Academe: February 2008 Archives

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. 

Or - What, your tenured position not keeping you quite busy enough, dude?

Every campus has one.  Actually, every department probably has one or two, but at every university at least one permanently disgruntled (always tenured) faculty member manages to rise above the whining crowd and lodge him or herself permanently into the side of the university as a particularly pointless thorn.

I could spend time perfoming disparaging psychological analyses on what, exactly, is wrong with people who are miserable if they aren't miserable, but you get the picture.

In our case, the thorn is a total stereotype of the whole "fight the power, man" remnant of the 1960's, who has taken it upon himself to determine a) What the university stands for, and b) That we aren't living up to these standards.  Then he takes it upon himself on a regular basis to Send Angry Emails to the Editors of On-Campus Publications and Alert The Local and National Media to our shortcomings, which leads to conversations like this one:

Eager Newbie Reporter:  "Hi, just wanted to let you know we're sending a crew over this afternoon to talk to a faculty member about Pressing Local Hotbutton Issue X, and wanted to see if there was a member of the adminstration available to speak with us as well."

University PR Flack:  "Okay, who are you coming to see?"

Eager Newbie Reporter: "Professor Griper."

University PR Flack: (stifles giggle) "Ah.  Did the Professor contact you directly?"

Eager Newbie Reporter:  "Um.  Not sure.  Just following up."  [This is code for - a producer told me to do this, I'm looking for a juicy story, and this may just be the one!  Look out, local anchor with the helmet hair!  You're on notice!]

University PR Flack:  "Okay.  The go-to person on every aspect of this issue is actually Administrator Calm Dude.  Let me track him down for you.  What time will you be here?

Eager Newbie Reporter: "What about Professor Griper?"

University PR Flack:  (trying desperately not to let the deep sarcasm seep into her tone) "The professor is a thoughtful and committed member of the university community who feels deeply about this particular issue."

Eager Newbie Reporter: (perhaps sensing that something is not quite what it seems, but can't put his finger on it, and is seeing his helmet-hair anchor dreams evaporating) "OK.  Thanks."

University PR Flack: "No problem."  (hangs up phone and addresses office mates)  "Hey guys!  Gotta catch the six o'clock tonight!  Nutty McNutbar will be agitating against the MAN!  Live!  On camera!"

And so it goes.  I love my job - and I'm not being sarcastic.  I just have a deep and abiding appreciation for the unintentional hilarity that folks like this cause.  Perhaps one day, an hour or two after my retirement party, I will send a general email to whoever is the current Griper General and point out that they do have a job description for folks who want to be in charge of the university's direction--it's called Chancellor. 

But, you know, that would require them to be responsible for the consequences of taking constant pot-shots at people and administrators, so that's right out. 

What is it that our rabble-rouser is so fond of saying?  If you aren't part of the solution you're part of the problem?  Yeah.  Oh, by the way, Captain Disgruntled, Irony's holding for you on line two.