Welcome to the Beloit College Mindset List for the entering college class of 2014 Beloit, Wis. – Born when Ross Perot was warning about a giant sucking sound and Bill Clinton was apologizing for pain in his marriage, members of this fall’s entering college class of 2014 have emerged as a post-email generation for whom the digital world is routine and technology is just too slow. Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall. The creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and former Public Affairs Director Ron Nief, it was originally created as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references, and quickly became a catalog of the rapidly changing worldview of each new generation. The Mindset List website at www.beloit.edu/mindset, the Mediasite webcast and its Facebook page receive more than 400,000 hits annually. The class of 2014 has never found Korean-made cars unusual on the Interstate and five hundred cable channels, of which they will watch a handful, have always been the norm. Since "digital" has always been in the cultural DNA, they've never written in cursive and with cell phones to tell them the time, there is no need for a wrist watch. Dirty Harry (who’s that?) is to them a great Hollywood director. The America they have inherited is one of soaring American trade and budget deficits; Russia has presumably never aimed nukes at the United States and China has always posed an economic threat. Nonetheless, they plan to enjoy college. The males among them are likely to be a minority. They will be armed with iPhones and BlackBerries, on which making a phone call will be only one of many, many functions they will perform. They will now be awash with a computerized technology that will not distinguish information and knowledge. So it will be up to their professors to help them. A generation accustomed to instant access will need to acquire the patience of scholarship. They will discover how to research information in books and journals and not just on-line. Their professors, who might be tempted to think that they are hip enough and therefore ready and relevant to teach the new generation, might remember that Kurt Cobain is now on the classic oldies station. The college class of 2014 reminds us, once again, that a generation comes and goes in the blink of our eyes, which are, like the rest of us, getting older and older.
Ron Nief, Emeritus Director of Public Affairs See the Mindset List for the Class of 2014 See the Beloit College Mindset List webcast (viewable in the Microsoft Silverlight player) |
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The Beloit College Mindset List was initially a witty way of saying "watch your references," and has turned into a globally reported and utilized guide to the intelligent but unprepared adolescent consciousness. It is requested by thousands of readers, reprinted in hundreds of print and electronic publications, and used for a wide variety of purposes. The name is now licensed to a higher education group in New Zealand that produces its own list each year.
About the Authors:
Tom McBride teaches Milton, Shakespeare, and critical theory. He has team-taught a variety of interdisciplinary courses with both classicists and anthropologists. His interests in comparative discourse have most recently led him to an extensive project on Darwinian approaches to the study of literature. With Professor Shawn Gillen, he is co-founder of the department's new program in Rhetoric and Discourse. He has published both critical essays and creative non-fiction in journals as diverse as Texas Studies in Language and Literature, The Baker Street Journal, and Two Cities. For four years, he was a popular commentator on language for Wisconsin Public Radio. On campus he is known for the twice-yearly Keefer Lectures on a variety of subjects. Most recently he has authored essays for britannica.com on Raymond Carver and Allan Bloom, and for open democracy.net on Saul Bellow. He is an editor of the Beloit College Mindset List.
Ron Nief is emeritus director of public affairs at Beloit College in Wisconsin, stepping down this year after 14 years of service. His work at Beloit concludes four decades communicating the work of higher education starting with his alma mater, Boston College, in the late 1960s and including Brandeis and Clark universities, and Middlebury College. He is the editor of several books and has written for the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, the Gannett Newspapers and National Public Radio's Marketplace. The recipient of a Silver Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America he also received a Distinguished Service Award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. He created the Mindset List in 1998 and joins Tom McBride in many media appearances and talks around the country throughout the year.
Seated at left is Tom McBride, Professor of English and Gayle and William Keefer Professor of the Humanities, and at right is Ron Nief, emeritus director of public affairs at Beloit College. Each year, they work together compiling suggestions and releasing the final version of the highly anticipated Beloit College Mindset List.
Recent Conference Presentations, Keynote Talks, and Workshops:
- The ACT National Compass Conference
- The American Library Association Annual Meeting
- The Missouri Library Association Annual Conference
- The Madison (Wis) Area Technical College Faculty
- The New England Library Network
- The NCHELP National Debt Management Conference, Orlando, Fla.
- The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI)
- Book clubs Civic and education groups
Comments:
"Thank you for your wonderful presentation on the Beloit College Mindset List for the Missouri Library Association annual conference. It was a wonderful mix of humor, nostalgia, philosophy and thought-provoking content — just right for a dinner speech. Many people who attended the dinner told me personally how much they enjoyed it."
"Overall, an interesting and inspiring program. I walked away with a better understanding of student library users and their expectations based on culture and circumstance. Librarians will do well to ponder the sometimes weighty, but often quite enlightening, realities of generational change and cultural evolution when reflecting on how to provide more effective services."
"Bringing non-librarians to librarians, especially faculty like you who appreciate libraries and librarians, is a much-needed boost to our morale."
"The President's Program [at the American Library Association] was a wonderful experience for me, a highlight of my year as President, and one I will always remember. Best wishes to you."
Thank you for an excellent [workshop] presentation... People here really enjoyed this opportunity to reflect on developmental trends and conditions impacting our society... My surmise is that there will be a call for a return visit next year."
For information, please contact:
Ron Nief - Emeritus Director, Beloit College Office of Public Affairs
Email: niefr@beloit.edu
Phone: 608-363-2137
Tom McBride - Professor of English at Beloit College
Email: mcbridet@beloit.edu
Phone: 608-363-2307