It’s not just in the classrooms that students can learn from UT; they can also do it on Twitter.

Nearly every facet of UT life now has a Twitter feed, with postings on every thing from department news, student and faculty accolades, and event information.

Student groups and organizations like the Lambda Student Union (@utlambda), Women’s Coordinating Council (@_WCC_), UT Film Committee (@UTFilmCommittee) and the Tennessee Journalist (@tnjn), just to name a few, all have Twitters detailing upcoming events and information about their groups. (Full disclosure: The Daily Beacon can be found at @DailyBeacon).

But it’s not just students that are pushing their college work on the Internet, but faculty and the university itself as well. Professors often post links to articles and websites dedicated to their area of study, while university departments do their best to keep in touch with students about anything involved with campus life.

Take Nicholas Geidner for example. Geidner, an assistant professor, runs the official School of Journalism and Electronic Media Twitter (@UTJEM). Geidner came into the job just recently over the winter break when the previous operator resigned from the post.

“I think I can speak with authority as ‘the School of Journalism and Electronic Media,'” explained Geidner. “I think it’s a good way to get out information to the students, to the alumni, to the people interested in our program. That’s why I started to do it.”

Geidner tries to keep the tone light and personal on the JEM Twitter, posting not only events and news items from the JEM school, but also news about journalism and news criticism, which primarily come from his own readings and suggestions from other professors. He also uses it to help with any student inquiries.

Geidner does not get paid extra for operating the JEM Twitter, but he doesn’t mind. He simply enjoys doing it and views it as an extension of his job.

“I think of my role as a professor is educating,” he explained, “and most of what I’m sending out here is education stuff. It’s very little PR except when I’m highlighting stuff our former or current students are doing. That’s probably the most PR function.”

He added, “And it’s just fun. I try to keep it light and fun and encourage our students to be excited about journalism. It’s an exciting job and an exciting career.”

A scroll through a Twitter search reveals dozens of other UT affiliated Twitters, including ones for UT Student Life (@UTStudentLife), CCI Alum/Development (@utcci), the Bursar’s Office (@utkbursar) and UTK Panhellenic (@UTKPanhellenic).

The official Twitter of UT is @UTKnoxville, which is operated by a team of about seven from the Office of Communications & Marketing.

Rebekah Winkler, Media and Internal Relations Coordinator, is one of the main content writers for the Twitter, although she said that no one on the team has a specific job.

“We have a social media team. … But on that team there aren’t really defined roles as far as ‘you have responsibilities A, B and C.’ Our jobs are to interact with our social media audience, both in responding to tweets, responding to Facebook messages as well as looking for other content to put out there.”

Like most UT Twitters, @UTKnoxville posts news about UT; however, it is not limited to one department or one area of study, but rather covers all happenings at the university.

“Part of our job in representing the university is really to share what’s going on on campus. …” Winkler said. “We really try to run the gamut of sharing the UT experience, what it is to be on campus.”

Of course, with all forms of social media, there can be concerns for inappropriate things getting published out to the ever public world of the Internet.

Winkler explained that, at times, various departments having come to her department asking for advice on how to handle social media outlets like Twitter. She said that while there are no official UT guidelines, her department does give out some tips.

Her colleague, Leigh Shoemaker, assistant director at Communications and Marketing, jokingly called them “best practices.” Shoemaker also said that she and her department aren’t too worried about UT Twitters.

“It’s not something that keeps me up at night,” Shoemaker joked. “We are not a central controlling office for university communications. We would hope that when people are tweeting from an official account … we would hope that they would bear in mind that they are representing the university.”

One such “best practice” is to be sure the person operating a department’s Twitter is someone that can be trusted in a professional manner, as they are representing the department, the school, the dean and the students. Winkler said that many departments utilize graduate students as their Twitter operators, which she said is fine as long as the department has full confidence in them.

But not all UT Twitters are necessarily viewed for information or are even at times official. Many of the “famous” members of UT faculty and administration have Twitters that can be followed, such as UT Systems President Joe DiPietro (@UTPresidentJoe), or The Beacon’s editor-in-chief Blair Kuykendall (@BKblairing), who tweets links to Beacon stories and how she thinks charity bell ringing should only be done by the youth and elderly.

Those interested in UT sports also have a variety of options. All of the big names have Twitters, such as Head Coach Emeritus Pat Summitt (@patsummitt), new football head coach Butch Jones (@UTCoachJones), and basketball head coaches Holly Warlick (@HollyWarlick) and Cuonzo Martin (@CuonzoMartin).

And while he may no longer be a part of the orange and white, Derek Dooley (@DerekDooley) offers great and humorous insight into his days as UT football’s former head coach. His verified Twitter features such gems as “4. Enjoying taking advantage of the post-Christmas sales … not surprised to see orange pants on clearance for over a month,” and “Learning new things always a bonus of free time … just found out that Muscle Milk contains no milk. …”

But there are also unofficial and parody UT Twitters that are purely for amusement. A more recent but popular Twitter is @VolMakeout. This Twitter is dedicated to posting pictures of liplocking and snogging UT students out on the town or in a frat house.

There is also the Jimmy Cheek parody Twitter (@TheJimmyCheek), which has pseudo tweets from the fake-chancellor saying, “Why won’t these kids just leave me alone,” and “I heard that @volmakeout has a picture of me getting cozy with a 20; this never actually happened. 20s are for peasants. #franklinorbust.”

The parody sites are of some concern to the university. Generally, as long as the Twitter account makes it clear that it is a parody site and not an official UT channel, everything is OK. Only when the account tries to come off as a genuine UT property are there concerns.

“Twitter covers parody,” Shoemaker said. “Parody is fair game and that’s great. We love parody and we have a great sense of humor here.”

The Jimmy Cheek-parody Twitter was one that caused some concern, as there was one originally that was not clearly a parody and tried to pass off as a legitimate Twitter, which Shoemaker said had to be dealt with. The current one, @TheJimmyCheek, is clearly labeled as a parody site.