Notes in the Margins: Free speech, free college and a lottery-based labor force

College is about free speech, not stamping out rights Recently, Mississippi State basketball coach Rick Stansbury banned his team from using Twitter because some of his student-athletes posted critical comments following a loss. This was a frighteningly egotistical move by Stansbury — to think he has the authority to so easily stamp out the free speech rights of his student-athletes. (USA Today)

Free College Is the Answer to Our Higher Education Crisis New York City provided it during the Great Depression. America offered it to veterans after World War II. We need it today: Free College. Yes, I mean a tuition free college education for all qualified students. And there's a way to do it without a government bailout or corporate control. So politicians and pundits on the left and right should love it. Best of all, an existing model persuasively says the plan can work. (The Huffington Post)

Blogging is one of the most important things for an academic A new paradigm of research communications has grown up – one that de-emphasizes the traditional journals route, and re-prioritizes faster, real-time academic communication in which blogs play a critical intermediate role. They link to research reports and articles on the one hand, and they are linked to from Twitter, Facebook and Google+ news-streams and communities.  So in research terms, blogging is quite simply, one of the most important things that an academic should be doing right now. (Impact of Social Sciences)

More States Utilize Performance Funding for Higher Education Student success at community colleges and elsewhere is tied to funding, but academics are wary. (U.S. News & World Report)

Why Are Harvard Graduates in the Mailroom? Though a lottery economy is valuable to various industries, the thought of an entire lottery-based economy, in which a few people win big while the rest are forced to toil in an uncertain and not terribly remunerative dead-end labor pool, is unfair and politically scary.  (The New York Times)

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