Skepticism of Facebook Student Groups grows on college campuses

Half of Oberlin's Student Groups had less than five members.

To understand why Facebook’s unveiling of Student Groups didn’t send higher-education technologists into a tizzy, it might be helpful to examine the case of Oberlin College in Ohio, where 95 percent of its Student Groups have seen no student activity since they were made live in a pilot program that started in early March.

Facebook’s April 11 announcement, making Student Groups public after pilot programs on college campuses across the country, harkens back to the social network’s younger days, when members had to have “.edu” eMail addresses to create a Facebook account.

Student Groups will allow students and faculty members on hundreds of campuses to make private group pages that will be off limits to Facebook members outside the campus community. Students can share files–homework or class projects, perhaps–and interact with fellow students even if they’re not friends of the social network.…Read More

Oberlin College students join Occupy Wall Street protesters

As their classmates spent fall break putting finishing touches on fellowship and graduate school applications, a group of Oberlin College students voyaged to lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park armed with nothing but sleeping bags and a change of clothes, the Huffington Post reports. Twelve Oberlin students will spend the next week huddled together to make their voices heard — with many expressing frustration over increasing amounts of student debt and the rising cost of college, in addition to worry over pervasive rates of joblessness among their peers

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