No, this post isn’t about Tiger Woods. Although before I get to what I’m writing about, what’s the difference between a golf ball and a car? Tiger Woods can drive a golf ball 400 yards.

Okay, back to the topic at hand.

Ever heard the term “troll?” It commonly refers to anonymous internet commenters whose sole purpose is to attack, attack, attack. They’re not truly interested in discussion…they’re just interested in spreading their conspiracy theories, rumors and innuendo with no basis in fact.

In any of my public roles, I very rarely respond to these people. But once in a while, when it comes to Sierra College, one of them tries the tactic of sprinkling in just enough truth to try and make their theories believable. This usually comes in the form of a twisted prediction for the future, very loosely based on policies currently under development or discussion.

One of these folks recently posted this online:

AK is selling the college out to his friends and cronies. Watch, the next major cost saving measures will be to sell off college property near the freeway, a purge of dissenting professors and less teacher/student interaction. Cyber-colleges need less teachers and less land.

Just to set the record straight, here are a few thoughts on these issues:

• I have no ability to “sell the college out” to “friends and cronies.” I have zero power to select firms or individuals for the college to do business with. We have a management team that we hired to do that work. If they ask for my input in evaluating the merits of various firms, I cooperate in providing it. But go look at my statement of economic interests, a publicly filed document. I’ve never received personal income or gifts of any sort from any firm or individual with business before the college. (If I did, I’d simply need to leave the room during that particular discussion, but to be explicitly clear, I’ve never had the need to do that. Zero, zip, zilch, nada.)
• As a board, we have been discussing the use of surplus property on the Rocklin campus, either for sale or commercial development, for years. Our staff has determined that we don’t have the core infrastructure (parking, student services, food service, student center, etc.) to handle a large number of additional students there, so we are unlikely to be able to use the land for an educational purpose. How much better to use that land to fund the replacement or repair of aging classroom buildings on our campus?
• The “purge of dissenting professors” thing is hardly worth responding to. I’ve demonstrated my strong support for academic freedom over the last five years. The state legislature specifically gave the right and responsibility of “dissent” to professors under shared governance laws. We have a strong shared governance system at Sierra College and it works. This is one of the golden oldies, though.
• Online education has been growing like crazy since before I was elected in 2004, and it will continue to do so. I’ve consistently advocated for using technology to replace the repetitive assembly-line aspects of education through streaming video and other technology, but the goal there is to enable a higher quantity of dynamic student-teacher interaction, replacing static and repetitive one-way lecture.
• The idea isn’t to have fewer teachers. It’s to serve more students with the same number of teachers, and add teaching capacity as we can afford to grow. Higher education needs to use technology to deliver greater value for the dollars it spends. That doesn’t mean it spends any fewer dollars than it has – it simply means it does more for the taxpayer with those dollars. Can we all agree with that?

So not to set a precedent, but there’s a quick example of the kinds of odd charges that float around out there. For the most part, I refuse to waste my time responding to them, but I thought an example was in order.

Of course, if you want to comment constructively from a different point of view, ask me anything you’d like. You can comment below, send me an e-mail, call me — all of your options are nicely summarized on the Contacting Me page. I hope you do!

Use the comments below, and tell me what you think: do you engage with “trolls” and how do you distinguish them from mere critics?