TIUr nircclor H.obhie Shaekclforci t!'aches students ut the Piauu Vavona in Rome, Itu/11. 011 Fi>/J. 26. 201 :::;. The stuluc sta~1c/ing hehind Shc1ckc(forc/ wus the Fontana dei ()110/lro fo'i11111i. ll'hich r·(•p1·escntcd_f(ll//' coritincnls in one statue. I Photo cow·tcs11 of Brcrndon Rickett Bt/ All'x Winyrove I Claire llc'.fflcy In 2015, worldwide social media network Instagram boasted over 400 million active users monthly according to the company website. Over 1,400 of those users followed Harding University Florence Director Robe1t "Robbie" Shackelford (@roberteadshack). With the help of visiting professor Jeremy Daggett, Shackelford started his Instagram account in the spring semester of 2014. Shackelford said Instagram provided him a way to keep up with loved ones and estimated over 1,000 of his followers were former students. "For me it has been a wonderful way to see past students," Shackelford said. "Many are married and have families, some are sta1ting families, some are getting married, some are traveling the world with their work and some are busy at school." Each morning Shackelford posted a video of his surroundings saying, "Buongiorno a tutti," which meant "Good morning everyone," in Italian, and included the hashtag #italianphraseoftheday. Shackelford said he learned to use hashtags because they made it easier to send messages of encouragement. He estimated using about 100 different hashtags regularly. Senior Rachel Anzalone, who attended HUF in the spring of 2014, said her favorite thing about Shackelford's Instagram was seeing people and places she missed and reliving fond experiences through his frequent photo and video posts. "My favorite hashtag that he used was #thecreativecreatorstrikesagain," Anzalone said. "Because to me, that is just Robbie in a lll' F '1,3 nutshell with his personality and his loving soul and the way he appreciates beauty in creation." Anzalone said Shackelford left numerous encouraging comments on her posts, all of which reflected his caring spirit. Junior Kami Adams, a spring 2015 HUF student, said she was always on guard while overseas for fear Shackelford would capture an embarrassing moment on camera. "You had to be on your toes at all times," Adams said. "But at the end of the day, it didn't matter if you were or not because he was probably Instagramming anyway." By October 2015, Shackelford had posted over 2,300 photos or videos, often multiple times each day. Many students, like senior Brandon Helms, who attended HUF in the spring of 2015, and sophomore Seth Jernigan, who attended in the fall of 2014, saw Shackelford's frequent posts as glimpses inside his joyful spirit. "Robbie's Instagram is a live look-in to how he takes in the world around him," Helms said. "It reflects the pure joy that stems within him at every moment of the day." Jernigan, who returned to the HUF campus in the summer of 2015 for a two-week teaching internship, believed Shackelford's social media activity served as an instrument to reveal his love for his students and passion for his job. "I think it reflects how he fully invests in everyone and everything he does. He doesn't do anything half-hea1ted," Jernigan said. "It also reflects how he is aggressively seeking beauty in everything he does and wants to share it."
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