In 1996, as a student leader at Wichita State University, I authored a resolution titled “Centennial Message to the Class of 2095.” It was formally passed by the Student Senate and placed in the university’s time capsule to be opened in 2095. At the time, I was writing to a future generation about the social and environmental dilemmas we feared would shape their world.

Thirty years later, as we witness renewed environmental deregulation and deepening fractures in our social fabric, I revisited that message. What struck me is not nostalgia — but relevance. The concerns we named then are the realities we are living inside now.

For that reason, I am submitting the original text below, exactly as it was passed in 1996, along with the attached PDF from the University Archives. I offer it not as a historical curiosity, but as evidence that many of today’s crises were visible long ago — and that our responsibility to future generations has only grown more urgent.

When I wrote this message at age 37, I hoped it would serve as a moral transmission to a future generation. I never imagined that, in 2026, it would read less like a time capsule artifact and more like a mirror held up to our present moment.

I share it now because the long arc between 1996 and 2095 is not abstract. We are living in the middle of it. The choices we make today — environmentally, socially, politically — will determine whether the students of 2095 inherit a world shaped by fear and fragmentation, or one grounded in the values we hoped would endure: love, compassion and understanding.

Sincerely,

David Howard Wilkinson

Author, Centennial Message to the Class of 2095 (1996)