It's the first day of class, and since I'm fairly young, I dressed up like usual to establish that I'm the professor. Indeed when I first started teaching at 28, I stood in the hall among the students with a backpack and waited until a few minutes before class started to reveal I was the professor. Now I carry an attache bag so that I stand out, but today I wore the brand new suit I bought myself last year after a dog tore my last pair of suit pants, and it's sharp. I was walking across campus, and at least a half dozen other people who I know to be professors but that I don't recognize me nodded at me, as if we were acknowledging clandestinely membership in a secret club. My hiking buddy came by and said I looked very professorial. Now if I can just sound that way.
Very few people seem to be dressed to impress today. Even though I know the students are competing for first impressions and trying one-upmanship on each other in their attire and trends, most of them look very much today like they will weeks from now. After a few weeks, I dress down because it's more comfortable and more human in order to seem less aloof, and I'll wear my labcoat in lab because it would be silly to go in a nice suit. However, everyone assumes, and rightly so, that I am here to teach, and they all think I clean up well. I was hoping to wear this suit out on a date with a special someone, but I guess I'll wear it to impress God on Sunday and to impress upon students that I am legitimate.
Clothes mark the man. Just last week, I was chatting with a young fellow I know about what he should wear to his court appearance. It actually required him to wear a suit because he had so many tatoos, some of which definitely needed coverage, and to legitimate him before a judge. Last time I went to court, I shaved off my beard so that I would look more amenable to a judge, but I am relatively comfortable in a suit. I look so at home in it that, four years or so ago, when I attended a gala at the Wynn in a private area, I marched right past the guards without being stopped because I looked like I belonged.
Paradoxically, in academia today I don't look much like I belong. I am probably one of the better groomed men with a beard, and I am the only one in science who will wear a suit this week, and I might be the only one in my department besides the dean who will wear a shirt and tie even. Some of the others dress well, but it's more business casual. Maybe this will intimidate more students, as I was told today by a former student that I'm extremely intimidating, but for those who stick around maybe they will also see that I am personable and familiar because I have no aspirations for grandeur and wealth, meaning one day these students may become my boss. For this week and in lab, it will be obvious that I work there, that I'm working, and that I have something to say, because that's what my professors did.
The days appear to be gone during which professors always dressed to the nines, and so it's difficult sometimes to tell the difference. One of the physics instructors always dresses nicely and consistently over the entire term whereas I will eventually end up in a dark denim jean and striped collared shirt. I know I need to command and commend attention, and so since my resume and titles and wages don't evince the width and breadth of what I actually know, I look the part so that people will take me seriously.
When I wear a suit it makes people think. At the beginning of term, nobody seems to mind, but if I wear it later, my boss assumes I have a job interview. When I walk into Walmart wearing one, the greeters stand up straighter and the managers shake with fear. When I wear one to church people wonder if I'm trying to impress God. Sometimes a suit is a sign of respect. I have been to plenty of funerals and weddings, and it's the right thing to do. Likewise at job interviews, as I know a fellow who was NOT selected for a professor slot because he came to the interview in jeans. At the beginning of term, and perhaps for a longer duration than I will decide, it's the right thing to do. We don't have a dress code, but perhaps we should. When I show up for class, even though they have never met me, I think it will be obvious who the instructor is even if I first sit in the back row, which I have been known to do.
From here on out, everyone I saw today will probably recognize me, even if they don't register why. I am already recognized by people when on my bicycle or shopping or in a lab coat. Maybe I can be recognized as the well dressed man whose career is as well suited as his attire. Maybe I'll keep dressing like this and set a new precedence. It would not be the first time.
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