Academ-Ink: University Faculty Fashion and Its Discontents

Abstract

The new generation of professors is set against a stereotype that emerged from the era of The Organization Man or Man in a Grey Flannel Suit—the 1950s white man, a family-wage earning provider for a family of dependents. Generation X and Millennial professors with subcultural affiliations and alternative appearances, including visible tattoos, are now altering the image of the new professor. Using the academic literature around fashion studies, this chapter contextualizes the voices of the participants as they speak in depth of the stylistic choices within the university, from pajama-clad students, power suit administrators, to faculty in activist T-shirts. Participants may have learned appropriate professional dress choices from graduate school workshops on tackling the academic employment interview, or through snide remarks from advisors or colleagues about the appropriateness of their fashion choices. Looking around at fellow faculty in the university, workers begin to fit into or differentiate themselves from the professional dress choices of their peers. These stylistic choices impact their interactions with others of different levels of the university hierarchy, from students to administrators. Overall professors are able to dress in a variety of manners while facing few social sanctions. However, straight white men are provided with the most latitude, while those with increasingly marginalized identities felt more pressure to conform to a normative expectation of conservative dress.