By Emily GlazerThe Daily Northwestern

Several weeks ago Northwestern Prof. Arthur Schmidt received a number of birthday wishes – from students on Facebook.com.

“Everyone was very nice (about my birthday), and that’s the nice thing about Facebook, that it alerts you,” he said.

Schmidt is not the only NU professor on the social networking site. Twenty-five other accounts were listed as belonging to NU faculty members, and another 139 were listed as NU staff on Facebook.

But birthday alerts are not the only reason professors joined Facebook. Professors’ reasons range from a desire to be closer to students to keeping in touch with NU graduates and seeing what students look like in their profile pictures or album photos.

Economics Prof. Mark Witte leads all professors with 297 NU Facebook friends.

He said he created a Facebook account about two years ago after a former student invited him to the Web site.

Witte uses Facebook to keep in touch with graduates and to keep track of what his students look like.

“If someone is in my class I can pull up a picture of them,” he said. “And (it helps) to keep it straight for who is who.”

Feinberg School of Medicine Prof. Tom Krejcie said his Facebook account has nothing to do with NU students.

The anesthesiology professor signed up for an account after his two sons, who attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, realized he could create a Facebook account because of his NU e-mail address.

“(I joined so my sons) could keep me informed of what they were doing,” he said.

Other professors said they joined out of pure curiosity.

“Two years ago Facebook was popular and I wanted to see what it was all about,” said mathematics Prof. Martina Bode.

Bode started to use her account after some time for other purposes, she said.

“I think it’s nice for the students to see a different side of their instructor, as long as I try not to put too much personal information on there,” Bode said.

Facebook also allows her to learn more about her students, she said.

Some students said they “friended” their professors for the same reason.

Weinberg sophomore Claudia Barna said she friended Witte after he came to speak at her dorm for a fireside event.

“It’s not necessarily easier to communicate (with your professor), but I think it makes you feel like you’re friends with them, not just professor to student,” Barna said.

But some students, including Medill junior Anton Galang, said they were worried that Facebook gives away too much information to faculty members.

Galang said he was concerned about the availability of information on his profile. He set his Facebook privacy settings to limit what his professors can see.

“I did (change my faculty settings), not because of anything specifically, but because I didn’t want to worry about that kind of stuff,” he said.

Witte and other professors said they do sneak peeks at students’ profiles or photo albums.

“It’s irresistible,” Witte said. “I’ve never seen anything that I thought was embarrassing or inappropriate, though.”

Witte also said he was “sometimes surprised” that students put down their political affiliations, but that he hadn’t seen anything too outlandish.

“I think people put that stuff in their MySpace page,” he continued. “I don’t see that kind of craziness on Facebook, but then again, I haven’t gone looking for it.”

Schmidt, a physics and astronomy professor, said what he has seen on Facebook has not surprised him.

“Maybe all of my (Facebook) friends are pretty conservative,” he said. “They haven’t posted anything really wild.”

But he said students on Facebook should remember that friends aren’t the only people checking their profiles.

“I think in any kind of public domain, you have to exercise some reasonableness,” Schmidt said.

Reach Emily Glazer at [email protected].