Once again Beloit College has issued its annual College Mindset List that looks at the “cultural touchstones that have shaped the lives of today’s first-year (university) students.”
The implication for their elders (or at least their instructors): Don’t assume too much. For example, for the incoming class of 2010: The Soviet Union has never existed; there has always been only one Germany; Manuel Noriega has always been in jail in the U.S.; and Michael Moore has always been showing up uninvited.
Those smart enough to be in college but young enough to lack a literal frame of reference for a lot of stuff makes for a fun rite of autumn and assures Beloit some national publicity.
But it should also underscore the mandate for each well-educated generation: Read the minutes of previous meetings.