Colleges in Maine and elsewhere are grappling with a student body eager to put themselves on facebook.com – naked, drunk, highly opinionated and all.

LEWISTON – The computer screen flashes, revealing a collage of pictures that all feature a beaming young woman. Some are snapshots of her competing on her college lacrosse team. Others are group photos with her girlfriends, but most of the pictures depict drunken foolishness.

In one, the athlete leans her head and shoulders back, the straps of her tank top sliding away from her shoulders to reveal her body, as a young man pours vodka straight down her throat.

This University of Maine women’s lacrosse player is not alone. College students in Maine and across the nation are flocking to facebook.com to connect with friends and potential friends in what many mistakenly view as a private domain for fellow college students.

But the photos and words students are placing on facebook.com and similar networking sites have already gotten students kicked off their college teams and booted from college. And academic officials say it’s also jeopardizing students’ careers, getting them in trouble with the law and threatening their safety.

• Loyola University in Chicago has banned its athletes from using facebook.com altogether. According to USA Today, the university is concerned that profiles posted by student-athletes provide a channel of communication for sexual predators and smooth-talking agents.

• In May of 2005, two swim team members at Louisiana State University were kicked off the team after they were discovered posting derogatory remarks about a coach on a facebook.com group profile.

• San Francisco University’s school newspaper reported in the spring of 2006 that several of their students had fallen victim to identity theft on facebook.com. The culprit used victims’ e-mail addresses and birthdays provided by students on the Web site to log into the students’ school e-mail accounts (birth dates are the default password used by SFU students). From there, the culprit had access to personal e-mails, financial aid information and Social Security numbers.

Closer to home, calls to several Maine colleges confirmed that administrators have yet to expel a student or remove them from an athletic team because of material placed on facebook.com or similar sites. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem or that administrators are turning a deaf ear to the phenomenon.

Says Albert Bean, director of athletics at the University of Southern Maine: “We are not naive enough to think that it is not an issue here.”

Adds David Fiacco, UMaine’s director of Community Standards: “Athletes and students need to be reminded of the very public domain they enter when using Facebook. These incriminating pictures (and other postings) can be seen by anyone: coaches, parents, present and future employers. Such embarrassing displays can jeopardize the future of talented young adults.”

What’s wrong with Facebook?

Facebook.com is currently one of the hottest sites used by college students to share information with fellow students. The site has grown to include more than 8 million profiles. People can set up profiles with picture albums, message boards and personal information. Phone numbers, addresses, birth dates, e-mail addresses and places of employment are just a few of the specifics that students offer.

The site also hosts high-schoolers and companies and their employees; by requiring a registrant to provide a college, high school or company e-mail address, the site can separate the three groups. The ultimate goal is to have college students connecting only with college students, high-schoolers only with high-schoolers and employees only with employees, but through very simple means the groups can be contacted by “outsiders.”

The attraction of Facebook is strong for many college students.

“For me, facebook.com allows communication with people I normally wouldn’t be able to talk to,” said Dana Trafton, a senior at Bates College. “I can keep in touch with friends at colleges around the country and people I met during my study abroad trip.”

Megan Phinney, a USM student, says Facebook is kind of like text messaging somebody, only more personal. “I can keep in touch with friends that I wouldn’t talk to otherwise because I don’t have time to spend talking on the telephone.”

As for the pictures of her doing shots of tequila in Mexico?

“I want to show my friends what I’ve been up to,” she says, defending her choice to post the photos. “Why does anyone show pictures to friends? It’s a way of sharing my experiences.”

Kasey Connor and Jackie Driscoll, both USM students with Facebook profiles, are currently sharing several pictures of themselves on facebook.com, planting kisses and hanging all over each other. The girls are scantily clad in racy lingerie.

Connor says she is “addicted” to the Web site and her ability to network with her friends there. “It’s so much fun to swap stories of crazy times with friends on Facebook,” she says. The risqué pictures she posted are meant to tap into the humor she and her comrades share, she said – show and tell for young adults; the more interesting the pictures are the more people want to know her.

It’s not unusual for student postings on Facebook to include everything from harmless juvenile behavior to the depiction or admission of illegal activity (18-year-olds drinking or doing drugs), lewd activities (nakedness and sex), rants critical of coaches and administrators, and unsafe behavior (hazing activities).

It all has college officials – who often see themselves in the roles of rule enforcers, parents and protectors – walking what UMaine Associate Dean of Students Angel Loredo calls the “fine line between enforcing our rules and violating the rights of our students.”

What’s a college to do?

For many, college is about getting a good job, and college administrators fear that students underestimate the widespread reach of facebook.com – right into the workplace.

Mary Sylvester, at the University of Maine at Farmington, speculates that students starting their careers may be denied opportunities because of lewd profiles made public on the Internet. “More and more employers are using Facebook as a screening tool when hiring new employees,” she said.

It’s news to Phinney, who, like many other students, assumed the postings stayed among students. Said the USM student: “I had no idea. I was under the impression that Facebook’s college network was more for our eyes only.”

Connor also dismissed the notion that her Facebook pictures could come back to haunt her later in life, saying, “All I have to do is take my pictures down from my profile. It’s easy.”

But thanks to a nonprofit organization, Internet Archive, Connor’s photos will be preserved forever, no matter how many times she removes them from Facebook. Internet Archive, according to its Web site, preserves everything from Web pages to audio to images. The archive is meant to aid researchers, but can be accessed by anyone, including employers.

While some employers may be scouting Facebook and similar networking sites, Maine college administrators said policing Facebook in search of inappropriate content is an expense many schools can’t afford.

In order to truly monitor the Internet behavior of all students and athletes, said UMaine’s Loredo, “We would have to hire at least one full-time staff member to patrol these Web pages on a regular basis and sort through all the material found.”

Most colleges are taking a two-tiered response: punitive and preventative.

The preventative approach is all about what colleges do most: education.

Bates, UMaine, UMF and USM are informing their students of the wide array of repercussions that stem from inappropriate postings on Facebook and other networking sites.

“The university is conducting an awareness campaign to make students and student athletes aware of the fact that this is a real problematic area for both them and us,” said USM athletic director Bean.

UMF has adapted Cornell University’s approach to facebook.com, which focuses on increasing awareness, according to Sylvester. “Based on what we’re learning, UMF chooses not to police Facebook. Instead, we feel that educating students about the consequences connected with the site is more effective in protecting both their interests and our own.”

When prevention doesn’t work, many colleges are relying on their individual codes of conduct to mete out punishment – with a number amending those codes in light of the changes brought about by the Internet.

For instance, the Bates College Student Handbook states: “Bates students shall be held responsible for their conduct at all times. Any student who brings the name of the college into disrepute, or is individually or as a member of a group involved in unacceptable social behavior on or off campus shall be subject to disciplinary action by the Student Conduct Committee.”

At USM, Bean notes that, “based on our conduct codes and the severity of the behavior, an appropriate punishment could range from community service, to suspension, to dismissal from a team.”

Loredo adds that some violations, if uncovered by university officials, may even go beyond the school judicial level. “If illegal behavior is found on a site, the student may also have to face Maine state laws.”

Facing the consequences

Student-athletes have fallen under particular scrutiny at many colleges, a combination of their often higher profiles and the role-model effect.

Schools fear that Facebook publicizes misbehavior that has the potential to embarrass an entire educational institution. Athletes, who are role models in the eyes of the public, must therefore be especially careful of their behavior, they say.

“When students commit to an athletic team, or even simply to school, they need to understand that (positive) representation is part of that commitment,” Bean said.

At many schools that often includes not only representing themselves in a positive light, but their coaches and staff.

Posting disparaging remarks about coaches and athletic departments, can be construed as also dishonoring the administration, student body and the school’s name, college leaders said.

“As ambassadors of the University of Maine, our athletes are expected to portray themselves appropriately,” said Fiacco, UMaine’s Community Standards director. Administrators recognize that constitutional rights cannot be infringed upon, but insist that the behavior of college students, especially athletes, is a direct reflection of the institution supporting them, he said.

For many, that right to free speech is at the heart of the issue.

The University of Maine’s Free Speech and Assembly Policy makes note of both a student’s right to free speech and protecting the interests of the institution:

“There shall be no restrictions placed on the fundamental rights to free speech and assembly except those necessary to protect the rights of others and to preserve the order necessary for the university to function as an institution of higher learning.”

Of course, walking that “fine line,” as Loredo put it, is the tough part.

Short of a constitutional showdown, the day-to-day faceoffs between colleges and students appear inevitable as long as free expression is allowed.

Says USM student Ashley Dube: “Students are adults, and if they want to post pictures and personal information on the Internet, that is their choice.”

Bates senior Trafton agrees. She says when she put her profile on facebook.com, she was fully aware of the potential of future employers screening her profile, and other pitfalls. So she has been very careful with what she posts.

“If students are willing to put themselves out there, they are the ones who have to deal with the consequences,” she says.

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