Glad to have you involved at PROpenMic, too. Bring your students! Thanks.

As a mass communication professor, I can assure you I’m adding social media daily, weekly and monthly to my public relations and journalism courses. But entire curricular changes take time, often from one or two years.

Discussions like these illuminate. Thanks to all.

This is the kind of argument I’m talking about. Anecdotal. Your observation is based upon random personal observations, just like Marc’s (and he admits to it in comments on PROpenMic).

Jun, I realize you’re trying to promote your site / show which encourages involvement in social media (I just watched your video). I’d be wary of using these anecdotal arguments. They don’t hold water.

Yes, there are plenty of examples where schools are just now beginning to incorporate social media into their curricula. Being one of the first to do it, I have watched the growth with interest. The examples are out there. Ya’ just have to look for them.

Maybe Marc was wrong in generalizing that “ALL” universities are doing an inadequate job at teaching undergraduates about social media. However, from my experiences, I have to stand by Marc’s claim. Let me give you my examples:

I have not seen any classes at UCLA that teach social media. You have UCLA listed on number 223 on your list, but when I attended UCLA (I graduated in 2007), I did not see a single class or organization that dealt with teaching undergraduates about social media. I may be wrong, but I was never exposed to it.

I currently have a team of 20 campus representatives across the nation. My undergraduate team consists of students from ASU, NYU, Cornell, Michigan, USC, Washington, and many others. Out of the 75 students that I interviewed for the position, only about 10 consistently read blogs. Out of the 75, only two had their own blogs.

To be fair, I know that there are many classes that are now starting to teach about social media, which I think is great.

Great post and I look forward to reading more.

- Jun Loayza

I stand by my blog post. Yes…there are many examples of colleges doing an excellent job of teaching social media best practices. However, I suspect there are also programs that have yet to incorporate this into their curriculum. I think we can all agree that this needs to change.

As for the link-baiting comments. I cross-promote the content of the “Strategic Guy” blog in a number of online communities whose members may have an interest in the topic. It’s how I try to generate discussion and, at the same time, enhance the reputation of my firm.

At Strategic Communications Group (Strategic), we’ve found you can’t just write and then hope an audience will find you. It’s OK to promote when you believe you have something of value to contribute.

I like the ideas UCLan has implemented regarding feedback and discussion regarding class / department issues. So many schools in the UK are so involved in social media. As a nation, per capita, you may be way ahead of all of us.

Thanks for your comment.

I think universities are starting to do a lot with social media, and so are Students’ Union’s. We’re moving a lot of content into flickr/youtube/facebook and creating a bubble of content around our existing site. We’re also using ning for our course representatives, to give them a private online network to discuss ideas/problems and connect with course representatives across every faculty.

There was also a debate here at UCLan as part of the ‘Give It A Go’ fortnight where students had the chance to hear experts on the question ‘Online Survival: Facebook, Google & Plagiarism’. So, there’s plenty happening.

Glad to hear you’re doing well and enjoying that great job! Take care and keep up the good work!

I agree that there are plenty who are still a bit puzzled by it all. That’s understandable. I don’t presume to know it all either. It is the experiential participation that may well be the best educational experience in this particular area of our discipline.

But, if we looked back at when we started doing online experiences in class – about 2000 – well, the rise in interest by other schools could be called exceptional. Sure, there are many faculty that have yet to embrace and adopt emerging digital media. Their numbers are dwindling, though.

We’re on the right path.

Thanks for your comment.