Why Do Professors Dress So Badly?

We take a break today from matters of great geopolitical import to think about something that has puzzled me for a long time. I work at a university that is unionized. I am not a member, but the union grabs my money anyway, and in compensation they give me a subscription to Academe, a publication of the American Association of University Professors. Ordinarily it goes posthaste from my mailbox to the circular file in the department office, but one item in this month’s edition caught my attention. It is by Ronald S. Lemos, and it argues that university faculty should observe the old social graces in the classroom more than they do. In particular, Mr. Lemos urges us to dress better:

This item is potentially the most controversial on my list. However, professional dress codes would have the greatest effect on campus climate and culture. When involved in any university or college function, especially teaching, faculty should wear business attire: coat and tie for men (preferably a suit) and professional attire for women. Business attire commands a much higher level of respect than casual wear. It represents authority, professionalism, confidence, and expertise.

The professoriate is a profession, similar to medicine, law, politics, and business. Most, if not all, high-level professions have formal or informal codes of ethics, conduct, and dress. For these professions, the standard of dress is business attire. Why not have a faculty dress code?

I recognize that many, if not most, faculty negatively associate a coat and tie with the corporate world or, worse yet, university administrators. But a coat and tie represent much more in our society.We dress up out of a sense of respect, civility, or simple etiquette. We should treat going to class with the same high level of importance.

An even more revolutionary approach would be to return to the sartorial elegance of academic regalia as the dress code for faculty. Once again, why not? This dress code is already accepted for graduations and honors convocations. Like judges’ robes, professorial gowns connote the highest levels of respect and professionalism.

The professoriate is under attack on many fronts, including among students, administrators, legislators, parents, employers, and communities. A higher standard of dress would improve our professional image and support a campus climate characterized by civil behavior and mutual respect.

I am a decent dresser in class – ties almost always, but (because of the wildly gesticulating style I sometimes have when I lecture) no coat. But it is fair to say that as a rule the professoriate is not known for sartorial excellence. Why? I like to use economics to explain things, and there are two possibilities – the decision to dress up or not is an act of signaling or an act of consumption. (The reason we don’t wear full faculty regalia in class is easy – because we would look ridiculous.)

The signaling argument says that dressing up or not is a way to indicate to students that you are a high-quality, hard-working teacher by your willingness to incur the discomfort (and hence greater effort) of looking good. The suit-and-tied professor (if it is a he) is doing the same thing a peacock does when he grows a big display of tail feathers. It performs no useful function, but serves to attract females as a sign of virility. Here too one could argue that some professors dress up to signal that the teacher is going to put out a lot of effort in the class. This is somewhat similar to Me. Lemos’ argument about it being a sign of respect for students. (This is what motivates me to at least make an effort.) Lawyers do much the same (the better the suit, the more clever he is likely to be), and doctors wear their labcoats to signal their authority.

But then why do some professors dress down so much? What might they be signaling? It is hard to think of a good explanation. Their down-to-earthness? Their detachment, as the above excerpt suggests, from the “corporate” world? None of these things, it seems to me, appeal to most students, who don’t want a buddy in the classroom nearly as much as someone knowledgeable or professional.

So that leaves us with consumption – of professors choosing their dress for sheer personal enjoyment. The most obvious enjoyment comes from looking good, however the professor defines it. The well-dressed prof is enjoying the pride he takes in adhering to traditional grooming standards. The professor who comes into class in jeans and sandals is expressing his rebellion against those standards. This is an act of egotistical self-expression, behavior I have discussed elsewhere.

I think this explanation better explains what I observe around campus. The very stylized facts are that faculty making more money (e.g., in business colleges) tend to dress better, that younger faculty tend to dress worse, at least while they are young - until I had been in the game about five years I was a jeans-and-Nikes kind of guy - and that the faculty in the most politicized parts of the university tend to dress down the most. (That young faculty tend to dress more poorly argues against a signaling explanation, because it is young faculty, who lack a classroom reputation, who need to signal the most.) If it is just self-expression, there is no going back; the competitive restraints on university job markets (the requirements for a Ph.D., tenure, the huge amount of faculty independence) means that competition is largely powerless to change this pattern, as it is to change many other aspects of the university.

Still, I am not entirely persuaded that either explanation is complete. If anyone has any suggestions as to why we get away with things that doctors (the real kind, not the Ph.D. kind) never could, I am glad to hear them.