College sports are big business, so recruiting student athletes is big business. The NCAA limits the times coaches and recruiters can call or visit athletes, but text messages are all fair game. For now.

The Chronicle of Higher Education explained in an October 2006 story:

Before Chandler Parsons committed to play basketball for the University of Florida, his cellphone buzzed more than 100 times a day with text messages from college coaches.

The attention flattered the 6-foot-9 high-school senior from Winter Park, Fla. His cellular plan included unlimited text messages, so the onslaught did not run up his bill. And in some cases, the quick exchanges helped him get to know prospective coaches.

But the novelty soon wore off. “All these different coaches would text me saying the same thing,” he says, like “Hey, great game,” or “Look forward to hearing from you soon.” To make room for new messages, he had to empty his inbox twice a day. “It got a little crazy,” he says.

Now, the NCAA has proposed a ban on text messaging and is set to vote on the measure today.

Whatever the vote, it’s clear coaches had not only tapped into a loophole in NCAA rules, they’re following the trend in communications. A 2004 study in South Korea revealed a preference for texting over emailing, with two-thirds of students saying they rarely email, but SMS messages were up 40% year over year. A July 2005 Pew Internet Study found US teens preferring texting (via IM and SMS) over email — “email is increasingly seen as a tool for communicating with ‘adults.’”

sms, texting, ncaa, recruiting, ban, text messaging, text messages, college sports, communication, student athletes

Middlebury College is proud to have taken a stand against Wikipedia this year:

Members of the Vermont institution’s history department voted unanimously in January to adopt the statement, which bans students from citing the open-source encyclopedia in essays and examinations.

Without entirely dismissing Wikipedia — “whereas Wikipedia is extraordinarily convenient and, for some general purposes, extremely useful…” — the decision paints it with a broad brush — “as educators, we are in the business of reducing the dissemination of misinformation.” (Though a site search reveals it’s frequently cited there.)

Chandler Koglmeier’s op-ed response in the student newspaper, however, was rather pointed:

[Professor Waters' states that] “the articles can improve over time, but there’s always an [emphasis on] change rather than something finalized.” I wasn’t aware that knowledge was a static thing. [...] I think you should talk to our nation’s medical schools. They seem to have advanced beyond the world of Hippocrates and the Greek doctors in the past few years and might be teaching something that is dangerous.

Intrigue, indeed. My question is how will Middlebury students be taught to evaluate their information sources after they leave college? Who will tell them what to trust then?

ban, information literacy, middlebury, middlebury college, wikipedia