Standford’s “Office Hours” on Facebook begs of being just a bit too cute for the room:

Stanford University is bringing office hours to Facebook by spotlighting world-class faculty on its Stanford University Facebook profile (http://facebook.com/stanford).

At
most universities, instructors set aside a few hours each week for
students to drop by for conversation. Stanford Open Office Hours is a
public version of that tradition, an experiment that will bring
conversations with some of Stanford’s most interesting people to
Facebook.

Office Hours are supposed to be an
opportunity for moments of private clarity between a professor and a
student — and once that delicate dyad is made public for scraping eyes
and promotion — the entire intention of the relationship changes in a
bad way.

We understand Stanford wants to be cutting
edge and barrier-breaking — we just hope their Facebook effort is more
passing totem than protocol setting.