This is a first for me (both in academia and elsewhere; I am not known for being fashion forward because I mostly wear cargo pants and a nice shirt). I emailed incoming advisees (as we were instructed to do by our Retention Office) to ask if any of them had any questions about courses they need to take this year. My email to new students states, "Welcome to SLAC-where-no-one-is-turned-away. You have been assigned to my academic advising load, so feel free to ask me any questions about courses that you need to register for this year. Once you arrive on campus, I'm happy to go over the schedule that your Enrollment Counselor designed for you (such a lie), but in the meantime, if you have any questions before then, you are welcome to contact me via email."
Here is one earnest soul:
Dear Professor Cynic:
I want to introduce myself to you. I am a good student. I have a schedule and I already bought my books. But I am not sure about one thing. Please let me know what is best to wear to class so I may be a good student. I want to look my best this year. I am not sure what the best outfits are to wear. Please help me.
Sincerely,
Advisee who Cannot Dress Herself
I'm sorely tempted to mess with this poor advisee, but I won't. I'll be honest and let her know that everyone wears Harry Pottery style graduation robes over our Where's Waldo? outfits on our campus.
If you're at Oxford, that's actually not bad fashion advice. Anytime I saw someone riding a bicycle in academic regalia, I wondered how the rider didn't wind up like Isadora Duncan.
ReplyDeleteOhhh, I'm the bleeding heart again. She's an immigrant, I'm betting. Be kind.
ReplyDeleteThe sentence structure seems to indicate an English Language Learner. I am going to be kind (well, as kind as I can be). I'd just never received such a request before.
DeleteTo me, this doesn't read like "I can't dress myself". To me, it reads like "I've recently come from a setting where people dress more formally for school than my fellow students do. Can you help me figure out what is appropriate?"
ReplyDeleteIf a student came to me with this query, I'd initiate a pleasant conversation about how she's settling into the new school year, whether she's been able to find all her classes okay, etc. and see where that takes us; from that, it'd become pretty clear to me whether she's looking for overall How To Develop Academic Survival Skills advice (of which appropriate attire for class could be a part) or whether she's pumping me for a specific Wear-This-And-You-Will-Get-An-A formula.
We haven't started school and she won't arrive on campus until next week, so I suppose she wants to know how to pack. I just wouldn't have asked this of a professor.
DeleteThat's all very good advice. Let me balance it out.
ReplyDeleteTo ensure that no student is distracted by gang colors, political messages printed on shirts or offensive images on baseball caps, we request that all students arrive to class without clothes, or remove them immediately before entering the classroom. In this way, students can focus on learning and not fashion.
Ahhh, there's the Beaker Ben I know and love. :o)
DeleteNahhh. My Catholic high school tried that and it didn't work.
ReplyDeleteWell, let's see. On my campus one can observe clothing ranging from barely-there shorts, skirts and halters (generally but not exclusively on women) to hijabs to the occasional burqua. Oh, and someone has been wandering around lately dressed (to my eye, at least) as a 19th-century governess. While some of the above occasions remark, none of it seems to have much effect on academic success. If someone walked in in academic robes and/or where's Waldo, I'd wonder a bit about what was going on, but wait and hope that the pay-attention-to-me clothing wouldn't translate to similar behavior in the classroom. Naked, I'd probably have to do something about. I suspect there's a law somewhere forbidding that.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, I suspect this kid is looking more for advice on suit/nice dress vs. t-shirt and jeans/nice shorts/informal skirt, and at most American universities, the choice is fairly clear. While the barely-there outfits are pretty common, the fairly-covered-up casual combos would allow a student to fit in in almost any context.