Page 2 / News, Trends, Gossip and Stuff To Do : Here and Now : Study Guide--for Professors

Students entering college this fall are of a distinctly different era than those who teach them. How’s a professor to cope with the generation gap? At Beloit College in Wisconsin, school administrators have compiled a list titled “Mindset of First-Year Students in the Class of 2003,” which is distributed to all faculty. Now in its second year, the list was initially compiled as a joke. Last year, teachers were warned of students who had never heard of Pac Man, and who would mistake Kansas, Boston, Chicago, America and Alabama for places, not musical groups.

“I should’ve known a great list that made people feel old would have a great response,” said Ron Nief, the school’s public affairs director. On this year’s roster:

* Most of this year’s students entering college were born in 1981.

* They are the first generation to be born into Luvs, Huggies and Pampers.

* John Lennon and John Belushi have always been dead.

* There has always been a woman on the Supreme Court, and women have always been traveling into space.

* They have never needed a prescription to buy ibuprofen.

* They never realized that for one brief moment, Gen. Alexander Haig was “in charge.”

* They never heard Walter Cronkite suggest that “that’s the way it is.”

* They were born and grew up with Microsoft, IBM PCs, in-line skates, NutraSweet, fax machines, film on disks, and unregulated quantities of commercial interruptions on television.

* Somebody named Dole has always been running for something.

* “Cats” has been on Broadway all their lives.

* While they all know her children, they have no idea who “Ma Bell” was.

* They never heard anyone say, “Book ‘em, Danno,” “Good night, John Boy,” or “Kiss my grits,” in prime time.

* They never knew Madonna when she was like a virgin.

* They have never had to worry about the packaging of Tylenol.

* They have never seen Bob Marley perform reggae live.

* Jesse Jackson has always been getting someone out of trouble someplace.

* Strikes by highly paid athletes have been a routine part of professional athletics.

* The moonwalk is a Michael Jackson dance step, not a Neil Armstrong giant step.

* John Cougar has always been John Cougar Mellencamp, or vice versa.

* Travel to space has always been accomplished in reusable spacecraft.

* The term “adult” has come to mean “dirty.”

* The year they were born, reports condemned violence on television and in Hollywood films for producing the likes of John Hinckley.

* They have always been able to get their news from USA Today and CNN.

* They have spent more than half their lives with Bart Simpson.

* They don’t understand why Solidarity is spelled with a capital “S.”

* They don’t think there is anything terribly futuristic about 2001 and were never concerned about the year 1984.

* They have no idea how big a breadbox is.

* Camelot refers to King Arthur’s seat of government, not John Kennedy’s.

* President Kennedy’s assassination is as significant to them as that of Lincoln or Garfield.

* They have probably never dialed a phone.

* The only thing a church key has ever opened for them is a church.

* They have never seen white smoke over the Vatican and do not know its significance.

* They cannot identify the last United States president to throw up on a Japanese prime minister.

* Ketchup has always been a vegetable.

* Susan B. Anthony has always been on the dollar but probably never bought them anything.

* They cannot imagine waiting a generation to get the dirt on the U.S. president.

* They felt pretty special when their elementary school had top-of-the-line Commodore 64s.

* ET, Gremlins and the Hulk provided their Halloween costumes and lunch box themes.

* They were introduced to Kramer on the TV show “Fridays.”

* They remember when “Saturday Night Live” was funny.