The ‘Mind-Set List,’ a Whimsical Reminder of Generational Change on Campuses, Gets a New Home

Tucked away last year in the announcement for Beloit College’s Mind-Set List for the class of 2022 was a small bit of news: After 20 years, higher-ed’s annual reminder on generational perspective would be ending its association with the Wisconsin college where it all started.

The list, released at the start of each academic year, tallies the notable events and cultural touchstones of 18 years earlier, the age of a “traditional” college freshman. Its conceit — which has drawn savage criticism from the list’s detractors and earnest explanations from its creators — is that faculty members mustn’t assume that students have knowledge of things that predate their own existence. But last August, the uncertain tone of the news release made it seem as if the curtain might be closing on a fixture of fall semester.

“It will continue in the future at themindsetlist.com or at a new institutional home,” the announcement stated, with no indication of where the list would end up, why it was leaving Beloit, or who was even responsible for the split.

The “where” question would be answered by last fall: Marist College, keeper of the well-regarded Marist Poll and one of about a dozen prospective partners that expressed interest, would collaborate on the production of the list and give it a physical home on the shore of the Hudson River.

“Marist really knew what we were doing and what they could do,” Ron Nief, creator of the list and a retired director of public affairs at Beloit, wrote in an email to The Chronicle. His fellow co-author, Tom McBride, an emeritus professor of English, expanded on the thought: “We picked Marist because its proposal was the most specific and detailed, and because it seemed to us, and still does, to be a school whose sense of creative innovation matches what we like to think is a hallmark of the Mind-Set List as well.”

As for “why” and “who,” Nief said the college had “ended the relationship rather abruptly.”

“Beloit had serious issues it was dealing with, and the communications and marketing people could not provide the support we needed with all the critical issues on their plate,” he wrote. “There was little explanation, but there was no real partnership.”

A Beloit spokeswoman said on Tuesday that the college had no comment on Nief’s assertion.

How It Got Started

The origins of the list are a bit hazy, but the story generally goes that some Beloit professors and staff members were unwinding on a Friday afternoon, commenting on the occasional blank looks they got from students unaware of relatively recent history or culture. So Nief, McBride, and others started writing down their thoughts and circulating them to encourage faculty members to “mind the generation gap” separating them from their students.

By 1998 the Beloit College Mind-Set List was officially born. Charles Westerberg, an associate professor of sociology, said that he and the list’s other authors have always seen it “as a conversation starter, not a set of pronouncements that are meant to get at some central features of 18-year-olds.”

Over the years, it became a favorite feature for news organizations, getting attention from places like The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle, and the Today show. Professors and higher-ed administrators share it with colleagues, and parents also pass it along. It’s also been artfully parodied by The Onion, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Thought Catalog. There’s even a website, Beloit Mindlessness, that is “dedicated to the mockery and eventual destruction of the Beloit Mind-Set List.” And it’s been criticized by a number of media outlets, including Vox and National Public Radio.

“Our sense of displacement when we realize how many years have passed since the last time we checked on something,” wrote an NPR critic, “isn’t their burden to bear, and assuming that they have ignored everything that happened before they were born is an awfully blunt way to measure ‘mindset.’”

Further, with more than 40 percent of college students being 22 or older, the Mind-Set List’s fixation on what happened exactly 18 years ago feels arbitrary.

All of this led us to ask its new sponsors at Marist College whether taking on responsibility for it was worth the potential hassle. Hasn’t it become a cultural relic, a one-trick pony whose best days are in the rear-view mirror?

In a word, No, they said.

The Future of the List

Martin Shaffer, dean of Marist’s School of Liberal Arts, and Julia Fishman, director of media relations, said people at the college are excited by the opportunity to help the list evolve and grow.

“We want to give it more heft,” said Shaffer, who sees potential to infuse the playfulness of the list with his college’s expertise in polling, perhaps organizing roundtable discussions to more deeply explore certain topics.

Already, the edition being released today — the 2019 Marist Mind-Set List for the class of 2023 — is taking on issues like sexual orientation, America’s racial demographics, and the rise of the surveillance society.

“The Marist folks are getting our minds around how we might use the list, how the list might change,” Shaffer said. “It’s very possible we might do different kinds of lists,” perhaps some from the student perspective.

This year Nief, McBride, and Westerberg collaborated on the list with Shaffer, Fishman, and a group of faculty members at Marist. That arrangement will continue for at least the next couple years, all parties agreed. Today at Marist’s center on New York’s Fifth Avenue, the Wisconsin team will participate in a panel discussion in conjunction with the launch of the new list.

And, if things go well, 18 years from now the first entry on the list for the class of 2041 may well read: “The Mind-Set List has always been produced at Marist College.”

The Marist College Mind-Set List for the Entering Class of 2023

(Published with the permission of Marist College)

Born in 2001, the incoming class of college students never shared the earth with Joey Ramone, George Harrison, Timothy McVeigh, or Ken Kesey.

Among their classmates could be Billie Eilish, Sasha Obama, or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s daughter Simone.

1. Like Pearl Harbor for their grandparents, and the Kennedy assassination for their parents, 9/11 is an historical event.

2. Thumb, jump, and USB flash drives have always pushed floppy disks further into history.

3. The primary use of a phone has always been to take pictures.

4. The nation’s mantra has always been: “If you see something, say something.”

5. The Tech Big Four — Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google — are to them what the Big Three automakers were to their grandparents.

6. Their smart pens may write and record faster than they can think.

7. Nearly half of their generation is composed of people of color.

8. When they pulled themselves up off the floor for the first time, they may have been hanging onto the folks’ brand-new Xbox.

9. There have always been indecisive quadrennial debates regarding the future of the Electoral College.

10. Oklahoma City has always had a national memorial at its center.

11. Self-contained, battery-powered artificial hearts have always been ticking away.

12. Because of Richard Reid’s explosive footwear at 30,000 feet, passengers have always had to take off their shoes to slide through security on the ground.

13. They are as non-judgmental about sexual orientation as their parents were about smoking pot.

14. They have outlived iTunes.

15. Heinous, sexually-based offenses have always been investigated by the Special Victims Unit on Law and Order.

16. The Mars Odyssey has always been checking out the water supply for their future visits to Mars.

17. Snapchat has become their social media app of choice, thus relieving them of the dilemma of whether or not to friend Mom.

18. In an unprecedented move, European nations via NATO have always helped to defend the U.S. militarily.

19. They may well not have a younger sibling, as the birth rate in the U.S. has been dropping since they were in grammar school.

20. PayPal has always been an online option for purchasers.

21. They have witnessed two African-American Secretaries of State, the election of a black President, Disney’s first black Princess, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

22. As they crawled on the floor, TV headlines began crawling at the bottom of the TV screen.

23. “Pink slime” has always been a food additive.

24. With flyovers, honor guards, and “God Bless America,” sporting events have always been marked by emphatic patriotism.

25. Only two-thirds of this generation identify as exclusively heterosexual.

26. Segways have always been trying to revolutionize the way people move.

27. YouTube has become the video version of Wikipedia.

28. There has always been an International Criminal Court, and the U.S. has never been a signatory.

29. Newfoundland and Labrador has always been, officially, Newfoundland-and-Labrador.

30. There has always been an American Taliban.

31. By their sophomore year, their generation will constitute one-quarter of the U.S. population.

32. Apple iPods have always been nostalgic.

33. They have always been able to fly Jet Blue, but never Ted and Song.

34. Quarterback Troy Aikman has always called the plays live from the press booth.

35. It has always been illegal to use a hand-held cell phone while driving in New York State.

36. Except for when he celebrated Jeopardy’s 35th anniversary, Alex Trebek has never had a moustache.

37. Face recognition technology has always been used at public events

38. Skilled DJs have transitioned into turntablists.

39. The Apple Power Mac Cube has always been in a museum.

40. The year they were born, the top NBA draft pick came directly out of high school for the first time.

41. They have always been concerned about catching the West Nile virus.

42. There has always been a DisneySea in Tokyo.

43. They have grown up with Big Data and ubiquitous algorithms that know what they want before they do.

44. Most of them will rent, not buy, their textbooks.

45. They have probably all been “gaslighted” or “ghosted.”

46. There have always been “smartwatches.”

47. Their grandparents’ classic comics have evolved into graphic novels.

48. They have grown up with a Patriot Act that has dramatically increased state surveillance to prevent terrorism.

49. Defibrillators have always been so simple to use that they can be installed at home.

50. Pittsburgh’s Steelers and Pirates have never played at Three Rivers Stadium.

51. Congress has always banned human cloning completely and threatened arrest for offenders.

52. At least one of the murderers of the four school girls in Birmingham, Ala. in 1963 has always been in prison.

53. Monica and Chandler have always been married on Friends.

54. Blackboards have never been dumb.

55. A Catholic Pope has always visited a mosque.

56. Cal Ripken, Jr., has always been retired.

57. The U.S. has always been withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

58. Euthanasia has always been legal in the Netherlands.

59. Teams have always been engaged in an Amazing Race around the world.

60. Coke and Pepsi have always been competing in the sports hydration science marketplace.

Don Troop is an editor. Contact him at don.troop@chronicle.com.