Overview

St. Charles Community College uses social media channels to improve communication with future students, current students, alumni, faculty, staff, and the community. The term “social media” refers to Web-based and mobile technologies which enable individuals or entities to disseminate or receive information, communicate, or otherwise interact. All of the College’s policies that might otherwise apply to employee communications apply equally to communications made via social media.

Representing the College

Employees whose responsibilities include representing the College on officially recognized social media accounts must observe and follow applicable College policies, procedures, and agreements and abide by the Terms of Use for any social media site or platform. College logos, seals, and other marks must not be used for personal social media accounts or accounts not officially recognized by the College without permission from the Office of Marketing and Communications.

The College owns all social media accounts used on its behalf or otherwise for its purposes, including any and all log-in information, passwords, and content associated with each account, such as followers and contacts. Accordingly, the College has the right to remove any content for any reason, including but not limited to content that is deemed threatening, obscene, in violation of intellectual property rights or privacy laws, or otherwise injurious or illegal.

Personal Use of Social Media

The College respects employees’ right to communicate on their own or on other employees’ behalf concerning terms and conditions of employment. Nothing in this policy or accompanying procedures is intended to interfere with the rights of employees under federal and state laws, nor will the College construe the policy and accompanying procedures in a way that limits such rights.

Employees are personally responsible for their social media activities, including those which are conducted using a College email address; which can be traced back to a College domain; which use the College’s information systems; or which implicitly identify the employee as member of College staff, student employee, or faculty member.

Employees may not use social media to post or display comments about coworkers, supervisors, or the College which are vulgar, obscene, threatening, intimidating, or which violate the College’s workplace policies against discrimination, harassment, or hostility on account of age, race, religion, sex, ethnicity, nationality, disability, or other protected class, status, or characteristic. Postings or displays must honor the copyright and intellectual property rights of others, including the College, and must not violate local, state, or federal laws and regulations including, but not limited to FERPA and HIPAA privacy statutes and NJCAA regulations. Employees may not use or disclose personal information about another individual or use or disclose the College’s confidential or proprietary information in any form on social media.

Employees should always make it clear that they are speaking on their own behalf when posting via a personal social media account. When expressing an opinion regarding the College’s positions or actions, employees should also make clear that the poster is an employee of the College and must specifically note that the opinion expressed is a personal opinion and does not represent the views of the College.

Content Owner: Human Resources
Issued: 01/2015
Revised: 10/2019

Procedures