Schools Make Rules For Social Networking

By Kyle Oppenhuizen

More college athletic departments are developing or publicizing online social networking policies for student-athletes, experts say.

USA TODAY researched social networking policies for 27 schools in six major conferences, including the University of Iowa, which will implement a new monitoring policy Friday. Last fall, pictures emerged on Facebook of two 19-year old Hawkeyes football players holding cash and liquor bottles.

Five of these schools — Auburn, Iowa State, Ohio State, Miami (Fla.) and North Carolina — already monitor. Others warn athletes of the potential dangers of sites such as Facebook and MySpace through student-athlete handbooks, meetings, coaches’ discussions and letters. Some don’t have a specific policy but allow coaches to monitor at their discretion or take action if inappropriate material online is reported.

Iowa’s policy puts senior leaders in charge of monitoring profiles of athletes on the team and bringing problems to administrators, who then work with the athlete, but the school won’t monitor profiles before that point.

Ohio State, on the other hand, requires athletes to have a public profile or add coaches and administrators as friends (which gives access to the private profile).

Fred Stutzman, who teaches a class on social networking at North Carolina, said he has seen a trend on athletic departments looking into these kinds of policies. Michigan State assistant professor Cliff Lampe, however, thinks most athletic departments have had policies in place since 2005 or earlier.

"I do think it’s mostly a matter of departments have already had their policies and just make it public as it becomes more apparent," Lampe said.

While social networking sites are open to the public, privacy issues could be raised if administrators monitor private sites without permission, says Ben Stone, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, and new policies could lead to what he called a slippery slope.