Old, But Still Fun to Read

This piece at Inside Higher Ed which calls for a more "professional" dress code for the professoriate.  The comments, as always, are where the hilarity ensues, because, you know, we're all so "over judging by externals, maaaaaaan!"

I have only my personal experience to speak from, but since I have a long and storied tradition of haranguing you people with the expertise that this experience confers, I will do it again:

Dress Like You Care.

That's it.  Because your students will look at you and make immediate assumptions about your character based on your clothing.  I know it's not cool to admit it, but it happens.  And if you're in your late 40's and you're still swanning about the classroom in "post-doc just rolled out of bed, dude, I need a blunt to get through the day" mode, your students will think one of two things about you:

1.  You're trying too hard to be cool, except you're old, and that's just lame and/or icky.

2.  You're eccentric and you probably smell bad.

Granted, neither of these opinions have any bearing on your intellect or your ability to teach, but they do have an effect on the amount of respect the students will give you.

Perhaps I'm more sensitive to this because I was both young and female when I taught, but I noticed quickly that students definitely treated you differently based on your attire.  For me, I didn't want to give them an excuse to see me as a peer.  I dressed in what I guess you could call "corporate casual" in order to reinforce the power barrier between me and the students.  Yes, I said power barrier, and yes, I said it in tones of abject approval.  All hail the power barrier!  Of course, I didn't have a deep-seated psychological need to be BFF with a bunch of callow 18 year olds, but whatever.

And it worked.  Because like it or not, young women who teach have to try a little harder to establish authority early on, and clothing helps.  I relaxed my dress code as the semester progressed, and we got into established patterns of behavior, but I still never did the whole jeans in class thing.

Again, this was in the humanities.  I probably wouldn't have worn skirts to teach in a lab environment, for practical reasons. As always, YMMV.

But let's not pretend that looks have no bearing on how others perceive you, relate to you, or how much they'll respect you. I mean, sure, people can overcome first impressions, but I guess I'm just wondering why you'd want to set up that uphill battle in the first place?

Of course, I've never been a fan of Don Quixote, so maybe that explains my attitude.