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Cowley students punished for MySpace comments

By FOSS FARRAR
Traveler Staff Writer

Cowley College sophomore Connie Bucher started posting blogs in MySpace.com to network with fellow students and to find new friends. She didn't expect her messages to be read by her drama professors.

Blogs complaining about aspects of the Cowley theater program led to the dismissal of Bucher and a fellow drama scholarship student from further drama department activities.

As a result of the blogs, Bucher lost her part in the play "Twelfth Night." She was replaced by an actor only three weeks before the play was staged. The other student lost a work-study position in the theater and her position as secretary for the Act One drama club.

Bucher feels her privacy was invaded and she was treated unfairly, she said. But Cowley College officials say the two students' postings showed inappropriate disrespect toward their teachers.

"It's obvious because of what they had written they were unhappy with the program and the people surrounding it," theater director Scott MacLaughlin said Thursday. "If they were that unhappy with the program, maybe it wasn't a perfect fit."

Neither student lost her scholarship, MacLaughlin said. All they lost were privileges.

Neither student is taking a class from him this semester, he said.

The other student, Justine Fernandez, was unavailable for comment Thursday and today.

Bucher said she was surprised to receive an urgent call slip while in class about three weeks ago. The note said she needed to talk to MacLaughlin at once.

"When I got to his office, I was ambushed by two theater department professors and the director," she said. "I had not been told what the meeting was about and when I got there, he pushed some paper toward me - my blog."

Two blogs she wrote complained about two incidents in the theater and said she felt she might not have gotten a role in "Twelfth Night" if MacLaughlin had done the auditions by himself, she said. The theater incidents were felt to be unfair by several students, she said.

"The worst thing I said was that if something were to happen I'd be a bitch for the rest of the semester," she said. "But it didn't happen."

MacLaughlin said he had discussed what action to take after reading the blogs with his supervisor and the vice-president of the college. They also met with Sue Saia, dean of student life.

"Based on what I saw in their blogs, the two students indicated they were pretty well unhappy with being in the theater," Saia said. "I think the action taken on the blogging was appropriate. It didn't take away their scholarships, it just took away activity privileges."

Bucher said by the time she met with MacLaughlin on the blogs she no longer was angry about the incidents mentioned in them. She had just vented her feelings and got over it.

The action taken against her and Fernandez she felt was too harsh.

"I'm really mad for the reason I was expelled" from the play, Bucher said. "If it had been for drinking or drugs, I could understand. But freedom of speech doesn't stop at Cowley College."

MacLaughlin said a blog is public.

"If you want to keep it private, keep a diary," he said.

Free speech is a privilege as well as a right, MacLaughlin said. With freedom, comes responsibility.

Asked about what effect the discipline taken on the blogging might have on others at a college, MacLaughlin commented: "I think it creates an atmosphere of respect."