Beloit College Mindset List

“Each August, as students start to arrive, Beloit College releases the Beloit College Mindset List, which offers a world view of today's entering college students…”

“The list is distributed to faculty on campus during the New Students Days orientation. According to McBride, “It is an important reminder, as faculty start to show signs of ‘hardening of the references,’ that we think about the touchstones and benchmarks of a generation that has grown up with CNN, home computers, AIDS awareness, digital cameras and the Bush political dynasty. We should also keep in mind that these students missed out on the pleasures of being tossed in the back of a station wagon with a bunch of friends and told to keep the noise down, walking in the woods without fearing Lyme Disease, or setting out to try all of the 28 ice cream flavors at Howard Johnson’s.”…”

It is also interesting to go back and read some of the archived Mindset Lists to see how really out of touch you might be (the older you are, the more applicable this is).

New Vrindaban could do something like this. My youngest son just went off to college. I asked him if he remembered Bhaktipada (Kirtanananda Swami). His response was he remembers pictures of him, but not the man himself. A list of devotee kids' going to college this year mindset could include:

1. Bhaktipada never lived in New Vrindaban
2. There has never been a gurukula
3. New Vrindaban has always been part of ISKCON
4. Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Candra have always been in this temple
5. There's never been a separately located brahmacary ashram
6. Women have never been sannyasis
7. Bahulaban has always been a ghost town
8. There has never been a zonal Acharya system