The Asinine Politics of the Marist Mindset List. What incoming freshmen are thinking? Hardly.

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | October 7, 2022 | Peter Wood

[karpov]

Marist College for the last few years has carried forward a project originally conducted by Beloit College in 1998. The idea was to create a profile of topics of concern and cultural benchmarks for students entering their first year of college. It became known as the Mindset List, now the Marist Mindset List, after the Hudson Valley college that now produces it.

Let me begin by acknowledging that I come to this subject untainted by prior familiarity. I had never heard of the Mindset List, and, on first mention, I mis-imagined it to be a profile of Marist College’s own students, and then mis-imagined it again as a national poll of college students. It is neither of these things. Rather, a group of faculty members engage in “an informal campus exchange of these ideas documenting the worldview of these 18-year-olds” and decide on 10 topics they judge will provide “a cultural compass that tracks the challenges and celebrates the accomplishments of each incoming college class.” Yet, despite the resulting document’s humble origins, the MML is celebrated in high places and has, over the years, been covered by the New York Times, NPR, Inside Higher Ed, and other respectable venues.

The arbiters of this year’s list are three people: an associate professor of English, an assistant professor of art and digital media, and an assistant professor of criminal justice. I don’t doubt their good will and sincerity, but this would seem a heavy lift for any three people. Taking it in a relaxed spirit, however, what has the triumvirate decided are on the minds of this year’s freshmen? Inflation? After all, that will have a major influence over their lives now and into the future. But no, that’s not on the list.

[cranked]

Here is my overall assessment of fresh-out-of-high-school Freshmen: Most of them fail at reading, most of them fail at comprehending what they read, and most of them dumb as rocks.

[curious7]

I’m reminded of the joke about Universities being full of knowledge. Apparently, the freshmen bring a little in, and the seniors take away none, so knowledge accumulates.

[Steely Tom]

From the linked article:

Mindset List topic #6: “The debate on climate change is over...

First sentence of The Population Bomb, by Paul Erlich:

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over."

Published 54 years ago.

Pretty much every prediction made by Erlich was wrong, some laughably so.

[Red Badger]

Reality of teh Freshman mindset:

1. PARTY!

2. GET LAID!

3. REPEAT!.........................

[ProtectOurFreedom]

A recent deli purchase with an 18 year old clerk went like this:

Me. “I’d like a quarter pound of Cole slaw.”
Clerk. “We don’t sell it by the pound. We sell it by the ounce.”
Me. “Ok, how many ounces am I asking for?”
Clerk. “I don’t know.”
Me. “There are 16 ounces in a pound. I want a quarter of a pound. How many ounces is that?”
Clerk. “I don’t know.”
Me. “Ok, a quarter is one fourth, right? I want one fourth of sixteen ounces. That’s sixteen divided by four. How many ounces do I want?”
Clerk. “I don’t know.”
Highly exasperated me. “Just give me four ounces!”

True story, sadly.

[Vigilanteman]

The population bombers still browbeat the humble fundamentalist Lutheran agronomist Norma Borlaug for the real green revolution which made them look so stupid and insist they are still right, just off on the timing.