mindset

This is the time of year when our late Dean, John McDaniel, would send around the latest Beloit College "Mindset List" to remind us all just how dated our own references have become, relative to our incoming students' stock of living memories. 


Had to look it up myself this year. A few items I'll bet the Dean would've noticed:

2. Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.

4. Al Gore has always been animated.

9. Had it remained operational, the villainous computer HAL could be their college classmate this fall, but they have a better chance of running into Miley Cyrus’s folks on Parents’ Weekend.

13. Parents and teachers feared that Beavis and Butt-head might be the voice of a lost generation.

14. Doctor Kevorkian has never been licensed to practice medicine.

15. Colorful lapel ribbons have always been worn to indicate support for a cause.

16. Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways.

20. DNA fingerprinting and maps of the human genome have always existed.

21. Woody Allen, whose heart has wanted what it wanted, has always been with Soon-Yi Previn.

27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.

28. They’ve never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.

29. Reggie Jackson has always been enshrined in Cooperstown.

31. The first home computer they probably touched was an Apple II or Mac II; they are now in a museum.

32. Czechoslovakia has never existed.

35. Once they got through security, going to the airport has always resembled going to the mall.

38. Bud Selig has always been the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.

65. They first met Michelangelo when he was just a computer virus.

66. Galileo is forgiven and welcomed back into the Roman Catholic Church.

67. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always sat on the Supreme Court.