His number was posted only for personal friends to see, but after a student called him on his personal cell phone, he changed his policy.

Vagner Whitehead, an associate professor of art, accepts friend requests from students, but only if the student asks him.

“My current policy is to accept student friend requests if they ask me, but never seek students,” Whitehead said.

The action of accepting or denying friend requests between students and teachers has been the subject of recent media debate.

With schools across the country banning social media relations between students and teachers, many are questioning whether these online relationships are appropriate.

Liz Rodriguez, a senior, does not want to add professors on social media websites and doesn’t like the idea of allowing them to see things on her profile.

“I don’t want (professors) going into my stuff,” Rodriguez said.

But Whitehead thinks the blurry lines is what makes Facebook interesting.

“What I find interesting about Facebook is the collision of worlds, and how boundaries are blurred,” Whitehead said. “This at times causes some uncomfortable situations, but ultimately makes you more aware of your life’s decision.”

Sophomore Megan Kiefer has only had one class where the professor asked his students to add him on both Facebook and Myspace, although it wasn’t a class requirement.

Kiefer doesn’t feel as though her privacy is being invaded as a result of adding a professor on Facebook.

“You have the right to deny them if you want,” Kiefer said.

Facebook’s privacy settings allow the user to manually block out what individual friends can see on their profile.

In order to block individuals from certain aspects of their profile, a Facebook user would insert the names of each person they want to block one-by-one.

“My privacy settings are set the same way for everyone,” Whitehead said.

However, Whitehead likes to keep the distinction between the person he is at work and the person he is in the outside world.

“One thing I make very clear is that when a student contacts me on Facebook about a school or course related issue, I immediately tell them to contact me via email,” Whitehead said. “Students eventually get the separation between ‘work me’ and ‘Facebook me’.”

Jason Schmitt, a special lecturer in journalism and communication, also doesn’t change his profile privacy settings for students.

“Why would I? We are all adults…I have a gazillion people as ‘friends’ who I really don’t know,” Schmitt said.

He also uses Facebook as a tool to keep in touch with students about class assignments and school events.

“Facebook is superbly more user intuitive than Moodle,” Schmitt said.

For students, adding a professor on social media websites could potentially help with finding a job or internship.

Both Whitehead and Schmitt post what they can in regards to job leads.

“I continuously put job leads on my social networking sites,” Schmitt said.

Since there is no school policy on social media websites, individuals are drawing the line where they feel comfortable.

Patricia Trentacoste, an adjunct instructor of philosophy, uses Facebook to keep in touch with the school’s philosophy club and department and does not add her current students on Facebook. She will, however, add a student if they have already graduated.

Laura Landolt, a political science professor, also only adds a student once they have graduated, she prefers to keep her professional and personal life separated.

“Students in my classes often try to friend me on Facebook, but I don’t add them until class is over,” Landolt said. “I only have a personal account, and I’d like to keep my personal and professional life separate.”

Most recently, Landolt taught a class online while doing research in Egypt. She communicated with some of her students through the Internet-based video-chat service Skype.

Annie Briggs, a junior, said that she would make her Facebook friending decisions based on the professor she’s looking at.

“Maybe it would depend on the professor,” Briggs said.

Kiefer was also caught in between, saying it would depend on the teacher. If she liked the teacher it might be all right. However, if she didn’t like the professor, she felt different.

“If I don’t like them, it creeps me out,” Kiefer said.

As for Whitehead, he continues to add students who request to be friends with him, but he has decided to remove his phone number from his Facebook.

“I realized that it would be easier to remove (the cell phone number) altogether instead of customizing settings for each friend,” Whitehead said.

Though Facebook and the Internet are becoming more common, it is ultimately up to the students and professors to decide how to acknowledge the request.