100 years ago when I was in graduate school at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary…

Okay, it wasn’t 100 years ago, only 31. The pace of change just makes it seem like 100 years.

Anyway, my version of Facebook was a hardcopy directory of all students, printed the first few weeks of each school year (we called it the Funny Book, for obvious reasons). Mail (including tests and papers) was hand-delivered in post office boxes. Research was done in a physical place (library) using objects (books) resulting in papers (typed on a typewriter). GASP!

Today, it’s a little different.

My daughter is beginning her final year of the M Div program at Campbell University Divinity School. She also works part-time as Communications Coordinator for the North Carolina WMU. She is also beginning her second year as a Resident Chaplain for a couple of freshmen girl’s dorms. She loves her life!

Because of my past history at a divinity school and serving on a church staff, and now in a consulting role to church leaders, we often have interesting conversations.

Like the one that followed this question: “How are students at the Div School and in your circle of influence using social media?” Here is her reply:

The divinity school uses it to post pictures of what’s going on during the week at school, serious stuff and fun stuff too, like birthdays’ of professors and when the staff and students are goofing off, or there is a social event, like today, there is a div school tailgating thing after class before the football game. They use Facebook and twitter. Admissions has their own Facebook page along with the Div school itself. They also use it when they go to conferences to announce they are there and if other Campbell people are there, they use it to find them at those conferences and places and such. They post lots of pictures.

Personally, each of the dorms I work with have a Facebook group page so I am a part of that to keep up with events and announcements (keep up with issues in the dorm that the residence life staff have to address) and what official events and unofficial events are going on to go to and get to know the residents. The residents that I am friends with, I keep an eye on their statuses and stuff and if I notice something is wrong and there seems to be a hint of something not right, I make sure to check on them and see how they are doing. Sometimes, Facebook statuses are more informational than just talking with them casually in the hallways and stuff on campus!

One of my dorms LOVES Twitter. The RAs, RD, and residents tweet ALL the time and have conversations with each other. That’s another way I keep up with what’s going on and stay connected. In fact, this dorm is having a program event this semester that is a twitter scavenger hunt. They will have a list of stuff to find and instead of just taking pictures and showing everybody, they will tweet the pics with a hashtag. Whoever finishes with the most items on the list wins, and if there is a tie, then the earliest timestamp on tweet wins! I thought this was an interesting way to use social media to have a dorm event

Ironically, each dorm program has to fit into a certain category and this one is a physical event, because it’s making them get out and walk around campus even though they are using technology and  the Internet to show it!

Just a snapshot of how social media is used in my life! 🙂

Absolutely fascinating.

Okay ChurchWorld leaders, are you paying attention?

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• Connecting Face-to-Face