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by Bob Ditter
Dear Bob,
I have just discovered that a group of counselors—I am not sure
how many exactly—have formed a group profile of some sort on Facebook.com
that has to do with our camp. I learned about this from an off-hand comment
made to me in an e-mail by one of the counselors involved. He evidently
had assumed that I knew about the site and was chuckling about a particular
picture of myself taken by another counselor at our closing banquet that
has been posted on the site. When I asked him about it he didn't
seem defensive. He just gave me the URL so I could access it, but since
I am not a member of Facebook.com, I can not review the site. Should
I be concerned about this and what can I do about it?
— Left Out in
Virtual Left Field
Dear Lefty,
I hope many of your colleagues are reading, because your surprise may
also be their surprise. The fact that a group of your counselors have
formed a "group page" on Facebook.com that references your
camp means they are only in keeping with the times. It seems common practice
among both counselors and campers either to have references to camp as
a prominent feature of their profile or to have a wholly separate "group
page" where several camp friends submit photographs, text, and
vignettes from or about camp.
Let me provide some anecdotal evidence that may point to the prevalence
of this phenomenon. I visited over thirty camps in ten states during
orientation last summer. During my presentation, I had the chance to
survey roughly 4,500 counselors about some of their online habits. By
a show of hands, over 90 percent of staff at each camp claimed to have
a profile on either Myspace.com or Facebook.com. (Many college students
made a point of telling me that, for them, Myspace.com was passé and
that Facebook.com was the social networking site of choice for college
kids). Of those who had a profile, between 40 percent and 65 percent
said they had referenced camp on their profile, either with text, photographs,
or even the camp logo. When asked if they had ever had a photograph depicting
them "in some compromising way" posted on the Web by someone
else without their prior approval, about 80 percent indicated that they
had. I know from speaking with individual teens that many of them, with
only the best of intentions, have created sites or group pages specifically
to host camp friends and to share camp stories and pictures. After all,
many of your campers and counselors find their connection to camp so
meaningful that they want some easy way to stay affiliated during the
off-season. The problem is that most camp professionals have no idea
these sites exist, even though they carry an association to their camp.
(The same is also true of many public and private secondary schools and
colleges.)
On the one hand, I would be flattered, since that "intentional
community" we all talk about creating (thank you, Michael Brandwein)
is so meaningful to its members that they only wish to extend it into
the off-season. Both from a values perspective and a purely business
perspective, camp group pages help your constituents, whether staff or
campers, stay connected; and while there is no hard evidence on this,
intuition would say that as long as that online, off-season experience
is positive, it would only enhance the return rates of both your campers
and staff members.
This having been said, what about content, supervision, and the impression
that what appears on a camp page has been sanctioned by you and your
camp? Knowing that such pages and sites exist, it would be prudent to
have some guidelines. The point is not to forbid the creation of these
sites, as they can be beneficial from many points of view. Besides, you
could never enforce such a categorical position, and it would only incite
the rebellious spirit of the adolescents who see this as their domain.
(For more on this, see Their Space
or Yours? by Stephen
Wallace, Camping Magazine, September/October, 2006). Here are my thoughts
about guidelines for counselors who might be thinking about creating
a social networking site that references camp:
- Stake out your general position, which is that you see these sites
in a generally favorable and positive way and that you respect the
right of counselors to utilize these sites as a legitimate form of
communion with camp friends.
- Point out that once the camp name is used, the general public may
immediately assume that the Web site is sponsored or sanctioned by
you, the director, or your camp. Remind your staff that as much as
they would like to think that any group page or Web site they might
form is anonymous, it is not. As such, you request to be told whenever
such a site is formed, and you require that a disclaimer be inserted
on the home page of the site that reads as follows: "This site is for
the private use of Camp (your camp's name) staff only and is not an official site
of Camp (your camp's name). The opinions, views, and communications
on this site are not sponsored by Camp (your camp's name) and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, or values of Camp (your
camp's name).
- Adding an official camp logo or photograph to a social networking
site or blog or adding a link to the camp Web site or including text
or photographs that are the property of camp requires prior approval
of the camp. (It might be a good idea to make sure your camp logo is
copyrighted!)
- Given that a social networking site is a reflection of both the
camp and the type of personnel recruited by the camp, whose main responsibility
is, after all, the care and welfare of other people's children,
you request that all communications, photographs, and other images
be respectful and in good taste. This would include no harassment,
rumors, sexual content, or threats. The content must also avoid communications
or images that are derogatory in any way to any race, religion, gender,
person of color, or sexual orientation. The test for this guideline
should be that a parent of any camper would be comfortable seeing or
reading it!
- Campers should not be given access to sites created by staff.
- Once anyone identifies him or herself as a staff member at your
camp, the general public again may see that person as an ambassador
or spokesperson of the camp. That is why it is a condition of employment
that the guidelines outlined here be agreed to and followed. If any
of the guidelines outlined in this measure are violated, it may result
in disciplinary and/or legal action including possible termination
of employment.
It would be a good idea to write these guidelines up, run them by your
lawyer, then send them to your staff before next season and review them
during orientation for the next year.
Again, the best approach is not to be threatening or disapproving. It
is simply bringing into awareness something that young adults do not
always think about when they post text or images online—namely,
that these communications are there for the world to see and that, once
camp is referenced, they make a statement about the kind of human environment
camp is. I myself would be inclined to work with any staff interested
in creating such a site. (They already exist in numbers far greater than
you or your camp colleagues realize!) E-mail them, call them, talk it
over, and create a dialogue around the site. Find a way to actually be
able to visit the Web page yourself. (I am sure there is a computer whiz
somewhere on your staff who can figure out how to make that happen.)
You might not be able to control the content, but you may be able to
influence it. It is important for both you and any staff who participate
in the site to keep in mind that "camp" is not just a physical
place that exists at certain times of the year. It is a sacred and meaningful
place in the mind of every camper, camper parent, and staff person associated
with it. Isn't this worth preserving and treating with respect
and gratitude?
Originally published in the 2006 November/December
issue of Camping Magazine. |
