Academic fashion statements

Today, for the third day in a row, I have had 8-hour meetings with colleagues. These meetings have been strategic planning for the next five years, general faculty meetings, special orientation meetings for our students, and research team meetings. I'm left wondering when I will stop noticing the eccentricities of academics. I have written before about some of the idiosyncratic behaviors of professors, but these last few days have called forth even more interesting (to me) observations.

Take Shirley, for example. When she dresses for work, she decks out in the latest styles. Her hair is perfectly coifed and her clothes are straight from Nordstrom or the Orvis catalog. She carries herself well and gives direct eye contact and smiles to those whom she meets. But then you look down at her brown oxford shoes--sensible shoes--"because I have to walk miles on these dawgs every day in class!"--and the picture is complete.

Yesterday, Don came to the strategic planning meeting looking as though he'd slept wrong on his hair: a section of it stood straight up just under the crown of his head. I'd never noticed that he had a cowlick before, but there it was, saluting me jauntily from the back of his scalp. This man is one of the dearest, most gifted and generous professors a student will ever be fortunate to have. He just doesn't always care about how his hair looks.

Myra, scurries around, holding her shoulders steady whilst her feet shuffle in hurried, mincing steps, everywhere she goes. She always looks nice and is the epitome of the servant leader. I've noticed that she seems to be concerned that her bosom not be a focal point in her dress because no matter what she has on, it has a button across her bustline that is always done up and pulled tight. She is a very attractive woman, very well spoken and has two doctoral degrees from extremely reputable universities. Yet sometimes the button on the front of her outfit is in the wrong buttonhole. There Myra goes, scurrying about with her clothes pulled in a cockeyed kind of alignment, the edges of her shirt two different lengths. "Myra, your buttons are catywhompus," I tell her. "Oh..." and as she rushes out the door (Myra is ALWAYS in a rush), she buttons it another equally unaligned way. "Thanks!" she yells over her shoulder.

We have two male professors who look like they have walked right off the fashion runway. Their shirts are always starched and pressed and they look terrific from head to foot. They have different cultural underpinnings than I have, and my observations are that their cultures dictate precision and pristine quality of dress. They embody these characteristics very well.

From being around Connie, I can't predict whether she will be wearing makeup or not. This is probably not a huge deal, as I fervently wish I didn't have to bother with it (but then I'd look like I'm 20 years old!) but I'm always startled to have her turn her head and see her without makeup. She looks so different without it, and being without it creates such an identity more of an Earth Mother presence, rather than one of the most quoted and published women in the field--who just happens to wear makeup on some days and not on others.

But all these academics aren't nearly as bad as my doctor--my family doctor. When I made my first appointment there I was worried that I'd get someone who didn't know what she was doing, or did sloppy workups, or would overlook something. One glance at her, however, told me I was in luck. She slunk apologetically into the exam room where I was reading a magazine. She was wearing what used to be a white lab coat with big ink blotches in her breast pocket where her pens had leaked--quarter-sized black circles--about five of them, marring her coat. She apparently didn't have much of an aim either, putting her pens into her side pockets, because there were all these ink lines where she hadn't capped the pens and simply had run them down the sides of her coat into the pocket. Lines everywhere. As if that weren't enough, her hair was stringy, died black, and she was wearing an odd combination of clothes under her lab coat. Her spindly legs covered in Nude hose ended in shoes that looked a bit awkward, her feet pointing at two o'clock and ten o'clock.

My doctor has been a genius, finally figuring out what is wrong with my health. She has ordered the tests I need, gotten me in to the specialists that are required, and has ordered blood work that was required to make a definitive diagnosis. And when she sees me, she shyly smiles and looks down at my file.

I really like her.

So I don't know what the point is of this post. Only that I continue to be amazed that some of the most intelligent people can look the way they do. I enjoy the humanness of it. Maybe it gives me hope that given the way I dress, I fit in with these incredibly gifted, delightful, intelligent people.