Academic Leadership & Social Media

Leading in 140 Characters or Less (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE.edu This article captures the experience of an American university president, Santa J. Ono PhD, (or in our case Vice Chancellor) in the use of the social media as an academic leader. Santa J. Ono is the President of the University of Cincinnati.

Interestingly, Dr Santa makes reference to a study  (Cooper, "10 Surprising Social Media Statistics.")  that shows
"the fastest-growing cohort on both Facebook and Google+ is people ages 45 to 54; the fastest on Twitter is ages 55 to 64". Many of us here at the PNG University of Technology most likely fall within these age groups and some of us have Facebook and Twitter accounts. PNG University of Technology has been very kind enough to allow us to use Facebook after 4.06 pm.That is enough time for us to communicate items of study and learning interests for our students and colleagues.

Santa concludes by saying, "whether or not a president chooses to engage in digital communication, social media is helping to shape the environment of his or her institution. If that institution is to thrive (not just exist), leaders need to take a look that is long, slow, and careful at the media that are brief, quick, and provisional".

This reminds me of our Vice Chancellor at the Papua New Guinea University of Technology Dr Albert Schram. He communicates with us using his blog and he is also on Facebook. This is a good sign of taking the lead in using the social media for communication in an academic environment.



Acknowledgement

I am sharing this article from EDUCAUSE Review because it is relevant to Social Media & Academia. I am also pointing interested readers to this article in EDUCAUSE Review.