Cyberbullying

A few weeks ago, Hofstra Law School organized a one day conference on cyberbullying.  I had the opportunity, in my capacity as Hofstra’s Provost, to say a few words at the beginning of the conference but I stayed for the keynote address because as a parent and also as a school board member, the topic has special importance for me.  In my remarks I mentioned a news story that attracted major attention a few years ago where a 49 year old mom was convicted on misdemeanor charges for posing as a 16 year old boy on MySpace.com. This mom, Lori Drew, chose to pursue, woo, and then reject a 13 year old girl, Megan Meier.  Along the way to make sure that Megan was as humiliated as possible, the mom/16 year old boy made sure to forward all the secrets learned in the relationship to Megan’s circle of friends. The reason for the mom’s involvement was a falling out between Megan and Lori Drew’s daughter.  The end result was the tragic and needless suicide death of Megan Meier. What could the mom have been thinking?

I am no different than most parents of young and teenage kids in worrying about cyberbullying.   None of us want our kids to be victims but this is certainly a more sophisticated, more anonymous, potentially more vicious and more difficult to confront form of bullying.  What is cyberbullying?  According to the National Cyber Alert System definition:

Cyberbullying refers to the new, and growing, practice of using technology to harass, or bully, someone else.  Bullies used to be restricted to methods such as physical intimidation, postal mail, or the telephone.  Now, developments in electronic media offer forums such as email, instant messaging, web pages, and digital photos to add to the arsenal.  Computers, cell phones, and PDAs are new tools that can be applied to an old practice.

Forms of cyberbullying can range in severity from cruel or embarrassing rumors to threats, harassment, or stalking.  It can affect any age group; however, teenagers and young adults are common victims, and cyberbullying is a growing problem in schools.

What makes cyberbullying such a problem is that the internet provides the protection of relative anonymity which in turn can increase the intensity of the bullying given that anonymity.

As educators and as parents we have an important role in protecting children and young adults from these anonymous attacks.  First of all as parents, we need to clearly state that cyberbullying is unacceptable.  We need to comfort the kids who have been bullied and we need to age-appropriately punish any child involved in these activities.  Adults also need, in this and so many other areas, to model appropriate behavior for their kids and other kids.  Lori Drew was clearly not a role model; she was a major contributor to a major problem.

As a parent and as a school board member, I want and expect the schools to play a very active role in combating cyberbullying and there is considerable activity that I’m aware of that has made a difference.  Anti-bullying programs, codes of conduct, anti-bullying pledges, and parental education are all taking place locally and in school districts across the country.  In an article on bullying in the October 27th issue of Newsday, there were statistics included for Long Island from the New York State Education Department showing that being proactive is working well with “a nearly 11 percent decline on the Island in incidents reported as intimidation or bullying from 2006-2007 to 2008-2009.”

These statistics are impressive but I still have concerns in regard to our schools confronting this serious problem.

One is the question of what schools can and can’t do.  As noted by stopcyberbullying.com:

When schools try and get involved by disciplining the student for cyberbullying actions that took place off-campus and outside of school hours, they are often sued for exceeding their authority and violating the student’s free speech right.  They also, often lose.  Schools can be very effective brokers in working with the parents to stop and remedy cyberbullying situations.  They can also educate the students on cyberethics and the law.  If schools are creative, they can sometimes avoid the claim that their actions exceeded their legal authority for off-campus cyberbullying actions. We recommend that a provision is added to the school’s acceptable use policy reserving the right to discipline the student for actions taken off-campus if they are intended to have an effect on a student or they adversely affect the safety and well-being of student while in school.  This makes it a contractual, not a constitutional, issue.

And the second concern is economics .  We are entering an era of stringent tax caps, which of course have an appeal to a public that feels overtaxed or worse in a difficult economic time.  What will happen to programs in areas such as cyberbullying as we try to limit our expenditures?  Will they remain?  Clearly not all these initiatives cost money and even those that do, cost limited amounts.  But they are often not free and so require resources; if cutbacks happen these programs may be vulnerable.  We should all exert our influence to make sure that this doesn’t happen.

Plans

We are in the process of preparing our next five-year plan which will cover the years 2012-2017.  Our previous plan focused on providing additional resources to enhance the academic profile of the University and very substantial progress was made in enhancing undergraduate student quality as well as adding additional faculty lines and other resources.  This new plan will again have an academic orientation but not the luxury of focusing just on what we would like to add.

Our previous plan predated the current economic recession.  This  new plan is taking shape as we are hopefully slowly pulling out of the economic decline.  But as we all know the landscape has changed. There is more family and student financial need and consequently many institutions are responding by increasing need-based scholarships and increasing their discount rate. This money needs to be budgeted and some of the funds are reallocated from other present expenditure items in the budget.  Some of this reallocation will come almost inevitably from the academic budget.

But if the economy is really improving can’t we go back to business as usual; won’t reallocations be reversed and need-based scholarships (and discounting) decline?  I don’t think so.  The expectations of need based scholarships and of tuition discounting are now so firmly implanted in the hearts and minds of our students and their families that we will need to continue our present discounting practices.  But there is good news.  An improving economy will allow for additional revenues and that includes tuition revenues as well as fund raising.  We will have funding for new academic initiatives but we are still constrained. 

New academic initiatives are the lifeblood of an institution but the usual practice is to implement the new without a careful look at everything we are presently doing, and whether the need still exists for every program that is being offered.  As educators, I think we know we are likely offering some majors and some courses where there is not a critical mass of students (or a critical mass of faculty to teach the program).  We are also likely still awarding some stipends or released time based on what existed before that doesn’t necessarily still exist today. We need, in preparing new five-year plans (and planning for the future in general), to look at everything we are presently offering.  If the student demand isn’t there, if our resources are being overly diluted because of too many programs, if we have an ambitious agenda for moving the institution forward but not all the new resources we need to accomplish the goal,  we need to be  prepared to make the tough decisions. I am sure we have made some already but I am also fairly sure there are more that can and should be made.

We all know that it is easier to give resources than to reduce resources.  But the age old definition of economics still holds true—we are dealing with the allocation of scarce resources among alternative ends.  Scarcity is a fact of life.  Our test is how well we manage in this reality.

The Lemonade Shortage

I’m an economist and I am as passionate about economics today as I was when I took my first undergraduate course.  In that course, in fact in the first lesson, a very basic but still fundamental definition of economics was presented and discussed.  That definition focuses on the allocation of scarce resources among alternative ends.  Because of scarcity, it is impossible for our society or any society on our planet to meet everyone’s needs and wants.   And because of that scarcity, choices need to be made and hopefully these will be the best possible choices.  Scarcity and choice become even more of a challenge if you are working within the constraints of a severe economic recession, an unemployment rate that is at 10%, and at least some uncertainty as to whether a recovery is in fact underway.  More scarcity, more uncertainty, more difficult choices, more needs not met.