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August 20, 2008
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News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education
Feb. 8
A Call for Professional Attire
In his Journals, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. noted a hotel’s faded elegance: “[T]he lobby is filled with tieless men wearing double-knit trousers.”
Related stories
- Two-Year in Hell, June 30
- Learning From Cats, Jan. 17
- The Professor’s Ten Commandments, Thanks to Notorious B.I.G., Aug. 28, 2007
- Turning 30: A Self-Interview, May 15, 2007
- Out With the Old, Jan. 9, 2007
Tielessness: a bad sign everywhere.
Professors, it’s been said, are the worst-dressed middle-class occupational group in America. Instead of being role models, we’ve convinced everyone to slum. As clothing theorist Nicholas Antongiavanni explains in The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men’s Style, “[M]any came to believe the protestation of academics that taste was nothing but a fraud perpetrated by the great to keep down the people.
It was not always so. In the academic golden age, outliers who refused to follow high standards were viewed with disdain. Edward Larson describes a law professor who, after being fired, represented Scopes in the 1925 monkey trial. John Randolph Neal could walk into a faculty lounge today and, without having evolved a bit, fit right in:
Neal never spent much time on campus — often arriving late, if at all, for class, devoting class time to rambling lectures about current political issues rather than to the course subject matter, and giving all his law students a grade of 95 without reading their exams. The dean also complained about Neal’s “slovenly” dress, which later deteriorated into complete disregard for personal appearance and cleanliness.
At the trial, “[u]nwashed and unshaven as usual, [Neal] lectured the court in a manner reminiscent of his chaotic teaching style.”
During Paul Fussell’s teaching career, “practically compulsory was the daily get-up of gray flannel trousers and tweed jacket, often, of course, with leather elbow patches, suggestive at once of two honorable conditions: poverty and learning,” according to Uniforms: Why We Are What We Wear. When tweed was no longer boss, however, scruffiness became the standard. At Tom Wolfe’s Dupont University, “the current fashion among male professors ... was scrupulously improper cheap-looking shirts, open at the throat, ... and cotton pants with no creases — jeans, khakis, corduroys — to distinguish themselves from the mob, which is to say, the middle class.”
If we’re going to have a dress code anyway, we should be able to do better than “scrupulously improper.” I therefore propose a Uniform Uniform Code (a lawyers joke — sorry) for professors. My effort to change clothes might not be fully successful, but there’s hope. As Michael Bérubé says, “[D]ressing fashionably in academia is like clearing the four-foot high jump. The bar is not that high.”
I. The Childlike Professoriate
Why the dress problem? Professors might be grown-ups chronologically, but, if you’ve attended faculty meetings, you know we haven’t gotten the behavior patterns right. Joseph Epstein writes:
One of the divisions of the contemporary world is between those who are prepared to dress (roughly) their age and those who see clothes as a means to fight off age.... I know of associate deans who never wear neckties. Others — balding, paunchy, droopy-lidded — have not had a fabric other than denim touch their hindquarters for decades. They, poor dears, believe they are staying young.
Roger Kimball adds, “There is something about the combination of denim and tenure that is inherently preposterous.”
Trying to look like students is partly self-denial, but scruffily dressed faculty also have highfalutin goals. Some sartorial underachievement is aimed at furthering a “nurturing” atmosphere. The classroom setting should be non-confrontational, it’s argued, with professors and students hangin’ out as buddies.
But it doesn’t work, except perhaps for sexual poaching. Radical economist Bob Lamb discovered “that if I buy my suits at Brooks Brothers and look like a banker, it is much easier to get Harvard students to believe what I am telling them.” Bonding is nice only if you don’t expect intellectual activity.
Dress once represented a quest for excellence, not leveling, as Donald Kagan noted in a paean to Joltin’ Joe:
[H]is day was not ours. America was a democracy, but of a different kind. Its people were more respectful of excellence, both of matter and manner. . . . People wanted to behave according to a higher and better code because they believed that in doing so they would themselves become better, worthier, “classier.” Those who are too young to remember should look at the movies and photographs of games at Yankee Stadium in DiMaggio’s day. The men wore white shirts and ties under coats and hats, the proper attire in public, even at a ball game.
Russell Baker thinks the shift to shiftlessness occurred in the 1960s:
People [then] had so much money that they could afford to look poor. Men quit wearing fedoras and three-piece suits to Yankee Stadium and affected a hobo chic — all whiskers and no creases. Women quit buying hats and high-heeled shoes and started swearing like Marine sergeants.
People generally act better when they’re dressed right. If a professor is sending a signal of seriousness, of civility, students will pick it up. I defer to no one in admiring the Marines, but the world is not a better place when everyone is swearing like a Marine sergeant and dressing in hobo chic.
II. The Code
Here’s a draft Uniform Uniform Code:
Faculty members shall, when on college grounds or on college business, dress in a way that would not embarrass their mothers, unless their mothers are under age 50 and are therefore likely to be immune to embarrassment from scruffy dressing, in which case faculty members shall dress in a way that would not embarrass my mother.
That’s it. Brevity works. Unlike good clothing, a statute can’t cover everything.
Anyway, this is just a draft: Maybe your mother is better than mine for this purpose; the phrase “my mother” probably doesn’t work for a statute of general application; perhaps the key age for mothers should be 70 (80?). Whatever figure is used, it will have to be adjusted periodically to capture changes (downward) in mothers’ (other than my mother’s) standards.
So change what you wish, and then interpret the UUC reasonably. When in doubt about appropriate dress, check what people used to wear: it’s usually safe, as Arthur Benson noted, to dress in the “style-before-last.” For men, Fussell’s default rule works: “You can’t go wrong with the classic navy blue blazer and khakis.”
Sanctions for violators? I guess not. I’d like to take ‘em to the cleaners, but you’d wind up with idiots charging breaches of academic freedom. At a minimum, however, violators ought to be dressed down in public for dressing down in public.
III. The Tie
Are ties that important?
For men, yes. The tie is important because it’s always been important; its importance makes it important. You don’t change norms without good reasons for doing so.
Ties show seriousness — respect for the subject, the students, and oneself (whether or not you really respect any of them). Fussell says ties “serve no purpose except vanity,” but striking a blow for civilization is a good purpose.
IV. Conceptual Difficulties
Skeptics of my project — all poorly dressed — see this as hopeless. I’ll deal with a few criticisms.
A. Geography
How, skeptics say, can I draft a uniform uniform code? Isn’t it inevitable that appropriate dress for the fruited plains will be different from that for the purple mountains?
Of course. When Florida professors teach in Maine, their dress should meet Maine standards and vice-versa.
That doesn’t mean anything goes. A flannel suit might not work in Florida in August, but shorts and sandals don’t therefore become de rigeur. Moms know how to dress in Maine and Florida and so should you.
B. The Sex Question
We have a sense of appropriate menswear — Jeffrey Hart wrote that “any male professor who comes to class without a jacket and tie should be regarded with extreme prejudice unless he has won a Nobel Prize”” — but this isn’t a males-only profession anymore. Who’s to say how the Hart principle should apply to women?
Me. The rule that applies is the feminine equivalent of the standard for men. Ask female associates at one of the Wall Street firms that haven’t succumbed to perpetual casual day whether there’s uncertainty about appropriate dress. They might not like it, but they know what to wear.
Are pants acceptable? Of course, in the right climate at the right time. Color of suit? It depends on what you’re doing. Ask your mother.
Besides, women profs have a style-guide, Emily Toth’s Ms. Mentor’s Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia. Some of Ms. Mentor’s more important standards are
1. Avoid poufy sleeves.
2. Dress frumpily.
3. Act like an old fart.
All good advice, and about all you need to know.
C. Outside Class
Maybe it should matter that a professor will not be teaching on a particular day. I’ll take this issue — is class reserved for class — under advisement, but the guiding consideration is: You’re a professional; dress accordingly. (I’m certainly willing to grant exemptions for anthropologists in the rain forest and sociologists going undercover.)
D. The Dissidents and the Tasteless
Skeptics note that some folks will flout any rules. If coat and tie are required, dissidents will break the code’s spirit by wearing CAT with shorts and sandals. You know who you are, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
And some will observe the letter of rules but with taste (or mother’s taste) that is unbelievably bad. Is any tie good enough? What about an iridescent green suit that whispers Chernobyl? Or suppose otherwise acceptable attire is covered with food that the academic, focused on the world’s intellectual work, is oblivious to. Rules are rules, but in enforcing them we should be sensitive to the feelings of those who are severely disturbed.
V. Political Over- and Undertones
Oh, I hear you say: Here’s another political reactionary (true enough) trying to impose his views on nonbelievers.
Well, others have a sense of propriety too. Ralph Nader dresses conservatively. The Green Party convention may have been a gathering of the Birkenstock brigades, but you almost never see Nader out of his gray suit, white shirt, and tie. Nader wants to be taken seriously, and so should you.
There is a political component to this. Jay Parini defends F.R. Leavis, who “made a name for himself by refusing to wear a tie at Cambridge.”
Leavis meant to appear intellectually isolated, but he was also advertising his leftism. That was desirable, says Parini, because “[t]eaching is, after all, a performance art.” Students find clues to “our attitudes toward the world, even our politics, in the styles we assume.... It pays to think of clothing as a rhetorical choice, and to dress accordingly.”
The rhetorical choice is why professors should dress in boringly similar, tasteful ways. By following the UUC, we limit the extent to which students speculate about us rather than study. Parini might want students pondering his politics — an easy task — but I don’t want mine ponderously pondering mine.
*****
Does any of this matter? Richard Posner, who can hide suspect attire under judicial robes, ridicules Jacques Barzun, who had written that “[t]o appear unkempt, undressed, and for perfection unwashed, is the key signature of the whole age”: “This is absurd, and not only because Americans, however casually they dress, remain fanatical about hygiene. It is absurd in its insistence that every change in culture, even so mutable an aspect of culture as the dress code, is fraught with menace.”
And, Posner wonders, a decline from what?
[M]ost declinists at least specify a benchmark. But it is difficult even to identify the golden age of formal dress. . . . Are coat and tie formality enough? Or must the soft collar give way to the stiff detachable collar, or perhaps to the ruff? Must women wear corsets, and must men dress (that is, put on a tuxedo) for dinner?
The judge gets the crowd snickering with his riff on the ruff, but he stretches his point beyond Spandex’s limits. Any well-dressed freshman should question Posner’s premise that, just because we can’t draw a bright line, no distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable are possible.
At a minimum, I hope we can agree on one thing: Teaching is a thongless task.
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Comments
Three Cheers For Erik Jensen!!!
I too lament the academy’s disdain for a dress code that is consistent with our high calling. I too would like to return to an earlier time when men – and only men – took pride in their personal appearances in a manner that commanded the respect, not only of their students, but of society in general.
Upon opening the following Uniform Resource Locator, please maximize the image on your screen and then click on the image for a quite wonderful close-up view of the scholars whose deserved reputations clearly tower over those of the vast majority of the charlatans who call themselves scholars today. About the dress code, I can only say, “Wow!”
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Sanzio_01.jpg
And for more information about the setting, read ...
http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/555679
I am ready Professor Jensen ... why should mindless businessmen have all the fun!
Disclaimer: The writer freely admits to occasionally and deliberately accessing Wikipedia ... although, in his defense, he would never use PowerPoint.
Frizbane Manley, at 7:55 am EST on February 8, 2008
There needn’t be a new dress code for professional academics.
Take the word “professional” seriously, take yourself seriously, and take your institution and discipline (or is it “field?” Hard to tell by the way some present themselves), and their history and traditions seriously, and exercise common sense.
Failing that, sub fusc.
Smartly, at 8:45 am EST on February 8, 2008
maybe it IS generational
I enjoyed this piece...certainly in large part as I absolutely agree with it. Being the son of a professor (we chose very different fields, a generation apart) perhaps I am colored on my thinking. But I do find the rather conscious dressing down of several of my own colleagues a slap at the whole process of higher education. One senior member of the faculty looks like he’s ready to paint the sailboat on a Saturday—but is often seen in the bathroom dressing up to the nines for some social event where he cares what people think. That’s exactly my point—-such a purposeful sloppy look shows a lack of care for the process and the people involved in it—both students and colleagues. How much effort does it take to at least look neat and professional? While I usually wear a coat and tie, a good sweater and dress slacks and polished shoes can do almost as well. But show your respect for what is going on—and who is doing it. Stop trying to live in the sixties rebellion—or at least hold that for the weekend and time away from campus.
Chris Sterling, professor at George Washington Univ, at 8:45 am EST on February 8, 2008
I agree with everything except the tie part.
I’m still convinced that ties are not only the last vestige of Aristophanic comedy’s phallic Kordax costumes, but also that they became obsolete when buttons were invented to replace laces on the front of shirts.
Jim Baron, at 9:05 am EST on February 8, 2008
Next!
I’m really glad I didn’t waster further time reading this entire column. I think the pathology on display is summed up pretty well by the author himself: “faculty members shall dress in a way that would not embarrass my mother.” No need to ponder further.
Cranky Old Prof, at 9:05 am EST on February 8, 2008
What?
This is ridiculous. This flies in the face of academic freedom and individual expression. If I wanted to conform to societal norms of dress, or any societal norms at all, I would have chosen a different profession.
ACR, at 9:05 am EST on February 8, 2008
too much
I think requiring a tie is a bit much. Before working in academia I had to wear a white shirt and tie every single day. Guess what I do not ever wear now?
I think it also depends on the discipline someone teaches. I don’t thi8nk I could take a business prof seriously wearing jeans nor an art prof in a suit.
On a side note I had a marketing professor who would have a suit on one day and jeans on the next. To make matters worse he looked like Newman from Seinfeld.
Jeff, at 9:20 am EST on February 8, 2008
How about the simplest of solutions — a return to the wearing of academic robes on a daily basis? Dignified, professional, and they can hide a host of sartorial no-nos.
I would not, however, encourage the wearing of the mortarboard nor even the tam, except perhaps in case of rain.
Kristen Burkholder, at 9:25 am EST on February 8, 2008
One question: Are socks required with the blue blazer and khakis?
M C Smith, NoILLU, at 9:35 am EST on February 8, 2008
Dress codes
I sincerely hope that this treatise was written tongue planted firmly in cheek. We in the Art Department believe in substance over style. I can visualize the pottery instructor being found dead because his tie got caught in the potter’s wheel, or my constant replacement of ties because the tie dips into the fixer in the darkroom thus ruining the developer when it dips into that chemical. The painter could, I guess, use the tie to apply paint in a creative new way or after several semesters the professor could just frame the ties and call them Expressions on the Milieu of Fashion. Not every professor teaches in a lecture hall. We teach in studios where it gets a little messy from time to time. Please do not paint me with your ideas of style over substance. Don Bevirt Chair Art Department Southwestern Illinois College
Donald Bevirt, Assoc. Prof at Southwestern Illinois College, at 9:45 am EST on February 8, 2008
Good riddance to the tie
I never understood why tying a rag around your neck is considered good looking. It baffles me. I care more about a person’s productivity and attention to detail then if they are wearing a tie or not. I hope that I am judged and evaluated not by my appearance, but the work I do. This whole dress code thing is SO superficial and outdated.
Jim, at 9:45 am EST on February 8, 2008
Tenured Radicals in Denim Attack!
This is a great piece that echoes many of things I’ve felt for a long time. More faculty members need to read Bourdieu (or some 2nd-hand version) to understand that their refusal to play the cultural capital game (by dressing poorly) is just another form of game playing. Anti-style is still a style, it just looks lousy. And we need to read more Goffman. think about your presentation of self — we’re all in one giant Drama Club whether we like it or not, and dressing in the Hippy role isn’t going to win over the kiddies. They’re going to tune you out when you try to teach them about, um, Goffman.
The article also reminded me why I hate Roger Kimball. Saying that you should never use denim is like saying you should always serve white wine with fish — it’s an brainless rule you might tell someone before sending them off on their first date, and it certainly fits Kimball’s simplistic authoritarian mindset.
Brian, Asst Prof at Large Midwest U, at 9:55 am EST on February 8, 2008
Are you kidding?
As I read this article I anxiously awaited the comedic pause or interjection but I didn’t notice one. How disappointing.
Tim O, Assistant Professor at USUHS, at 9:55 am EST on February 8, 2008
Dress vs. behavior
Society in general has become much casual. One area where this is particularly apparent is in the casual nature of dress that is now commonplace. Few people dress up to attend church, live theatre or symphony concerts, dining out, or shopping. Students attending class wear sweatpants, pajamas, exercise outfits, and baseball caps — and this is for classes in the middle of the day. So it seems the battle over professional attire has already been lost.
Being a “professional” is more about behavior (showing up to class on time, being prepared to teach, responding to email in a timely fashion, being respectful of others, etc.) than about the clothing that you carry around.
T-bone, at 9:55 am EST on February 8, 2008
On Professional Attire
I enjoyed the humor of the piece. Basically, what it comes down to is this: We’re all intelligent people and, as such, the motto should be “use your best judgment.” Perhaps a shirt and tie is the best way to go for teaching a business course but that would not be practical (nor possible safe, as one reader points out!) in a studio art class or a chem lab. Personally, I don’t wear a suit when I teach because in my discipline I think I might be alienating my students but I also don’t come to class in jeans and my Tori Amos concert t-shirt (I’m not too sure that you could use “academic freedom” as a defense for choice of fashion).
New to the Profession, at 10:30 am EST on February 8, 2008
I agree with the analysis of the origins of widespread casual dress in the academy, though I think it does not go far enough: in the late 60s and early 70s when I was an undergraduate, the call was for “relevance,” smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and sometimes even sitting on the floor discussing the subject at hand or perhaps the weighty matters of the day in a language punctuated with profanity seemed a way to cry out against simply going on in the normal fashion when cities were burning and soldiers were dying. Of course, now that I am a tie-less prof in my fifties, they still are, but the sartorial gesture hardly carries the same message today. In the intervening years all those gestures have not only become commonplace, they have been co-opted and sold so thoroughly that our students have known no other world. In hindsight it is easy to question the significance of the gesture in earlier times as well: how much of a protest was it to wear blue jeans when the Jefferson Airplane was recording commercials for the Levis brand? But I am not convinced that a return to coats and ties would bring an increase in either professionalism, seriousness or respect. If I remember the figure correctly, well over sixty percent of high school students go on to some form of higher education (something is telling me the figure is even higher), and we will never return to a time when colleges and universities served only elites and few commoners allowed into the hallowed halls, and a very different standard applied throughout society. If we stood alone in our casualness, I might feel differently.
Yes, I would prefer greater respect from my students, but when the president of the institution has students call him “Bob,” and their customer satisfaction seems our most pressing mission all the better to retain them, it is unlikely that I can get my students to refer to me as something other than my given name. They would do the same no matter my style of dress. I invite Professor Jensen to come teach in coat and tie in my windowless classroom at 80+ degrees with the projector going full blast, at 2:30 in the afternoon with the accumulated heat of an entire day of such classes.
In the end I think a return to coat and tie would not only represent a band-aid on a gaping wound, it also constitutes no panacea. Some of the biggest fools I know always wear them.
An Aging Coat-and-Tie-less Prof, at 10:30 am EST on February 8, 2008
Dressing for success
Here is another take on academic attire.
http://facultystaff.vwc.edu/~pgoold/regalia.html
Criticizing clothing conventions has been part of philosophy since Socrates’ advocated nudism in Book I of the Republic. What is it rational to wear? Perhaps lawyers should wear suits. But is it rational to be a lawyer? Perhaps a male professor should wear a suit if he wants his students to believe what he tells them. But is it rational to see the role of the professor as teller of things to be believed? Our dress occasions ideas in our students. What ideas would we like them to have? If we would like them to be more reflective about their lives, then modeling a variety of attitudes toward conventional business attire might be just the thing the academy should do. Uniform code? I don’t think so. Not even one based on the tastes of a person as gentle and as loving as my mother.
Patrick Goold, at 10:30 am EST on February 8, 2008
Questions from a neophyte on a college dress code
If a sweater is chosen in lieu of a tie, may the sweater be tied around the neck and how far should the sleaves extend down the chest? Should the tie be wide or narrow and is a windsor knot acceptable? Ever willing to learn in the world of academic fashion.
Robert Brader, at 10:45 am EST on February 8, 2008
Poor clothing helps make us rich
I was highly amused by this article, despite the straw man arguments (I have never met profs who justify slovenly dress by claiming to nurture students or protest The Man).
But clearly this author has not read The Millionaire Next Door, in which authors note that eschewing the Wall St wardrobe helps make the professoriate more likely to accumulate wealth than higher paid, nattily dressed types.
With that in mind, Kristen Burkholder’s suggestion is the best solution. We could buy a couple of robes, even pricey robes, and never have to worry about a work wardrobe again.
cgw, at 10:45 am EST on February 8, 2008
Sweaters & Ties
“If a sweater is chosen in lieu of a tie, may the sweater be tied around the neck"No. Don’t do it, man! You’ll look like Preppy McPrep off to the polo match.
“Should the tie be wide or narrow and is a windsor knot acceptable?"Depends. The skinny suit trend has brought narrow ties back in style. Whatever you do, just promise me you’ll wear the tie at the proper length so it’s touching or covering the top of your belt. Far too many professors think it’s okay that their tie only go 1/2 or 3/4 down the shirt — and it’s not — it’s a frickin’ fashion travesty!
Brian, Officer at Fashion Police Academy, at 11:20 am EST on February 8, 2008
Show me the money
Man, I hate wearing ties. Left the business world gleeful that they would no longer be required. I know of a consultant who charges one rate with no tie, and 3 times that rate with a tie. Going tie-free is thus a benefit that my cash-strapped university can easily provide. Myself, I’d be willing to wear a tie in exchange for about a 33% raise, or maybe in exchange for a course release or two.
Business Refugee, at 11:50 am EST on February 8, 2008
I have a junior colleague who has been invited to a function to meet our new President (this is her first month on the job and she is having all sorts of meet and greets). He told me that this would occasion the purchase of his first necktie. I didn’t bother to tell him that I had been to many events with previous Presidents of the university without wearing a tie because I figured if he goes to the trouble of dressing up when he meets the President, maybe he’ll then go to the trouble of washing his hair and shaving for the rest of us.
The author of this piece is clearly not saying that everyone should wear a tie every day. What he is saying, it seems to me, is that dressing as if you take your job seriously is a benefit to everyone involved. I would add that there really is no limit to how much one should wish to be taken seriously and taking some bit of care in the way you present yourself will only help. Of course, one’s behavior is generally more important than one’s appearance in this regard but if you behave in a way that says you want to be regarded seriously but then show up to teach class in flip-flops you are working at cross purposes.
Finally, if one really doesn’t know the answer to the question, “Is it rational to see the role of the professor as teller of things to be believed", then attire will indeed become irrelevant. Anyone who for a moment entertains the notion that the answer to this question might be, “No", has already stopped taking himself seriously and no amount of dressing up will disguise that from the students.
PC, at 11:50 am EST on February 8, 2008
Where are the women?!
One line about ‘the same rules go’ for women is total crap. This column was painful to read; one quote after another by old men. Painful for the same reasons why I don’t read my local newspaper’s Opinions page — men who only see the world as filled with other men. Suits? Ties? Nostalgia for those faculty wives who looked pretty and baked cookies, perhaps?! Jesus. 50% of the readership is probably female. I will take this as a sign that the author believes female professors dress well enough so that he did not feel the need to comment. Thank you for the compliment!
That’s Dr. Female to you, at 12:25 pm EST on February 8, 2008
Women?
I don’t have any problem with dressing a little more professional, but what bothers me in this article is that female professors are an afterthought, a sidenote. The dominant thrust of the article seems concerned with men and their ties, while women are relegated to “the sex question.” Further, Ms. Mentor’s advice that women “dress frumpily” and “Act like an old fart” sound an awful lot like: “women should be careful not to look too sexy.” Apparently, men don’t have to worry about being too sexy (rather they must avoid “sexual poaching"). I’d appreciate a more even-handed approach, addressing the concerns of both men and women from the start. Or, if not, then a recognition from the beginning that this is meant for men because the author has no expertise when it comes to fashion for women. The article should then be balanced with a separate article written specifically for women.
Patrick, at 12:25 pm EST on February 8, 2008
Ah, but believed by who? If a tie puts a barrier between you and your students (I teach writing, BTW) then dressing to impress a job interviewer at Enron does little good, right?
The question has to be, “Who is your audience and what do you need to look like to get through to them?” Currently, on my campus, a tie would stand in the way of learning.
My mom likes the way I dress, by the way. She’s my mom.
Patrick Dolan, at 12:30 pm EST on February 8, 2008
Thought You Should Know
Robert Brader asks a very important question, partially answered by a recent analysis of optimal tie widths conducted by Brooks Brothers. The social scientists at BB concluded that tie-widths for male academics in the U.S. (California excepted) should have a normal distribution, with mean, M, and variance, V, defined by ...
M = 6.4 + 4.3|sin (t + 37)| centimeters
V = 0.16 centimeters squared
where t > 1660 is measured in years. Of course you will recognize 1660 as being the year a brave contingent of Croatians won a very important battle against the Ottoman Empire, were invited to Paris to meet Louis IV, and invented the cravat (derived, of course, from “Croat”) just for the occasion. Since that time, real warriors sit in the background as our enormously paid titular warriors, winners of world series and super bowls, visit heads of state.
But you already knew that, didn’t you?
Frizbane Manley, at 12:30 pm EST on February 8, 2008
Re PC’s final para
It seems to me that Socrates, at least the Socrates of the smaller dialogues of Plato, is not taking on the role of a teller of things to be believed. It also seems to me that the role he does take on is a valuable one. I suppose it is possible that, in the sense of “taking oneself seriously” intended above, Socrates does not take himself seriously. An interesting discussion could be had about seriousness.
Patrick Goold, at 12:50 pm EST on February 8, 2008
I’m with Kristen Burkholder — my life would be far easier and less expensive (except for the initial outlay and cleaning bills), if I could wear academic robes to work. Will there be pockets?
Julie Hofmann, at 12:50 pm EST on February 8, 2008
Aloha Shirts Required!
I just want to note that “formal wear” sometimes varies much more widely than the mere fabric of suits or patterns of ties. For the last six years I have taught in Hawai’i, where professional and formal wear requires Aloha wear, aka Hawaiian Shirts.
I’ve spent most of my professional career dressing more formally than my colleagues (I was one of the only male faculty to even consider a tie, or consistently wear a jacket, at the liberal arts college of my first appointment), but anyone who wears jacket and tie here is considered absurd and subject to severe and public ridicule: I wore a jacket and tie on campus once, to meet with visiting accreditors, and every fellow faculty member who saw me asked if I was going to a meeting on the mainland!
So I wear Aloha shirts and dress slacks, like all the professionals around here, and I’m very properly dressed. I have to admit, though, when I DO go back to meetings on the mainland, it feels like I’m a grown-up again.
Jonathan Dresner, University of Hawai’i at Hilo, at 1:10 pm EST on February 8, 2008
My mom told me not to judge a book by its cover, and to show everyone respect regardless of how they look (read: economic status, race, cultural background, religious affiliation). There are many societies in which western business attire is not the norm. Embrace diversity — it is what makes life interesting.
Call me Ray, at 1:50 pm EST on February 8, 2008
Ties, yes!
What’s wrong with you anti-tie people? A necktie is a man’s phallic plumage; it is our chance to inject a bold stripe of color into our otherwise blasé wardrobes. I love my neckties and wear them frequently.
Even worse: when the opportunity arises, I’ll wear a bow tie. That’s right, a bow tie in an English department. And I own at least four sportcoats with leather patches on the elbows. One of them is tweed.
Before I returned to academia, when I worked in the software industry, my co-workers nicknamed me “the professor” because I dressed well. Even then I wore ties when no one else did, but the cultural assumption was that my sartorial intelligence (you heard me right) was somehow representative of a university experience. Though I can see from whence it came, it surprises me that it still exists.
I’m a white male in my late thirties and I know that my students are more engaged and participate more intelligently when I’m well dressed. Their engagement is almost directly proportional to the formality of my attire. When I’m tieless but wearing a sweater (of course over a collared shirt), they’re more relaxed, but also slower to jump into discussion. Perhaps more importantly, I know that I writer better (faster and more intelligently) when I’m dressed with sufficient gravitas. Sometimes, even on days I don’t teach and I don’t go on campus, I’ll still put on a tie just to help me stay focused. (And no, you jokers, it has nothing to do with cutting off the flow of blood to my head.) I take myself more seriously when I dress seriously.
I’m perfectly happy to have the rest of you wandering around in your jeans and t-shirts. I’m happy to have your students “relate” to you because you dress just like an eighteen-year-old. I’m happy to have to stay wrinkled and scuffed, because it just makes me look better and, when the time comes, more likely to drink your milkshake.
jw, at 1:50 pm EST on February 8, 2008
...
I could not find a valuable insight in this mess...
At what point does it follow that your clothing is a validation of your ability, less instances of personal safety?
To believe that a certain dress code is needed to qualify as an competent and effective educator is misguided. If the intent is to demonstrate to students that a certain field of practice requires a certain level of dress, then I would agree only to the point it is part of the learning. By this I mean it is part of the value gained form the course work.
Does wearing a “suit” qualify you as competent? The sweeping comments of this article would lead one to believe so.
I agree with T-Bone’s comments regarding behavior, while I still claim In addition, “professional” is a lame and subjective word akin to “Christian". You can be a “good” person and not be a Christian, just as you can be a competent and effective educator and not be “professional".
What is more of a worry is in Section II “The Code” Jensen uses my mother, what is worse his mother or any mother’s level of embarrassment as a benchmark for what is appropriate. Mr. Jensen, there are things known as healthy adult relationships. Said relationships are inherently conditional. These conditions are dependent upon understanding where one’s influence and authority end.
I wish you well, I do not wish you success in this endeavor.
Cheers,
Tony Fortner, at 1:55 pm EST on February 8, 2008
On commenting
What does it say about us that we can generate dozens of comments on an essay about academic dress and only four comments on the article about the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act?
I’ll tell you what is says: we academics have our priorities straight!
By the way, I’d be glad to spruce up my wardrobe. But with the rising cost of living and the declining purchasing power of my already powerless salary, I should be able to save up for a new suit by 2018 or so... Watch out, Class of 2022, I’ll be dressed up for you!
Unlucky Hank, Wm. H. Devereaux Prof. of Literary Studies and Other Stuff, at 3:25 pm EST on February 8, 2008
tie
I think I’ll go to Hawai’i! I’d much rather wear a colorful shirt than this frumpy sweater I’ve got on—it being casual day where I work.
Les, at 3:25 pm EST on February 8, 2008
I think Paul Graham said it best, “If you’re a nerd, you can understand how important clothes are by asking yourself how you’d feel about a company that made you wear a suit and tie to work. The idea sounds horrible, doesn’t it? In fact, horrible far out of proportion to the mere discomfort of wearing such clothes. A company that made programmers wear suits would have something deeply wrong with it.
And what would be wrong would be that how one presented oneself counted more than the quality of one’s ideas. That’s the problem with formality. Dressing up is not so much bad in itself. The problem is the receptor it binds to: dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as “suits.”
Nerds don’t just happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity.”
http://paulgraham.com/bubble.html
Chris, at 3:30 pm EST on February 8, 2008
Pants
“Are pants acceptable? Of course, in the right climate at the right time.”
When are pants not acceptable attire for women?
What next? Corsets and covered ankles?
Deborah, at 3:30 pm EST on February 8, 2008
Our Hawaiian friends have the right idea. I bright shirt trumps a frumpy sweater or wrinkled tie any day. And the beach is never far away in Hilo, either.
Les, at 3:30 pm EST on February 8, 2008
Thank you, thank you. One of my biggest complaint here as always been how unprofessional people dress and act. When I got a job here at CWRU I had high expectations in regards to professionalism, but I was quickly disappointed. Only a few people dress and act professional.
Carrie, at 3:30 pm EST on February 8, 2008
I try to look somewhat respectable in class, wearing a suit jacket and khakis. I have never, however, worn a tie — I have an unusually thick neck (even for my weight) and I’ve never been able to button an otherwise well-fitted shirt to the top without chocking a bit and getting light-headed. After a while I swore off ties forever, not even wearing them to weddings to funerals. So please, at the very least, reconsider the tie bit.
Matthew Stevens, at 3:30 pm EST on February 8, 2008
DRESS CODE BLUES
the level of interest in the topic tells us we’re dealing with something beyond good manners, something about class and status, self-esteem, professional reputation, and personal values. of course, the Sixties allowed many of us to reject the mores and uniforms of our elders. we adopted our own uniforms, usually going for the casual or even sloppy look, demonstrating that we didn’t need to conform to societal norms to achieve professional standing. but some arenas still compelled compliance with such norms. courts would insist on men and women lawyers ‘respecting’ the court through certain expected forms of attire. many of us pushed those norms to their limits, but men showed up in coats and ties and women in dresses or faced sanctions by the court. some of us moved to academia. do law students expect me to dress as a lawyer or a professor? blue suit and red tie or sweater and blue jeans. there is no doubt that nonconforming dress had much more meaning 30 years ago in the middle of political upheaval than it does now. its no longer viewed as a political statement of nonconformity with the status quo. it’s looked upon as being sloppy or lazy or even disrespectful, even if it doesn’t affect the quality of a professor’s work in the classroom. or does it? overwhelmingly, my students respond positively when i show up in ‘lawyer’ garb because i affirm their socialized view of legal professionals: this is how they think i should dress. so, vulnerable to the desire to gain their approval, i dress ‘lawyerly’ quite often. but what is the socialized vision of a humanities professor? is it different than the socialized vision of an art professor? i don’t see an art professor walking around in coat and tie. i want my art professor to be more casual, perhaps a bit eccentric, you know, ‘artsy’. we all adopt a role, sometimes losing ourselves in the process.
my experience is that high status white men are the most likely to indulge in the sloppy or unconventional look. they have the privilege to do so, most people will still take them seriously, their status can withstand the critique. but when have you ever seen a professor of color walk into a classroom in sandals, old jeans, and an old t-shirt barely covering the midriff (man or woman). not likely. so, in some way, the ’sloppy’ professor is flaunting the privilege they enjoy, most often as white men with strong credentials. it’s all too confusing. nonconformity is one of the hallmarks of a strong, intellectually curious and challenging society. and conformity to cultural norms is often stifling and oppressive. the elitism of so many of the professions is reinforced with these artificial norms that often value style over substance.
but, i’m done with my sloppy phase. i like my suits and ties. but imposing dress codes would send me back to sandals and hippie beads in protest. who’s gonna tell some Ph.D. in astrophysics to tuck in his shirt?
a confused law professor, at 3:30 pm EST on February 8, 2008
The solution to this non-problem is very simple. Professors and instructors should all wear white lab coats. They are professional, they are flattering if cut properly to suit the wearer’s figure, and they never go out of style. They’re also not uncomfortable or confining like ties, heels and so on. And they’re practical for those academics who sometimes have to work in labs, with their hands, with heavy equipment or hazardous substances, etc. This will also provide female faculty an academic uniform or mode of dress that is professional and comfortable, and not more expensive nor more confining than their male colleagues’ equivalents. And it will have POCKETS.
Assistant Research Cynic, Enormous State University, at 3:55 pm EST on February 8, 2008
Impression Management
I am in complete agreement with those who expressed their disgust that women were basically an afterthought in the essay and with those who have acknowledged that dressing down is basically a white male privilege. Research indicates that male faculty often try to dress more casually in order to be perceived as more approachable by their students whereas women feel the need to dress professionally in order to be taken seriously by their students. At my campus, many of the male professors wear shorts in the summer, in the classroom and out, but none of the women. I have seen the torn jeans/midriff shirt with hairy belly poking out outfit on male colleagues, but never female colleagues (even minus the hairy belly). So, perhaps women were given short shrift in the article because, as has been mentioned previously, we are much more likely to already be dressing in a more buttoned-down manner.
50ish Female Faculty, Vowel State University, at 5:00 pm EST on February 8, 2008
No noose is good noose?
An engineer teaching on my campus has noted it is dangerous to start out the day by putting one’s head in a noose! For us with clear consciences, it’s not a problem.
My summer job in college at an apartment complex was titled “landscaping” but my paper stub said “outdoor maintenance.” As I stood there in the early mornings with shovel in hand, watching the residents drive off in shirt and tie in their comfortable vehicles on their way to their comfortable jobs, I determined to secure a position of similar accoutrements. Now here I am with shirt and tie in my cozy office correcting papers while the rain drizzles across the window pane.
Do the clothes make the man? Essentially, it’s all academic.
bluechip, Faculty at Green River Community College, at 6:05 pm EST on February 8, 2008
My institution is seriously exploring the creation of a law school. This article and the responses have just about convinced me to oppose it.
Fred Sullivan, Associate Professor at Wilkes University, at 9:15 pm EST on February 8, 2008
If indeed 50% of college courses are taught by adjuncts making 50% per course of the income of a tenured professor, how exactly are those underpaid teacher-slaves supposed to pay for the same attire that well-paid businessmen and businesswomen can afford?
This debate is just more fuel to the fire of the exploitation and demands made by the real clueless in academe.
get a grip, at 5:10 am EST on February 9, 2008
Ms. Mentor Bites Back
As the author-channeler of Ms. Mentor, I do bristle at the characterization of her fashion advice as merely “frumpy, old farty, not poufy.”
In fact, her advice in _Ms. Mentor’s Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia_, in her monthly _Chronicle of Higher Education column_ (http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/09/2007091101c/careers.html and her forthcoming _Ms. Mentor’s New and Ever More Impeccable Advice for Women and Men in Academia_ (U. of Penn, late 2008) is far more nuanced, clever and chic in its own fusty way.
One question remains unanswered. What does the author’s mom wear?
Emily Toth
Emily Toth, Louisiana State University, at 5:10 am EST on February 9, 2008
Hospital scrubs
People spend plenty of effort primping, preening and meticulously crafting their “look” out of jeans and an AC/DC T-shirts. Rock star jeans are painstakingly torn with the precision of an Army Sergeant’s stripes.
Everyone should just give it up and wear hospital scrubs. They are equalizing, comfortable and stain resistant.
Aatos, at 12:45 pm EST on February 9, 2008
Clearly something has been lost with the loss of standards of dress, and those who are strongly opposed to standards of dress are often notably selfish and juvenile. I have seen one of my husband’s (national laboratory) colleagues arrive at a wedding reception wearing shorts, t-shirt and white socks shoved into sandals; his wife wore short overalls. Everyone else was dressed in upscale, even dressy, attire, and this couple didn’t have the social sense to pay respects and promptly leave. The colleague in question was supposedly “brilliant” at his job and rarely corrected at his work place. He is also known to be arrogant. How is he supposed to be taken seriously by colleagues from around the world when he travels? Different professions, like different academic departments, should invent their own standards of attire that are appropriate to the traditions of their niche. When no standards are set by institutions, the young fill in the blanks, usually with their towering estimate of their own importance.
Anne B Butterfield, at 2:10 pm EST on February 9, 2008
Deception with style
“if I buy my suits at Brooks Brothers and look like a banker, it is much easier to get Harvard students to believe what I am telling them.”
Doesn’t that say it all? Moral: if you dress in jeans, students might have to think for themselves about the content of the lecture, rather than simply trusting the father-figure in a fancy tie.
J, Prof. at East Coast U, at 2:10 pm EST on February 9, 2008
Academic Dress
Well, robes would be fine, but Yale’s have one hook in the front at the neck. So you still have to worry about what to wear underneath.
I like a (formerly from California)colleague’s analysis: it’s like the freeway. You wear what your colleagues wear.
LM
LM, at 3:50 pm EST on February 9, 2008
Are you kidding?
I work with Patrick Dolan — in the same department no less- and believe me — the only thing that gets in the way of learning — we teach at Iowa — is poor teaching, archaic ideas and a closed professorial mind.
Sometimes Suit Wearer, at 4:00 pm EST on February 9, 2008
One more thing...
That is not to say that Pat is not an excellent teacher. He is. I only meant to say that it matters less what you wear and more how and what you teach!
Sometimes Suit Wearer, at 4:40 pm EST on February 9, 2008
All jokes and sarcastic comments aside, it’s worth noting (1) that the classic “college professor look” is considered highly stylish in some circles (see, for instance, http://www.mensflair.com/style-advice/college-professor-look.php), and (2) that a number of academics both real (the late Edward Said, Bernard-Henri Lévy) and fictional (Gary Cooper in Ball of Fire, Indiana Jones, Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code) are thought of as nattily attired. Professors, in other words, need not dress like lawyers or bankers. They can, in good conscience, dress like professors.
Matt Thomas, at 6:25 pm EST on February 9, 2008
Style or Substance?
I’m a student, and dress makes absolutely no difference. In my department, there are probably three highly, nationally respected professors. One I have never seen wear a coat; one I have never seen wear a tie; one’s daily uniform consists of flip-flops, bermuda shorts, and a loud floral shirt.
Nobody (among the students, at least) takes these people any more or less seriously because of what they wear. Their expertise, their ideas, their classroom presence—this is what sets them apart. Clothes DO NOT make the man, and I lose a little bit of respect for anyone who still clings to that worn-out saw.
Number44, at 12:05 am EST on February 10, 2008
LOL! Someone used ‘Edward Said’ and ‘intellectual’ in the same sentence!
Seriously, in the engineering world I have found that the concern for professional attire in day-to-day settings is usually inversely proportional to the professionalism on the part of the concerned. If I ever have to go back to wearing a tie every day, there will be he** to pay.
P.S. I just KNOW the author’s buddy George Zimmer put him up to this.
SMSgt Mac, at 12:05 am EST on February 10, 2008
Mathematicians already have a uniform
All mathematicians are required to wear T-shirts and long shorts, and either Birkenstocks or sandals made of webbing and closing with velcro. In winter, we may wear socks with the sandals, with white or black being the preferred color; pants may be worn instead of shorts if the temperature drops below freezing. Male mathematicians are required to grow beards. Beards are optional for female mathematicians.
Cheap! Easy! Uniform!
Wacky Hermit, at 12:10 am EST on February 10, 2008
it’s really about respect
It’s quite telling that nearly all the comments are oriented to the professor: how comfortable s/he might be, freedom of expression, the assumption that only stupid people wear suits ....
What is notably lacking in most of these comments is any awareness that neat dressing of the classic professorial type signals respect for the student and for one’s work in the classroom. Like basic grooming, it says that the work we are about to engage on each class session is worthwhile and places demands on both of you, the students, and myself as teacher.
Nor is this a gender issue in the eyes of this woman. There are plenty of options for women to wear that are at the same level of formality as, say, a jacket, slacks and collared shirt are for men.
Robin Burk, at 12:10 am EST on February 10, 2008
Show me the money!
I’m a professor, and I want to seriously object to one of the comments ... that professors earn $100,000! I would happily wear a tie even in the shower for $100,000 p.a. I guess you’re talking about law and business professors. I’m luckier than some, but I know professors whose salaries are less than half of that. I know high school teachers in California earn more than me. People seem to have a very inflated view of the salaries we earn ... I think it’s because they think we’re being paid what highly trained professionals SHOULD be paid. Not that I’m complaining ... I love my job. I’m just not doing it because I earn a lot of money ... that is (in my view) the major sacrifice we make in order to be academics. Oh yeah, I also wear a tie to work.
Jon, in California, at 12:10 am EST on February 10, 2008
Good article, even if so many readers are determined to rationalize their own sloppiness as some sort of virtue. I’m naturally “sloppy” myself; even in tweed & tie I tend to look a bit like a homeless person. That’s accidental; I don’t pretend that it’s an accomplishment.
William Whitelaw, at 12:10 am EST on February 10, 2008
Is this incredible BS typical of academia? I’m 30 years past my doctorate and into the real world. I have no memory of whether my profs wore ties or not. They could have come to class in a morning coat or in gold plated jock straps (or to be fair to the ladies, bikinis) for all that I cared, so long as they gave useful info.
Dave Hardy, Baron, at 12:10 am EST on February 10, 2008
“I never understood why tying a rag around your neck is considered good looking.”
In our society, when someone dies in a gruesome, messy way while in a public place, it has become custom to cover the dead body with a cloth.
We do not do this because the cloth is good looking.
bobby b, at 12:10 am EST on February 10, 2008
I can’t imagine that teachers and professors in third world and developing countries shop at Brooks Brothers. But I’d venture to say they are better dressers than some of our American coleagues. There does seem to be a bit of arrogance, self absorption, or at the very least, laziness, in the way alot of Americans dress.
Denise, at 12:10 am EST on February 10, 2008
well-dressed oppressed
I have taught philosophy at various institutions for over fifteen years and I have always worn a jacket and tie. Over the years I have repeatedly heard the question “what are you all dressed up for?” Once an aging badly dressed baby boomer librarian simply assumed I taught business because of my tie. My feeling is that if students (or their parents) are paying 30,000/year for a college education, the least I can do is wear a jacket and tie out of respect for the dignity of the educational setting.
Angelo, Professor at Liberal Arts College, at 12:10 am EST on February 10, 2008
Professional Attire
I disagree with the tie, but a frizzy multi-colored wig, red ball on the nose and 2 foot long shoes should be mandatory.
Arty, at 12:10 am EST on February 10, 2008
Waah-hah-hah, I don’t wanna wear that nasty ol’ tie!
Geez, what a bunch of whiners. My neck’s too big, I’m too dumb to remove my tie before operating machinery, I don’t want to go the dry cleaners, I’m too cheap to buy a suit.
Dressing professionally is not about YOU, it’s about YOUR STUDENTS. It’s one of the hundred little things you do to subtly transform unkempt high-school graduates into educated adults who society will take seriously. We’d like to think our students are all great intellectuals, but most aren’t. Many of them won’t “get it” in their courses until 3 or 4 years after they graduate; very often getting through 15 hours of coursework is less Deliberate Study and more “monkey see, monkey do.” Students model their behavior on people they trust and respect, so why be a seedy-looking model?
Mike Anderson, Lecturer at University of Texas at San Antonio, at 12:40 am EST on February 10, 2008
I will happily wear the clothing expected in the private sector when my academic institution enforces the behavior expected in the private sector.
Lest anyone be fooled by thinking that the world in academia is the same as the private sector — if we can’t get the same protections from harassment, academic freedom, etc. for the price of enjoying some of the perks (i.e., attire, tenure). Believe me, I prefer the perks.
chrisnicel, at 6:55 am EST on February 10, 2008
East Coast/West Coast?
Um so there’s a serious divide in my experience between my female peers who hail from the East Coast and are in grad school in SoCal and those who are SoCal born and raised. The courses we teach have a lot of international students in them and for their sakes along with my East Coast background, I dress professionally and can’t for the life of me understand the following:
Teaching, presenting, or interviewing: 1) in flip flops 2) in a cleavage baring top 3) in a nipple revealing bra4) assessorized appropriately for going to a night club
I don’t get it. However, it seems like everyone gets a job somewhere. So maybe it’s just me, and maybe I’d rather head East after I graduate.
Ms.Soon to be PhD, Somewhere in SoCal, at 7:00 am EST on February 10, 2008
No hypocrisy!
I generally wear a tie, but I think if women don’t have to wear pants, neither should men.
cynical prof, at 7:00 am EST on February 10, 2008
Socks
Socks are NOT required with that smart blazer and khaki ensemble if you’re also wearing BOAT SHOES.
Frank, at 8:40 am EST on February 10, 2008
Professional attire
It is interesting to note that even in companies where suits and ties are the norm, the people who actually do the managerial work — middle managers — take their jackets off, roll up their sleaves, and loosen their ties once they start work. Top management in such companies don’t usually do this, but then, top management are not themselves doing the real work of the organization, but merely motivating and supervising those below them who are doing the grunt work.
Why is this, if not because jackets and ties are uncomfortable working attire, and actually inhibit the production of output?
This article is yet another example of dumbing-down of our society, a turn to the superficial. If we want an academy in which people are judged on their outputs, rather than on their fashion sense, we will ignore such silly diatribes as this.
Peter, at 8:40 am EST on February 10, 2008
You had me in the classroom, which is a business venture.
You lost me on pretty much everything else. In particular, your skewed vision of the historic “importance” of clothing. “The tie is important because it’s always been important...” Since this is patently false, your argument falls on its face. Where is your rebellion at the advent of long pant legs on men? My understanding is that is a recent invention (say from mid 1800’s).
For the most part, this sounds like Ann Althouse, and that ain’t no compliment.
Oligonicella, at 9:00 am EST on February 10, 2008
Give me a job
I’m an unemployed academic. Give me a job, and I’ll wear a suit every day. I’ll wear a tux, if you want.
I came of age in the Sixties and fell for all of that rebelliousness nonsense. I don’t think dressing down did me a bit of good either professionally or socially. I now think that that sort of thing is for the rich, and since I come from a lower-middle-class background, I just try to avoid it. I haven’t worn jeans in a decade.
JFP, unemployed, at 9:15 am EST on February 10, 2008
I’ve always looked at this from the point of view of the customer, the student consumer of the instructor’s professional services. Does the professor see this as a professional relationship and dress accordingly or is this a chore like taking out the garbage or washing the car?
Jim, at 12:25 pm EST on February 10, 2008
Gowns
If we follow Kristen’s suggestion and go to everyone wearing robes I am never shaking hands with a male professor again. Just saying...
Art, at 6:30 pm EST on February 10, 2008
Show me the money...
and I’ll buy the wardrobe. As an adjunct, I make about $3000/class. I also pay for my own health insurance. I also pay to fuel and maintain the car which enables me to shuttle between three separate institutions to teach five classes/semester. Throw in rent, food, etc — well, you do the math. I do believe in dressing professionally but right now, the best I can afford is the five pair of dress slacks and eight shirts which I rotate on a careful calendar so that I don’t end up wearing the same red shirt every Tuesday. Male colleagues can wear the same ratty jacket over the same ratty t-shirt, paired with the same ratty jeans day-in, day-out, but as a woman, I don’t have that luxury. I don’t “dress down” in protest; I dress as best I can with my limited income. And my students somehow look past that and actually try to arrange their schedules so that they can take multiple classes with me. Go figure.
alwaysanadjunct, at 12:15 pm EST on February 11, 2008
Dressing professionally
Thank you all. This was a very entertaining exchange. I went to school in the 60s, and as I recall my professors wore ties and a lot of corduroy jackets, smeared with chalk at the sides and back. One wore seersucker and kept his hands jammed in his pockets to such a degree that when he took them out, the pockets were ‘puffy’—stretched out of shape. They all usually needed a haircut. It was the academic garb—shabby, but professional. I liked it when people dressed for occasions like plays, the opera, weddings and funerals, but they don’t so much, anymore. Still,I am surprised when the couple who sit next to me in church look like they interrupted rototilling their garden to come to a service.
Now I work in the library of a small college, and the faculty dress in jeans and knit shirts, and say it is the Microsoft uniform. I have twice had graduating students come to me just before a job interview in a panic: “How do I put this on?” they said, waving a tie in one hand. One guy had just bought his first tie at Fred Meyer on the way to his job interview—I give him credit for wanting to dress for the occasion.
I think things are beginning to become more formal—just a little. Anyway, I hope so. My brother the bond trader is wearing suits again after going through 10 years of Microsoft uniform. Faculty do serve as role models and truth sayers, no matter what they wear, and I think students can learn from one’s garb as well as one’s gab.
Marian the librarian, at 6:55 pm EST on February 11, 2008
words, words, words
I’m impressed by the number of people who say that a) it’s what inside that matters and b) ties put a barrier between them and their students. Of course, they’re not always the same people.BTW, formality is not always a bad thing. Learning has formal elements, and dress can help make students aware of them.
Douglas Lewis, at 1:50 pm EST on February 12, 2008
Some invalid assumptions
STUDENTS ARE NOT CUSTOMERS!
SUITS DO NOT MAKE YOU INHERENTLY MORE RESPECTABLE!
JUST BECAUSE YOU GREW UP IN A CULTURE THAT EQUATED FORMAL ATTIRE WITH PROFESSIONALISM DOES NOT MEAN THAT I [OR ANYONE ELSE] DID AS WELL!
That is all.
Metatron, at 10:05 pm EST on February 12, 2008
Lame. I’m a postdoc astrophysicist. My experience is generally that those faculty members who are consistently in coat and tie or skirt tend to be taken less seriously, not more.
The tie-wearers stand out like peacock refugees from the HR department at MegaCorp, Inc. The implication is that they’re not sufficiently “serious” because they’re the kind of people who would devote time on a regular basis to dry-cleaning and high heels.
Maybe this is a science-math culture thing, but I can’t imagine any of us in dresses or tweed coats on a daily basis. The idea verges on ridiculous. We’re here to get work done, and you want to talk about pantyhose? Please.
I would say that for teaching undergraduates, it is a good idea to wear the tie or skirt.
Apart from that, part of the reason I stayed in academia and didn’t go into finance is because in academia the focus is on the ideas, not on the dress code.
astrophysicist, at 5:20 am EST on February 13, 2008
Fine for some disciplines, totally ridiculous for others
Great idea in theory, stupid idea in reality for many disciplines. If you are a member of any hard science faculty and you’re wearing a suit consistently, this communicates one thing and only one thing: you are solely an administrator now, and your useful career as a scientist died a long time ago, leaving a shell of a worn out, pencil-pushing bureaucrat. In science, wearing a suit is a big flashing beacon saying “hey everyone! I’m never ever involved in doing actual research!” And this is not likely to change, because I know my dry cleaning bills would be astronomical if I were forced to wear a suit in the lab.
B McManus, at 5:10 pm EST on February 13, 2008
There is nothing more effective when it comes to teaching Kant or Aristotle than the following combination: 1) a brain and 2) a classic knee lenght black dress over fishnet stockings and stilletti. Dress should not be about conventions but about didactic empowerment!
sandra lapointe, at 2:25 pm EST on February 15, 2008
Sloppy drafting
No-one has picked up this professor of law on his sloppy drafting. As a general rule one should draft a legal instrument such as a contract, statute or will in the singular. Jensen’s Uniform Uniform Code should be redrafted thus:
‘If a faculty member’s mother is over the age of 49 she or he shall dress when on college grounds or on college business in a way that does not embarrass her or his mother. If a faculty member’s mother is not over the age of 49 she or he shall dress when on college grounds or on college business in a way that does not embarrass Erik M. Jensen’s mother.’
The code would also have to provide for the possibility that a faculty member’s mother or Erik M. Jensen’s mother was dead.
Clothes clearly do not maketh the competent man.
Gavin Moodie, Principal Policy Adviser at Griffith University, Australia, at 8:15 am EST on February 16, 2008
The tie as a 21st century rebel’s badge of honor
A sing of rebellion in the 1960s, casual trousers (or the bottom part of what may have constituted an ensemble of a two-piece or three-piece suit) and polyester shirts unbuttoned at the collar, since the 1980s and 1990s have become the new conventional uniform.
“Skeptics note that some folks will flout any rules. If coat and tie are required, dissidents will break the code’s spirit by wearing CAT with shorts and sandals” comments the author.
So what if the ultimate breach of rules, in the early 21st century, was to wear ties precisely because the present nomenclatura of academia has imposed slopiness as a form of snobbery—-a monument to a once rebellious past, dissolved (for many) in power games, compromises and campus politics that made them the bourgeoisie of today.
Whether the tie was “ugly” or “esthetic” does not matter. It was a sign of “dressing up” for an event, of indicating one’s representing the event as important. Not mundane.
Consider this: after May 1968, many ridiculous “bourgeois” rituals, old fashionned customs and dress codes were abandonned overnight such as faculty AND students wearing ties and jackets, or applauding after each lecture, or wearing gowns. Graduation ceremonies were suppressed in all French establishments—-primary, secondary and in higher education. Until 1968, that “prize awarding day” was even more important than in the United States, as a family event because children or young adolescents with high grades received books that our generadisappeared
Oleg Kobtzeff, tie-wearing Assistant Professor at American University of Paris, at 11:15 am EST on February 16, 2008
The tie as a badge of honor of the rebel of the 21st century?
A sign of rebellion in the 1960s, casual trousers (or the bottom part of what may have once constituted a two-piece or three-piece suit) and polyester shirts unbuttoned at the collar, have become the new conventional uniform since the 1980s and 1990s
“Skeptics note that some folks will flout any rules. If coat and tie are required, dissidents will break the code’s spirit by wearing CAT with shorts and sandals” comments the author.
So what if the ultimate breach of rules, in the early 21st century, was to wear ties precisely because the present nomenclatura of academia has imposed sloppiness as a form of snobbery—-a monument to a once rebellious past, dissolved (for many) in power games, compromises and campus politics that made them the bourgeoisie of today.
Whether the tie was “ugly” or “esthetic” does not matter. It was a sign of “dressing up” for an event, of indicating one’s representing the event as important. Not mundane.
In France, after May 1968, many “bourgeois” rituals, old fashion customs and dress codes were abandoned overnight such as faculty AND students wearing ties and jackets, or applauding after each lecture, or wearing gowns. Graduation ceremonies were suppressed in all French establishments—-primary, secondary and in higher education. Until 1968, that “prize awarding day” on the last day of the school year was even more important than in the United States. It was a family event gathering all parents and students from all the classes when children or young adolescents received books as rewards for academic achievements (few were forgotten; students with the lowest grades received books for scoring well in gymnastics, community service or other non-academic achievements). When I graduated from the French high school system at 18, in 1975, the only rite of passage into adulthood was to receive a copy of my baccalaureate diploma in the mail. No graduating ceremony or even any informal get-togethers to say good-bye (why bother with such bourgeois distractions?). When I received my BA diploma from the Sorbonne a few years later (no graduation ceremony either), a registrar handed me a typewritten transcript. “University of Paris IV, Paris-Sorbonne. Degree achieved: Bachelor of Letters". Ashamed of its reactionary ritualistic past, the 13th century institution did not even bother to use its beautiful letterhead.
“That’s it?!!” I cried out, disappointed at the appearance of the only document symbolizing my years of efforts. A security guard made some joke about my nostalgia for the old days and told me to move along. I walked home alone and watched TV to celebrate this great moment in my life. I am sure that enemies of ritualism and bourgeois customs felt that they had scored a great victory when graduation ceremonies were suppressed from the French educational system. Becoming as obsolete as wearing a tie to class.
Have they really destroyed the intellectual oppression of a ruling intelligentsia, its male chauvinism and other forms of domination? Or only the rituals of the generation that they replaced?
You now understand my reasons for at least trying to wear I tie each time I lecture.
Bravo Eric M. Jensen!
Oleg Kobtzeff, tie-wearing Assistant Professor at American University of Paris, at 12:30 pm EST on February 16, 2008
In several universities in Asia, both staff and students follow a dress code which often consists of professional or business attire. It has to do with the belief that the university is a professional institution and that education has to be taken seriously. In which case, even matters concerning dress are considered important.
Ralfy, at 5:35 pm EST on February 16, 2008
astrophysicist writes, “I stayed in academia and didn’t go into finance ... because in academia the focus is on the ideas, not on the dress code.”
Maybe it’s different in astrophysics, but I found that in academia the emphasis is NOT on the ideas, but on where one went to school.
JFP, unemployed, at 6:05 am EST on February 17, 2008
I recently attended a faculty development workshop on campus where a colleague spent 15 minutes (of the 60 minute session) complaining that students do not respect her, that they call her by her first name, etc. However, she was dressed in short shorts and sandals. I thought she was a student myself when she walked in (it was the first time we had met). First impressions are important.
Delaney Kirk, Ph.D., at 5:45 am EST on February 25, 2008
I am an Art Professor and it will say that it would be ridiculous to dress in a tie, as well as deadly. We often work with toxic chemicals and physical processes while teaching and would destroy clothing. Furthermore, i can become a HUGE safety risk while working with various mechanical equipment. So, I’m curious what sort of “rules” you all would suggest for those in the Arts?
JC, at 4:40 am EDT on May 27, 2008
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Dry Cleaning Bills?
I am OK with a law professor dressing in a suit. After all, they make the $100,000k+ that enable them to afford dry cleaning. If we are such a middle class profession, then maybe we should make middle class wages.
rml, at 7:55 am EST on February 8, 2008