics, IHSA or Uni, then it might affect that,” she said.

Anything that can't be specifically proved or disciplined could warrant a call to parents.

“Don't people know that when you post something on the Internet anybody in the world can see it?” Patton asked. “And then people are surprised when somebody sees it who they don't want to see it. And there are consequences for that.”

Patton says that while there are consequences for suspect information or photos posted on the Web, she and Kovacs “are not going out and systematically combing through Web sites to look for these things. We don't have time for that.”

The discovery that the Uni administrators had infiltrated Facebook, once a sacred student institution, came as a shock to many students. Kovacs asserted that she is neither spying on students nor is there anything wrong with what she is doing.

“I only go in if I feel there is a discipline matter,” Kovacs said. “Look at my desk. Do I have time to monitor that crap?”

Kovacs added that she is “not a voyeur” and that she does not check the profiles on a regular basis.

“Every time you all find out that I'm doing it you go underground and go to another site anyway. And then I have to find that site,” Kovacs said. She noted that if a student blocked her or Patton's Facebook accounts, she would become “very suspicious.”

When Patton was asked if looking at Facebook accounts is an infringement of student privacy, she responded: “Do you think that you have an expectation of privacy when you're posting on the Internet? I feel like I have a responsibility to my students and so, as I said, I'm not going out looking for stuff; I'm running a school. But if something comes to our attention and we feel like we need to deal with that, we will.”

While Kovacs registered with Facebook to investigate a specific disciplinary incident, when Patton said she looked at blogs and at Facebook, it wasn't because she had any particular interest in specific students' lives. Patton appears to have had more noble intentions.

“I look at it more as research,” Patton said. “The longer you're out of high school, every year that you grow older, you grow less and less in touch with youth culture. And in order for me to run a school for teenagers, and to do it well and to understand issues that kids are dealing with, I have to stay in touch with that culture. I wasn't interested in being invisible. When I signed up on Facebook, obviously, I signed up and put my name on it.”

Patton acknowledged she has occasionally navigated through student blogs out of curiosity. She described most of the blogs she has seen as “boring and self-absorbed.”

Some students have taken issue with the fact that Patton facetiously listed herself as a student on Facebook. Patton stated that she “clicked the wrong button,” and later added that she, too, is technically a student of the University of Illinois.