Sept. 19, 2007

Docking a Grade for Skirting the Rules?

Students majoring in marketing or business teacher education were in for a shock when Illinois State University informed them over the summer of a new mandatory, business casual dress code. The uproar — ranging from complaints about dry cleaning costs to charges of overbearing paternalism — began almost immediately, while administrators defended the policy as an introduction to business norms and an injection of discipline that would carry over into students’ study habits.

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While the original policy offered guidelines ranging from color choices ("solid” for women) to upkeep ("pressed and never wrinkled") to skirt length ("no shorter than four inches above the knee"), the revision — which goes into effect as soon as professors can announce it to their students — states simply that affected classes “will operate under standards of professional behavior that parallel those applied in the business world,” including “being dressed in appropriate business casual attire for class meetings, unless business professional attire is required.”

The main difference is an additional emphasis on “other professional behaviors deemed appropriate for class by the professor,” such as arriving on time and not interrupting the lecture (although those guidelines are already covered under the college’s Standards of Professional Behavior and Ethical Conduct). Under the previous policy, students who failed to dress business casual could be thrown out of class — meaning a potential loss of credit for assignments completed that day. Now, they could theoretically arrive in jeans without fear of getting kicked out, but up to 10 percent of their final grades could be docked instead.

David Horstein, the student body president, said the idea is that 10 percent of an overall course grade can go toward “professionalism,” including a student’s dress appearance and also other factors of professionalism, with the “hope that a professor cannot abuse” the dress requirement.

“The way that I hope this works,” Horstein said, is that it “gives the professors a lot of discretion with policies like that.” (Tim Longfellow, the chairman, said he understood the policy as meaning that “we’ll look across the board” in evaluating professionalism.)

Horstein began receiving complaints from students soon after the policy was announced two weeks prior to the start of classes this semester. “At first, I was afraid to even take on the issue,” he said, worrying that administrators would “make us look like a lazy student body” for protesting the dress code. Then he learned that the policy apparently ran afoul of the university’s Student Bill of Rights, which has an explicit prohibition against mandatory dress codes.

It was a while before he and other student leaders were able to sit down with Longfellow and other officials: “Basically the conversations ... were happening through the media,” he said.

Longfellow praised the student leaders in a press release, saying, “I truly believe that shared governance, a strong and valued tradition on this campus, has prevailed. The Department of Marketing is pleased and believes that the compromised wording for the business casual dress standard allows the department to accomplish its initial purpose for establishing the dress standard, to provide an opportunity to enhance the overall professionalism of our students and to hopefully provide them with an additional advantage as they begin their career search.”

In an interview, Longfellow said he has not received any direct complaints about the policy to date, and that concerns about accumulating appropriate attire to attend class were mostly exaggerated at a business school where most students have recently completed or will soon complete internships.

Referring to the original policy, he said: “I think overall, as I talk with the faculty, with the students, I think it’s been very well received there.”

— Andy Guess

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Comments

It’s a truly fine day when the Department of Marketing can’t gauge its audience, or roll out a new product without falling on its collective face.

Sidney Falco, at 6:00 am EDT on September 19, 2007

So I guess Steve Jobs in his signature black turtle neck and black jeans wouldn’t meet the dress code.

RSB, at 9:25 am EDT on September 19, 2007

Thanks, Illinois State

Thanks for denying kids the “college experience.” Part of the traditional college experience is allowing a last bit of individual freedom BEFORE entering the business world. Denying this will surely lead to rebellious behavior somewhere later down the line where it will be significantly more detrimental to an individual’s career...

Joe College, at 10:10 am EDT on September 19, 2007

A Worse Policy

To my astonishment, the new policy actually manages to be even worse than the original policy. What makes it so bad? First of all, the punishment can be harsher. The new policy allows professors to reduce the overall grade of a student by 10% (or one letter grade) for violating the dress code. Fortunately, the old policy of banning students from class has been abandoned, but in the past, the policy required students to receive a dress code warning (it’s not clear if that will continue), and the punishment was limited to getting a zero for assignments due that day. Another reason why the new policy is worse: in addition to the dress code policy, students can be punished for violating “other professional behaviors deemed appropriate for class by the professor.” This is an extraordinarily vague provision that is unrelated to the actual academic performance of the student. Among the standards that ISU’s College of Business adopted for students is that they must “Behave and speak professionally, respectfully, and courteously at all times.” By this rule, student grades could be punished for lacking courtesy according to the arbitrary definition of the professor. Grading students based on their attire is still plainly a dress code. Being punished in grading for one’s attire while attending a class is not acceptable in academia, nor should vague standards about “professional standards” be used to punish students.

John K. Wilson, founder at collegefreedom.org, at 10:10 am EDT on September 19, 2007

Hmmm...

None of the prestigious coastal business schools do this. Why do I suspect that this move was driven by people outside the program? Why do I feel that crotchety moralizing old people who want to ban baggy pants are behind this?

Seany, at 10:15 am EDT on September 19, 2007

The only way to make them understand is to take your tuition else where. If it is anything like Texas, A board of regents made the decision and they have little regard for students. It’s what ever they feel like pushing on you.

Not Amused, Speak with your money, at 11:05 am EDT on September 19, 2007

Such a bad idea

As a marketing grad from a different public univeristy in Illinois, I think this is the dumbest idea ever and a waste of time and energy that can be better spent on learning. One of the top profs in the marketing department always came in jeans and cowboy boots. Students have the rest of their lives to conform. What’s next art students be required to have piercings and tattoos.

Jeff, at 11:15 am EDT on September 19, 2007

Art students

Jeff

Art students ARE required to have tattoos and body peircing. No art school would tolerate chinos and polo shirts!

Steve, at 11:55 am EDT on September 19, 2007

i fricking hate the ISU business school and all those little wannabe yuppie pissants. Too bad they don’t make ‘em wear railroad spikes through thier skulls.

dawn, at 11:55 am EDT on September 19, 2007

Slobs of the world unite!

This is perfectly awful. I suffered with dress codes until I got to college. The idea that “an introduction to business norms and an injection of discipline that would carry over into students’ study habits” is complete poop with absolutely no empirical evidence to support it. Dress codes are simply gratuitous constraints, sheer puritanism—the idea that discomfort and constraint per se are good for you combined with the baseless assumption that they will somehow have good consequences.

Time and energy are limited and there’s just so much stress people can handle. The stress of choosing clothes, the discomfort of dressing up, the time and energy spent taking care of one’s appearance cut into the time, energy and concentration you need to do work. If firms insist that their employees maintain a “professional appearance” more fool they—they’re sacrificing productivity. Students however know how to play the game, will get into the duds when they graduate and put up with it.

Apart from sheer sadism, I can’t think of any reason to impose these pointless, counterproductive restrictions on students. What is the idea? “Out there in the Real World people are going to impose pointless restrictions on you and make you eat sh**, so we in Academia are going to make you miserable so that you get used to it.”

I suppose those who do not remember the 1950s are doomed to repeat them.

H. E. Baber, at 11:55 am EDT on September 19, 2007

Many career schools still maintain a dress code and similar policies, including the right to send students home to change. This, of course, is ridiculous for IT students whose programs require they crawl around on the floor to install cables. And, in the case of the business students, it was not only difficult to enforce, but it was problematic: some schools mandated the wearing of pantyhose by females in dresses. Send them home? Hmmmmmm. Ask them to dress differently than the IT students? Hmmmmmmm again. Risky policy, at best, and certainly not realistic in the summer when free-flowing dresses sans hose are pretty much accepted in the business world.

If you have the policy, you must enforce it, and I don’t think most schools are truly prepared to do that in the case of dress codes. I know I wouldn’t want to be “fashion police” in the classroom or in the school.

kgotthardt, at 12:50 pm EDT on September 19, 2007

As a recent graduate of Illinois State University, I applaud the efforts of the administration in this case. Hoodies are all fair and good if you want to stand outside the theatre building and play hacky sack, but the business world demands a sense of discipline that is overlooked by most colleges. ISU has the newest, largest, and most elaborate business building in the United States. They have a program which has grown up to 250% in the last decade and the last thing the world needs is an influx of students coming out who think that a t-shirt, jeans and flip flops are a way to show up to work. These students stand to make WAY more in their lives than the standard com, theatre, or English major. If you want that lifestyle, this is the way it is. You wear a tie to work because you are a professional. It is a good thing to get that started early.

Luke, at 1:30 pm EDT on September 19, 2007

Old codgers loosing ground

It’s a generational thing. The older proffs and administration are seeing that the younger folks are getting into the big world without their set of values and they don’t like it. So they strictly define business casual trying to lay down their set down paradigms which they hope will continue to be enforced in the big world. It was my dads generation which had to wear jacket and tie to work. It was my generation which had it geared down to “business casual". So somewhere there is a room full of old fogeys absolutely appalled at the ‘casualization’ of American business by the newcomers and determined to do something about it.

D, at 1:30 pm EDT on September 19, 2007

How is this different from PQC’s policy?

How interesting to contrast these comments with those that followed the recent article on Paul Quinn College’s adoption of a dress code: http://www.insidehighered.com./news/2007/09/05/dresscode. Given the nature of PQC’s history, those favorable comments seem a little paternalistic now. Or can someone else explain the very real difference in the responses to similiar policies. .

dwtca, at 2:55 pm EDT on September 19, 2007

Forced Conformity

So, let me get this straight...dress code is more important than intelligence, delligence, process, and savoir-faire.... As europeans move away from the “uniform” concept of the enforced “business attire", american universities(well, at least one..)attempt to enforce the dress code". This seems to be an attempt at enforced conformity if you ask me..(and you may not) Whatever happened to freedom of choice? Some of the most innovative business “brains” of this century (well, the last one as well...)dress in T-shirts, blue jeans, and other “non-traditional” clothing. Perhaps, the business community should learn from the experience of these individuals. Clothes don’t make the successful entrepeneur. It seems that the more things change the more they remain the same...we’re back on the IBM, black suit, black tie emporium. Welcome to your regressed past.Cheers!

Edward Fernandes, Ph.D., at 3:50 pm EDT on September 19, 2007

Dress Code

Perhaps ISU’s policy was not very well thought out, but there is something to be said about making sure that this cohort of highly distracted students—no matter their major—learns to respect the process of education, their classmates, and their professors. It is all too common in my classes for students’ cell phones to ring or vibrate, for students to attend class in clothing that bares way too much skin and choice of underwear,for students to bring a picnic lunch to class (and leave garbage behind), and for students to exhibit a general disinterest in class (critics: I know, it must be my class, but it’s so many of my colleagues’ classes around the country). Where’s the respect? College is a privilege that many people cannot afford.

As a former punk rocker who dressed the part (no mohawk or piercings), I understand the importance of self-expression, but I also was damn serious about mys studies (being the first in my family to attend). Now, as a business school professor, I wish more of my students exhibited a sense of individuality, and just as many who were committed to their studies and appreciate the privilege of earning a college degree. Self-respect, not a dress code is the answer.

I gotta run now and make a call on my cell, check my Facebook page to see how many amigos I have, turn on my iPod, and get in my own private world.

Ciao

HRS, Assoc Professor, at 4:05 pm EDT on September 19, 2007

10% each for attendance, dress & particpation

The work analogy simply does not apply. If the administration wants to get their students used to the real world, why not cut them a paycheck every week for attending class?

And if you really want to argue the point of, “Who is the boss?” I remind you that it is the students who pay the professors, not the other way around.

I think it’s ludicrous to give a grade for attendance or class participation. Now another 10% for how you dress...so almost one third of one’s final grade is showing up dressed and occasionally raising your hand?

If another 10% is graded homework (I do not know a single student that did not copy homework), it adds up — use your fingers if you have to — to only 60% of the grade being earned by ACTUALLY LEARNING.

And then people wonder why colleges are graduating morons in ever increasing numbers.

john csakany, at 7:15 pm EDT on September 19, 2007

How laughable. If someone had told me how to dress in college, I would have told them to keep their ass clown degree. The last thing we need to do is train more people to conform to societal norms and think just like everyone else. If your whole ambition is to be some average business servant making 50K per year, then how you dress might be important I suppose. You should aim a bit higher to where YOU call the shots, not some employer. Of course what do I know while I wear my khaki shorts and golf shirt during the day? Oh wait, I own the largest house flipping/investing firm in Ohio and several surrounding states. I never have, and never will dress up for anyone. What a joke.

Dave, at 9:20 pm EDT on September 19, 2007

one foot on each side of the fence

I am working on a PhD in Business at a laid-back state university, and I support myself by adjuncting for a local college that has a dress code for its Business students.

The school where I teach caters to at-risk students, who couldn’t hack it in the mainstream system. Approximately 90% of whom are female, and the majority are single mothers. If they were not required to dress up for class, I just *know* that I would be kept up to date on current fashion trends in women’s undergarments. As delightful and charming as that might be, it doesn’t really belong in the classroom.

On the other hand, when I am wearing my student hat at Local State U., I show up for class in shorts, sandals, and whatever wrinkled shirt I grab first out of the dryer (which pulls double-duty as my dresser).

If ISU students are predominantly at-risk, or if their home culture is severely at odds with mainstream Business America, I am all for instituting a dress code, replete with neckties, leather shoes with laces, creased trousers, ironed shirts, and the lot.

If, on the other hand, ISU students are the offspring of middle-class middle Americans, then it reeks of rulemaking for the sake of rulemaking.

The idea of making school more like work goes beyond absurd and borders on a Monty Python skit.

At school, you go to a room that affords no privacy, sit at a desk for between 45 minutes and 3 hours, listen to some guy drone on, and then leave to do something completely different. That’s not work; that’s a meeting.

At work, if you don’t know how to do something, you ask a colleague for help. Do that in school, and you get in trouble for cheating.

Universities are not modeled on workplaces. Universities are modeled on medieval monestaries.

Dress codes at most universities makes as much sense as making monks and priests deliver sermons via Powerpoint.

Straddler, at 5:30 am EDT on September 30, 2007

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