All right, I am going to be moving beanhat off of its old hosting and merging it and this site. The summer has been hectic with trying to get both of the sites up and running as well as finishing my degree. More updates to come.
During the past four years at Ohio University I have spent a great deal of time around the campus and tried to do as many things as the university offered me. This year I joined the Jitterbug Club and learned how to swing dance with Devin and Josh. Devin and I learned that she is a good baker and I am an all right cook. (I even started Beanhat based on that conclusion.)
Four years ago I joined Speakeasy Magazine as a staff writer and spent my senior year as the editor-in-chief. I played racquetball at the Ping Center and sat with my feet in a baby pool at Jake-fest. All around a pretty great four years.
For my final quarter at OU Devin and I decided to take a class together. I needed English credits and she is an English Major. It worked out rather well. The class that best fit our schedules and seemed to be the most interested was Professor Sherrie Gradin’s “Gay and Lesbian Literature.” Seemed like an interesting class.
I went and met Professor Gradin at the end of last quarter because I needed an independent study to complete my Journalism specialization. More on that some other time. She was happy to help. We discussed some possible projects and decided the best option would be an article on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) community. I had attended the Ohio University Budget hearings last quarter and knew that departments such as the LGBT Center would be suffering some cuts, but I didn’t know much else. That fact disturbed me a bit, as I have friends that who are gay and I know people who are involved in LGBT activities. I was the editor-in-chief of a news and culture website, and yet my knowledge was lacking at best.
Two weeks into the quarter I had been reading Kate Bornstein’s “My Gender Workbook” and listening to the discussions in the class when I realized that the article was going to be a bit more difficult than I had anticipated. For the first time since possibly my sophomore year in computer programming I felt like I had no idea what was going on. There was no way I was going to walk into the LGBT Center and ask for an interview when I had no idea what was going in the LGBT communities. At that point I still referred to it as the LGBT community.
I waited about five weeks total before I felt I was comfortable enough to actually seek out some interviews. I had listened to and spoken to some people involved in LGBT activities on campus, and the class had been enlightening to say the least. I contacted Mickey Hart, the man in charge of the LGBT Center, and the people at the Women’s Center. The Women’s Center turned me down for an interview because their schedule was apparently booked solid. Mickey got back to me after a bit of confusion and emails getting lost in the ether. He was happy to talk to me.
During my first talk with him we discussed the center, what it does and why it does it. We talked about the programming that he puts on. Programs such as the Safe Zones, a two hour training course for people to help them understand and appreciate the LGBT communities, and Faces of Pride, the posters up around campus displaying out people and allies.
We discussed the fact that he does his very best to serve everyone in the communities and OU. The out people and the closeted people who are terrified of them, he said. When I asked him how much people know about the center, lamenting my unsatisfactory understanding, he said “People get a basic understanding (of the LGBT center) and don’t have a reason to look deeper.”
We also discussed that he is the only full-time employee in the center. There are student employees, but without Mickey the center would not be able to function. The LGBT center is also the only LGBT support group that is officially supported by OU; the other communities, such as Ally and Open Doors, are student organizations and depend on SAC funding rather than a budget. Mickey does his best to support the members of the communities, but the coming budget cuts are going to make that harder for him. Starting this 2010-2011 academic year he will be put on an 11 month contract, as will many other people in different departments. While his situation is not unique in that respect, remember that he is the only full-time employee. During the time that he is not permitted to work the center will have to be closed. That means that OU will officially not have an LGBT center for that time.
Granted, there are the other student groups on campus and a number of groups in the Athens community, but Mickey is not sure what will happen during that time. Right now he is trying to figure out whether or not OU will let him take Fridays off rather than a month at a time during the summer.
I had attended the budget hearings, and somehow I had no idea that the budget cuts were going to be that serious. And they are going to get worse next year. Mickey and other departments are expecting to have to make more cuts to their budgets. The budget cuts are going to become more difficult, and programming is going to suffer. Mickey wants to keep as much as he can. The LGBT center has a library that anyone can utilize, and sponsors events for organizations such as speakouts. The Faces of Pride posters, he told me, are designed to make out and closeted people more comfortable on OU’s campus while reminding everyone that the communities exist and are to be respected. Mickey would love to have three full-time employees and an office with a view overlooking the Baker Center escalators (or even just some windows; the comparison of the office to a closet is not lost on Mickey).
He knows, however, that he will have to make due with what he has and will continue to do his best to provide support to the OU communities. He loves his job and loves the communities. He will continue to do the best he can, and is happy to speak with anyone who wants to listen.
After speaking with Mickey and some of the other people in the LGBT center as well as my class, I found myself wondering how it was so much of this had escaped my notice. I like to think that, as a journalism student, I have a pretty good idea what is going on around me. I wish I would have taken the Gay and Lesbian Literature class two years ago. There is a great deal about the LGBT communities I simply did not know about. The damage that will be done to the humanities and student support organizations by the budget cuts is not getting the attention it maybe should on OU’s campus.
A bit of advice for journalists in Scripps from a senior on his way out: there is a lot going on behind the scenes that isn’t getting any attention. Sure, people want to know how the Bobcats are doing, but there is more to the campus. There are groups for almost anything you can imagine, and they deserve attention that they are not getting.
Three days ago, May 31 2010, was “Quit Facebook Day.” The event got some publication around the tech and Internet blogs as Facebook launched all new privacy settings that were largely decried as massive violations of user privacy.
Despite the widespread outcry against the changes, Mashable reports that “Quit Facebook Day” had only 34,000 people who pledged to delete their accounts yesterday. Keep in mind that Facebook claims to have “more than 400 million active users.” The United States is projected to have a population of about 310 million.
Despite the relatively tiny number of people pledging to quit Facebook, the numbers are still substantial. While only 34,000 pledged, the unrest in the Facebook community was significant enough that the site changed its privacy settings again a few days ago.
Privacy: Default sharing
The changes that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, made it so users needed to create connections to things that they could previously identify as things they liked. Because of the way the new connections system worked, users were required to expose all of their likes and affiliations to the Internet public.
Considering that Facebook’s original privacy settings let users hide basically everything on their page from unwanted visitors, it is not hard to understand why people were upset. The settings were confusing enough that sites such as Lifehacker created posts describing how to keep your Facebook profile private. In addition, visual representations of the changes in Facebook’s privacy settings started showing up.
The new settings
Facebook announces changes to the site with a box at the top of the homepage.
The new privacy settings are supposed to be simple as can be, and based on appearances alone they seem to be, at the very least, easier to understand. Users are given the option to make information available to everyone, friends-of-friends, friends only or other, which I assume includes no one as an option. Users are shown the categories of information and privacy, such as displayed birthday, photos/videos and other settings like wall posts.
Interestingly, the user can select any of the options (everyone, friends-of-friends, etc) and can see how their settings will be changed. The user is not able to manually change any of options by category on the page, which seems to defeat the purpose of actually showing all of the circles in their corresponding boxes.
The recommended option breaks things down for users, making it so less sensitive information (according to Facebook’s standards) is public while commenting on posts is limited to friends. To customize the settings the user has to navigate away from the simple privacy display to the actual privacy settings.
While “Quit Facebook Day” was conceived of before the new privacy settings were rolled out by Facebook, it is still important. Sites such as PC World argue that the fact that discontent among the user base was capable of strong-arming Facebook (a private company) into changing their privacy policy is substantial. Remember that Facebook reserves the right to change their privacy policies at any time. Ultimately a few thousand users were able to get a company with a user base larger than the size of the United States to change the way they do business.
In the past, protest groups have popped up every time Facebook changes their layout. It will be interesting to see whether or not these users use their new found power to change Facebook and stand up against what they perceive as violations of their privacy. Of course, many of the users willing to fight against Facebook may have left a few days ago on Quit Facebook Day.
This will be the first in a short series of posts about Facebook during the next few weeks.
Welcome to JeremyBookmyer.com. This is the personal site and resume/portfolio page for Jeremy Bookmyer. I am a 22-year-old (soon to be) graduate of Ohio University. I have two Bachelor of Science Degrees, one in Journalism and one in Communication studies with specializations in Online Journalism and Public Advocacy Communication.
In addition, I have been blogging off-and-on over at Beanhat for a few years now. Work on Beanhat has largely dropped off to resume this summer, as I have spent most of my time working on websites over at Speakeasy.
I began as a staff writer over at Speakeasy Magazine back in 2006, and worked my way up to asst. copy chief in 2008 and took over as editor-in-chief and web development director for my senior year. I explained my roles on the site in greater detail over on my resume. After graduation I will be headed back to Cincinnati, Ohio to look for a career.
For now that’s about it. I’ll be updating this site as often as I see fit. There is still a great deal of work to be done, such as actually finishing the site, editing the theme and merging this site with Beanhat a bit better. Check back in.
You can also get a hold of me via twitter at itsjeremy if you’d like.
