Three Cheers for Facebook

OK, I was wrong.  When I first heard four years ago about Facebook (FB), the now ubiquitous social networking site, my gut reaction was somewhere between skeptical and dismissive.  From what I could tell, the site was mostly a forum where 20-year olds traded embarrassing stories about how they spent the previous weekend.  Not the kind of information to which I personally need access.  A few of my colleagues on the W&M faculty had set up their own sites on the FB network for the College, but my own preference was to stay away and instead compile a more complete file of email addresses and keep my telephone rolodex updated.

Last year, however, my wife, who is an IT and communications professional here at the College, convinced me that FB had matured and that I was missing out on a valuable and enjoyable part of the information era.  My daughter thought the idea of her 50-year old father on FB was hilarious.  Both I guess were right.

People are a lot more careful now about the kinds of information and photographs that they post on FB and most restrict access to their sites to folks they actually know.  And just about everyone under the age of 40, it seems, is on FB is some way.  I’m not under the age of 40 and having a FB page still feels a little uncomfortable, but I’m getting over it.

As college professors, you see, we eventually work with a generation or more of undergraduate and graduate students, and most of us would like to stay in touch with the vast majority of them after they leave Williamsburg.  For example, I get an enormous kick out of seeing former students in my legislative processes course pursue careers in politics, especially as staffers on Capitol Hill.  I write dozens of recommendation letters every year for students applying to law school.  It is gratifying to see, five or ten years down the line, that these students have completed law school and are now embarked on promising careers as attorneys.  The assertion that W&M is a tightly knit community is more than admissions office rhetoric.  The ties that bind graduates to this place are real and FB is yet another vehicle for engaging that informal network in enjoyable and productive ways.

Here’s one example.  I think that working as a staffer for the U.S. House or Senate is a tremendous post-graduate job for W&M students interested in politics and public affairs.  I feel the same way about internships on the Hill.  These positions can give our students invaluable exposure to all kinds of policy issues, enabling them to meet and work with fascinating people who can help them professionally down the line.  Working on Capitol Hill also enables our students to make a mark – perhaps small, but still meaningful – on public policy and the lives of others.

I routinely make the pitch to the students in my classes about the benefits of spending at least a few years working as a congressional staffer.  But over the course of a semester or two, I make all kinds of pitches (do the reading, come to class, take economics, bla bla bla), somewhat devaluating my persuasive currency.  So this spring, I plan to schedule a roundtable on campus comprised of recent W&M graduates who are working for the House or Senate.  The idea is to have these graduates make brief presentations about their careers and current jobs and give the students in the audience advice about how to transition from college to the working world of Capitol Hill.

I was able to identify, find, and contact these graduates working for the Congress through FB.

Almost all of our recent graduates, you see, are on FB and their profiles include information about their employers and current professional activities, as well as contact information.  I’ve also used FB to put together lists of former students currently working for the executive branch of the Federal government, in policy advocacy organizations in Washington, and as attorneys for major NYC and Washington law firms.  My hope is to also schedule career roundtables with participants from those kinds of organizations for our students.  The goal, in other words, is to use FB to better engage the loyal network of W&M graduates in a systematic way to aid the professional and academic development of our current students.  And along the way, I personally am able to stay in much better touch with scores of former students.

So if you’re a graduate who would like to help current W&M students, or to simply check in and update me about your activities, please send me a “friend request,” or “write on my wall,” or “poke” my account.  I promise that you will not be inundated with status updates about the unfortunate physical appearance of Morton Hall.  Some things shouldn’t be mentioned on the internet!