Profs get smartphones, so students can call them

As a professor, how do you get dropout-prone college students to stay in school? Give them your cellphone number. How do you get professors to promptly field text messages, calls and e-mails from students? Buy them smartphones and pay for the service plan.

That is the logic Georgia Gwinnett College employed when it decided to offer its more than 300 full- and part-time faculty members cellphones and encouraged them to respond to any calls or texts from students within 24 hours.

By Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-08-20-IHE-college-faculty-cellphones19_ST_N.htm