A note about the Beloit College Mindset List To save readers the time and effort of writing to us about the Beloit College Mindset List, we offer four brief explanations. The Mindset List is not a chronological listing of things that happened in the year that the entering first-year students were born. Our effort is to identify a worldview of 18 year-olds in the fall of 2007. We take a risk in some cases of making generalizations, particularly given that our students at Beloit College for instance come from every state and scores of nations. The "Class of 2011" refers to students entering college this year. They are generally 18 which suggests they were born in 1989. The list identifies the experiences and event horizons of students as they commence higher education and is not meant to reflect on their preparatory education. We welcome correspondence, suggestions, and requests regarding the Mindset List. Ron Nief |
BELOIT COLLEGE RELEASES TENTH ANNUAL MINDSET LIST FOR
THE ENTERING POST-COLD WAR CLASS OF 2011
Beloit, Wis. -- When they welcome the class of 2011 in the coming weeks, American colleges and universities will be saying hello to the generation born as the Cold War was ending. For them, a Russia with multiple political parties and a China with multiple business enterprises seems quite normal. They’ve grown up in a time of triumphant capitalism, where it’s common for stadiums to be named after corporations and where product placements have always been yet another clever way for companies to sell their wares.
Each August for the past decade, as faculty prepare for the academic year, Beloit College in Wisconsin has released the Beloit College Mindset List. Its 70 items provide a look at the cultural touchstones that have shaped the lives of today’s first-year students, most of them born in 1989. It is the creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Public Affairs Director Ron Nief.
Latchkey kids for most of their lives, students entering college this fall think nothing of arriving home with parents still at work, then e-mailing or texting their friends, instantly updating their autobiographies on “Facebook” or “MySpace,” and listening to their iPods while doing their research on Wikipedia. They’ve grown up with Rush Limbaugh urging his fellow Dittoheads to excoriate liberals, with having been taught by an equal number of women and men in the classroom, and with women having been hired as police chiefs of major cities.
Food has always been a health concern. Consumer awareness about ingredients and fats has always been energized. They’ve never “rolled down” a car window, and to them Jack Nicholson is mainly known as the guy who played “The Joker.”
As usual, they remind their elders how quickly time has passed. For them Pete Rose has never been in baseball. Abbie Hoffman’s always been dead. Johnny Carson has never been live on TV, and Nelson Mandela has always been free.
As for the Berlin Wall, what’s that?
See the Mindset list for the Class of 2011
More about the Mindset List
Click here to learn about the people who help compile each year's Beloit College Mindset List.
In 2005, Massey University—a public institution with campuses in various cities in New Zealand—released the inaugural New Zealand Mindset List, which was inspired by the Beloit College Mindset List.
Click here to view Massey's Mindset List from down under!