The University of Missouri Is Forcing Its Students To Download A Location Tracking App To Prevent Them From Skipping Class
Source - The University of Missouri is expanding its Big Brother-like phone-tracking program Tuesday: Now, all new students on campus will be “required” to use an app that surveils their movements, the Kansas City Star reports.
The app, called SpotterEDU, was developed by former Mizzou basketball coach Rick Carter and uses the campus’ Wi-Fi networks and short-range phone sensors to ensure students don’t cut class.
Previously, the app was only required for freshman athletes and jocks who were struggling academically.
“A student will have to participate in the recording of attendance,” MU vice provost for undergraduate studies Jim Spain tells the Star of the now-mandatory policy.
Even students without phones, he says, are expected to participate.
"In related news, University of Missouri enrollment is down six-hundred percent." Seriously, I've never understood why certain schools are so invested in attendance. All colleges and universities care about is whether or not your tuition check clears and they need to stop pretending otherwise. If someone wants to piss their money away by not going to class, that should be on them. The entire point of going to college in the first place is to A) drink B) shag and C) learn to be accountable for your actions while in an "adult" environment. Having an app track your location does the opposite of that.
From the Vice Provost -
But Spain insists he’s not creating a surveillance snitch state on his campus — at least not one that’s worse than the rest of reality. “[SpotterEDU] is a lot less intrusive than how we, all of us, are tracked and tagged electronically every day,” says Spain. “We have not taken away a student’s freedom to not come to class, but if they are not in class, the professor is just going to know.”
Old-school attendance roll call has apparently become outdated — now MU knows the moment a student enters and leaves a classroom. Phone Bluetooth turned off? The app notifies the student about that.
He doesn't want to create a surveillance state yet that's exactly what he's doing. If he really cared about his students he would let them succeed and fail on their own. He would understand that failure, whether it be skipping class or otherwise, is just as important to success when it comes to creating resilient, "real-world-ready" students. Both Jim and the University of Missouri should be ashamed of themselves for instituting this policy.
The ACLU has a problem with it too...
“We have deep privacy concerns about this,” American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri policy director Sara Baker tells the local news outlet, adding that the app makes her question “what sort of privacy rights students might be giving up to attend public universities.”
So if you're reading this and thinking about attending the University of Missouri- don't. There are plenty of other options. This is a trend that is hitting multiple colleges and it's something that needs to stop. Athletes is one thing, Jack Mac wrote about it a while back, but even then it feels wrong. Thank God I went to school when I did. I don't know how I would've handled being in such a suffocating environment.