Prof. Alice Kelikian (HIST) said she learned of "Professor Kelikian's Groupies" - a group created on thefacebook by students who are "obsessed with everything that is Professor Alice Kelikian" - when a former student told her about the group. She did not see the site until Prof. Govind Sreenivasan (HIST) thought she should know about it and showed her it in his office."With some of the fan sites, some of the faculty certainly know about them," Sreenivasan said. "One colleague thought the whole thing was quite entertaining, but then again her fan site was humorous but affectionate and I can't imagine that anybody would object to that. If it got a lot nastier, I can't imagine how they wouldn't."

Although there is not a deluge of Brandeis faculty on thefacebook, the number of fraudulent ones is growing all the time.

Not only did Dean of Student Life Alwina Bennett not sign up for thefacebook on her own, she did not even know the site existed until a student informed her of her membership. The student showed her how to get on, and Bennett said she was able to figure out by a comment written on the wall that the profile had been created by David Gorman '07.

She said Gorman apologized and gave her the password, which she changed and then created her own profile. "But the picture-the sunset-is David's vision of me..." Bennett said.

Bennett said she is unsure why Gorman put her on thefacebook, but believes he was also responsible for a fake profile of University President Jehuda Reinharz, which he was asked to remove.

"I think it's pretty silly," Bennett said. "I have a sense of humor, I hope, so sometimes I'm amused. I guess I don't get it really. I mean it's funny, but I thought if I'm going to be on there, I want to have control of this."

Gorman was out of the country and unavailable for comment.

Other faculty have also found themselves placed on thefacebook without even knowing about the site. In total, at Brandeis, there appear to be three fake faculty profiles, four real faculty profiles and four faculty-related groups.

Although Bennett has 66 friends at Brandeis, she said she does not go to the site more than once or twice a month and finds the whole experience "a little bit weird."

"What I like is that there are actually people that are not at Brandeis that have found me," she said. "I have gotten things from 4 alumnae and a former colleague who's now someplace else from 10 years ago. So that was intriguing when those came up."

Professors who are on thefacebook by choice have found practical applications for the site. Prof. Don Katz (PSYCH) joined thefacebook because he said he is bad with names and while WebCT gives a printout of his students' ID photos, the site allows him to match names with faces of students not in his classes.

Prof. Govind Sreenivasan (HIST) joined for that perk, but also out of interest when he heard his students talking. Sreenivasan and Katz are in the minority, however.

"I'm fairly confident that 95 percent of the faculty have no idea that thefacebook exists," Katz said.

The other real Brandeis professor profiles on thefacebook exist because the faculty wanted to avoid people misusing their identity.

"The main reason I decided to appropriate my own profile was to avoid the appearance of an ersatz one," Kelikian said. "A few I saw were rather naughty."

Men's Basketball Coach Brian Meehan learned that a profile of him existed when contacted for this article. After approaching one person, he was able to find out who authored the fake page and said he will be having a "conversation" with the responsible party.

"I have strong feelings about anything that is produced without a person's knowledge," Meehan said. "Whether it's funny or not or meant to be a joke, I don't like anything that provides information that might be taken seriously."

The profile on thefacebook bearing his name has since been changed, but had contained a quote with explicit language, along with other somewhat crude suggestions, like what Meehan was looking for in a relationship. While Meehan thought his profile was "very tame," and said he was not offended by what was clearly a joke, he does not like that it is misleading.

"I think it can be hurtful," he said. "I don't find mine to be like that, but very easily you can create anything you want. I don't like the fact that people can do that."

Meehan thinks that the problem with Web sites such as thefacebook is that people do not understand the repercussions of their actions, and while they may be posting suggestions as a joke, it can be very harmful for the targeted person if they are taken seriously.

"I mean here is somebody doing [the page] maybe to be vindictive, maybe just as a joke, not understanding that, hey, rumors begin and next thing you know somebody is taking a lot of heat for something that has no basis at all," Meehan said.

Posting a fake profile may result in long-term consequences, Bennett cautions.

Bennett believes that before getting a job, candidates for the position will be Googled and what people put on the Internet as a joke could be used to judge them.

"People need to think about that before posting things to the Web or in places that are publicly accessible," she said. "As you go out into life, people tend to judge you more and know you less."

In addition to fake profiles, students have created groups about faculty. Most are very positive, but a few are not.

One particularly offensive group attacks Bennett's weekly e-mails. She talked to the student who created it and he apologized, she said, but the group still exists.

Almost all faculty interviewed agree that the profiles and groups were started as a joke, but a few professors suggest the pages could be in response to complaints students have with the faculty member.

Some are bothered more by the content or creation of the pages than others. Prof. Harry Coiner (ECON) has a group with 95 members proclaiming their love for him. He said he finds the group "embarrassing" and that it bothers him that so many people can potentially see the profiles or groups.

"It does make me uncomfortable to think that faculty members could be held up to ridicule, not that that isn't going to happen without thefacebook presumably, just in conversation," Coiner said.

Bennett in particular thought the fake profiles give opportunities to be "flip, to be thoughtless, to maybe even be cruel" in a way people never would in person.

"It's an opportunity to be mean- spirited to someone and I think that's wrong," she said. "I hate it when people are mean-spirited and particularly when they do it anonymously. I think it's cowardly and not befitting anybody I know here. Anything anonymous annoys me."

Most professors remain against the idea of censoring thefacebook, and Bennett is adamant that education is the best course of action for any problem, but some believe it should be held up to certain standards of decency.

"I would think people ought to have some kind of recourse if someone uses thefacebook to ridicule another member of the campus. " Sreenivasan said. "In that sense, it would be an extension of the same principle that there have to be basic rules of civility in an academic community, otherwise we all suffer."

When users sign up for thefacebook, they agree to the terms of the site, which include not posting what is deemed offensive by staff or users. The terms stipulate that "profiles that purport to represent a fictional character or real individual who is not you" are inappropriate.

Although their rules for users suggest otherwise, thefacebook spokesperson Chris Hughes said the site is not trying to censor anyone.

"We're trying to ensure that thefacebook is a place where decent standard of social propriety are preserved in an online realm," Hughes said.