With more than 500 million active users and over 700 billion minutes spent on Facebook by its users each month, the social networking site has become one of the most popular ways for college students to communicate today. However, before this past spring, DePaul student-athletes were prohibited from having a Facebook page after an incident with a previous student-athlete.According to Jean Lenti Ponsetto, DePaul Athletic Director, maintaining a positive image became one of their biggest concerns after an incident with a previous student-athlete who had been offered a job, but later had the offer withdrawn after the employer saw what they deemed an inappropriate photo on Facebook.

“So I think that struck a cord with our student-athletes at the time and that’s when we started the policy,” Ponsetto said. “The original policy was not something that I originated. It was something that came from the captain’s council from that particular year.”

Last spring, it was the captain’s council again who went to Ponsetto, this time looking to lift the ban on Facebook and make revisions to the social media policy.

“We actually came together last spring and a bunch of the captains, I think there was like five of us, came together and actually made the policy and brought it to Jeanne before we even began being on Facebook,” said Sam Quigley, senior captain of the women’s basketball team. “So it’s something we definitely created ourselves and something that we’ve definitely upheld, I think, pretty well. Each captain takes care of each team and we haven’t had any problems lately, so it’s been good so far.”

The new plan states that student-athletes are allowed to, and according to Ponsetto, should, have an open Facebook page with no more than 15 appropriate photos viewable by anyone, including the DIBS Student-Athletes page, which each player is required to friend.

“I’ve been impressed with the level of responsibility that our student-athletes have managed the process,” said Ponsetto. “You know, I recognized that it was important for them to do and so I was certainly willing to be agreeable in how they represented the whole Facebook, social networking process, as long as they were, you know, recognized that they too have a responsibility to the institution and to the student population and our alumni and everybody involved in our enterprise to make sure that it’s tasteful.”

For the student-athletes, the biggest reason behind the desired change was that they felt as if they were not connecting with other DePaul students and other DePaul organizations, according to Quigley, who added that the ability to use Facebook to socialize with others would help.

Every DePaul team has a Facebook page, which, according to women’s tennis captain Selma Salkovic, is used to promote their matches and help in the recruiting process. Student-athletes also use Facebook to keep up with other DePaul teams.

“It’s really nice you can just keep up, just go to their website and ‘like’ it. It’s fun,” Salkovic said. “And I think that kind of made us closer because you’d add someone that you didn’t even know, but you had like 15 mutual friends so you would assume he’s a Blue Demon, but you don’t know that because it’s a lot of us. Then you add that person and then you start saying hi to that person, so that’s kind of nice.”

Men’s soccer freshman Ray DeLeon had similar sentiments. “I see it as a way for student-athletes to kind of get together and get the athletics just out there. It also shows other athletes supporting athletes,” DeLeon said. “And I think it’s always good for other athletes to support other athletes.”

Both Salkovic and Quigley said that while the majority of people were accepting of the rules, a few were unhappy.

“Some people got very mad, but actually I think it’s for our own benefits,” Salkovic said. “And, of course, for benefits for our school because if you don’t respect the Facebook policy, I mean our Facebook policy, our school is in bad position, like if you have pictures of drinks.”

According to DeLeon, the men’s soccer freshmen did not seem to have any problems removing photos, adding, “It also makes us, as athletes, look a little more professional just to have certain photos up and a limited amount of photos.”

For Salkovic, who primarily uses her pages to keep in touch with friends in Croatia, the Facebook rules in place prevent student-athletes, including herself, from spending too much time on the social networking site and helps them maintain positive images.

“You’re not allowed to have fun with your Facebook because it’s basically, our Facebook is not fun at all,” Salkovic said. “What, you have 15 photos? You can’t have bad jokes or anything. So I think [the policy is] actually very good for our futures. Right now it’s probably not fun for some people.”

However, no matter how much effort the captains and “Facebook police” put into patrolling the student-athlete pages, some things do slip by.

“Sometimes it’s really hard to control your [page] sometimes because people will tag you and you don’t know they tagged you so you don’t even pay attention like ‘oh I have 16 photos,'” Salkovic said. “I think even myself, I had two photos more than I was supposed to. Someone tagged me and I didn’t pay attention and I had 17.”

In cases where a photo or comment is deemed inappropriate, an e-mail will be sent reminding captains to monitor their teammates’ pages, according to Salkovic.

Another important aspect of the policy is ensuring the safety of student-athletes, who often serve as public figures or representatives of the university and are easily accessible.

“Obviously my biggest concerns have always been centered around the security issue, safety and security of the student-athletes because of the kinds of information that oftentimes gets put out there on Facebook,” Ponsetto said. “And because they’re so accessible in terms of being able to locate and find them and that kind of stuff.

“So I was really concerned from a safety perspective because there have been numerous incidents around the country where student-athletes have been stalked or they’ve been harassed or they’ve had you know serious, more serious kinds of situations,” Ponsetto said.

For this reason, student-athletes are not allowed to post phone numbers, full birthdates, e-mail addresses, AIM screen names or dorm information.

So far, it does not seem to be a problem.

“We’re going on a year.and I’m pleased that I think we’ve been able to provide a culture and an atmosphere within the athletic department of understanding what everybody’s responsibility is if you to participate in Facebook,” Ponsetto said.