It’s somewhat of a rarity to find faculty involved in university social media efforts, but extremely rare to find a content that is exclusively focused on faculty. Lehigh University put together a gem of a video with professors reading negative reviews of their teaching from the website RateMyProfessors.com. The video is a play off of Jimmy Kimmel’s popular “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” videos from his late night talk show.
Apparently this phenomenon began at a number of Canadian universities. The Chronicle of Higher Education has a great piece that includes some similar videos.
What makes this video so great is that it shows faculty as human beings, something that is sometimes easy for undergraduate students to forget. It humanizes them and in so doing makes them more approachable. As research has shown, developing a relationship with a faculty member can be an important factor in student persistence while in college.
As a secondary outcome, the faculty do a great job of role modeling how to effectively handle criticism… and what constructive versus destructive criticism may be…
https://twitter.com/lweaveee/status/510528688040202241
This is a post from my ongoing effort to highlight interesting examples of social media efforts by colleges and universities every Monday. Check out past examples here. Have an example to share? Tweet me.
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