If you had to get creative and think of innovative ways to help keep students in school, what would you come up with? Academic enhancement? More tutoring? Smaller classes?

A lot of effort is being put into coming up with ideas for retention, as retention rate is one of the major metrics a university uses to measure the overall quality of the university. Each university would obviously like to have 100 percent retention rates, but there are so many things that factor into keeping students at the institution in which they begin their post-secondary education.

The idea is to start reaching out to students early on in their academic career, providing them with all the necessary resources and monitoring progress so that students become more of an individual than a class of many.

Obviously there are circumstances that cannot be helped that land on both sides of the spectrum. From students who decided learning at a four-year university was not for them, to students who spent their entire time drinking, skipping class and devoting their studies to the opposite sex.

​With the way students now communicate, UK chose to look into social networking as a means to helping out with retention, specifically on the freshman level. With this in mind, the Big Blue Network was created. According to a Wednesday Kernel article, 2,200 of the roughly 4,500 incoming freshmen have signed on to the Big Blue Network. The goal is to have 75 percent participation in the network.

Last fall, 81 percent of freshmen came back to UK — an all-time high retention rate. This year’s goal is 90 percent.

With students signing up for the network before they get on campus, they can acclimate themselves with fellow students and start to become a part of UK even before they set foot on campus.

From the connections made via the Big Blue Network, the idea is to use commenting, banter and any other information on the Web site to interact with students on a level that is more familiar and then discover where retention could be helped.

​There’s only one problem. Most students don’t know their information is being collected. In one fell swoop, that little lack of disclosure turns a forward-thinking, bright idea into big brother prying where he shouldn’t be.

The original purpose undoubtedly had the best interests of students in mind, but a system that uses student participation without their knowing is hardly a sturdy stool to stand on.

​Even more startling than the shaded privacy issues are the questions that arise from such a revelation. Would students be as candid if they knew they were being watched? Most likely not, but then the function of the network would be rendered useless.

Can students be reprimanded for what they post on a social network? More often than not, students need to do a better job of monitoring what they put on the internet in any shape, form or fashion, but if a student can be punished for something they post believing it is done in confidence, only to find out that a representative from the university is following their information, something is wrong.

All things considered, the university is trying to do something right. Reaching out to students in ways that meet their interests is always a great place to start fixing a problem. However, opening up an even bigger issue won’t solve anything. We may not want to hang out with dad, but we definitely don’t want dad spying on us either.

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