What are your dress expectations for your professional role? How do they differ across our #SAchat community?
I remember it first came up for me when I transitioned from my undergrad institution (Gonzaga, GO ZAGS!) where I had been building up an LGBT Resource Center (as an AmeriCorps volunteer) to my Master's program at Seattle University. The people who worked in Student Development at SU seemed to be dressed "to the nines" every day. I know we were expected to dress professionally at Gonzaga, but it felt like the bar was noticeably raised in this new setting and I wanted to know why. I don't think there was a written or spoken rule about how well people needed to be dressed at work, but there was definitely a different feel. We assumed it was due to the number of people who had recently started working there who were transplants from the East Coast, so there definitely is a cultural aspect to it. And being in an urban environment, they probably interact with business and city leaders regularly which would dictate the need to look serious about your work.
After I graduated, I accepted a position a couple months later at a community college in a fairly rural suburb of Seattle. I remember interviewing for my current position. I was on campus for a few days in the process, and I wore a collared shirt, tie, and slacks each day I was there. When I finally got hired, taking a cue from what I observed about the college culture, I wore a sweater with a nice pair of jeans. The Dean saw me that day and told me, "It's nice to see you without a tie for a change."
How might institutional setting dictate norms? Do they look different at community colleges, four-year public universities, and private colleges and universities? How does the external setting play a role? Does an urban environment demand something different than rural, or suburban? We often say that there are a multitude of subcultures across the United States; do different regions have different norms? What cultural norms come into play in invisibly dictating dress expectations?
Kristen also suggested that one factor that played a role in determining her dress expectations is her job description. Her job requires her to interact with local business and community leaders, which obviously means demonstrating a similar level of seriousness in conducting external affairs. My job is very hands-on with students, and the external constituents I work with are community agencies which serve disadvantaged youth. We all keep our dress more casual. How are yours dictated by job title/duties?
Some institutions will have more explicit policies. I know mine does have a policy expecting professionalism, but it is not much more specific than that. Does your institution lay out an explicit policy? How are they communicated to you?
And dress expectations lead into a deeper conversation about the ways power and privilege dictate how society expects us to behave. Gender, sex, race, class, sexual orientation, religion, and a myriad of other social memberships draw fairly rigid lines around what people are expected to wear in a professional setting. There was recently a tweet (and I can't tell you where I read it) asking about what "professionalism" looks like in queer communities. What underlying expectations and assumptions factor in both spoken and unspoken codes for appopriate professional attire? How does privilege play a role? Do we consider what we display to our students in selecting clothing? Do we consider how we demonstrate our values in what we choose to wear? What about gender performance expectations? Would someone subverting gender performance expectations, or someone with a transgender identity, feel marginalized by our spoken and unspoken dress codes? How about people of color? People from different religious affiliations?
Kristen also suggested that one factor that played a role in determining her dress expectations is her job description. Her job requires her to interact with local business and community leaders, which obviously means demonstrating a similar level of seriousness in conducting external affairs. My job is very hands-on with students, and the external constituents I work with are community agencies which serve disadvantaged youth. We all keep our dress more casual. How are yours dictated by job title/duties?
Some institutions will have more explicit policies. I know mine does have a policy expecting professionalism, but it is not much more specific than that. Does your institution lay out an explicit policy? How are they communicated to you?
And dress expectations lead into a deeper conversation about the ways power and privilege dictate how society expects us to behave. Gender, sex, race, class, sexual orientation, religion, and a myriad of other social memberships draw fairly rigid lines around what people are expected to wear in a professional setting. There was recently a tweet (and I can't tell you where I read it) asking about what "professionalism" looks like in queer communities. What underlying expectations and assumptions factor in both spoken and unspoken codes for appopriate professional attire? How does privilege play a role? Do we consider what we display to our students in selecting clothing? Do we consider how we demonstrate our values in what we choose to wear? What about gender performance expectations? Would someone subverting gender performance expectations, or someone with a transgender identity, feel marginalized by our spoken and unspoken dress codes? How about people of color? People from different religious affiliations?
Share your thoughts on student affairs dress expectations, particularly what your experience has been like.
Bryce
Love the post, Bryce! Thanks for the shout out :-). I think you hit on a really good point, too, at the end about the different expectations depending on what gender, sexual orientation, etc. we are, as well. I know for me as a woman, I definitely feel more of a need to dress up professionally so that I will be taken seriously - or more importantly, so that what people focus on are not my clothes but on what I'm saying. I think this is probably fairly universal for women in the workplace, but I can guess that this would definitely stretch to someone from the LGBTQIA community. Great post!
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