University Open Days- what do you expect staff to wear?

[PoisonedIvy]

Completely random question prompted by a discussion with a colleague.

I've just taken over the running of my department's open days. I'm leading one this Saturday.

Do you expect/want the academics leading open days to be dressed smart? I normally dress very casual for work and was planning to wear the same type of thing as usual for the open day (jeans, leather jacket, top, boots). But my colleague who ran open days where she used to work was of the opinion that staff should dress up a bit smart.

So, what do you think?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Turning out to PR your university ensures you attract the students to ensure you have a requirement to continue in yours.



Oh, bless you. I wish. Please tell me more about how turning out to 'PR my university' has any tiny little impact on my job?

I promise you, if it had the smallest effect, I would turn up at every open day with the suitiest suit you've ever seen. But sadly, the only payback I get for attending open days is the satisfaction of knowing I might have made some nervous potential students feel less nervous.

[TSSDNCOP]

And yet you'd have thought enthusing them with your subject, how you'll support their education and the benefits of the college through your experience would be more effective. This threads illuminating to learn how kids prospective educators really feel.

[chemenger]

I really enjoy open days while I'm there. That does not stop me resenting giving up my Saturday. i love it when I see the same person at an open day, then an offer day then in my introductory talk for freshers.

[InDubiousBattle]

plenty of people work extra unpaid hours

None more so than academics! Dp is a lecturer (think biochemistry/pharmacology)but under graduate teaching only takes up a relatively small percentage of his time so tbh I think spending most of a Saturday chatting to potential students (and their parents)is a bit of a pain in the arse for him so he just wear what is comfortable.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

And yet you'd have thought enthusing them with your subject, how you'll support their education and the benefits of the college through your experience would be more effective. This threads illuminating to learn how kids prospective educators really feel.

Sorry, I really do not understand what you are getting at?

I am telling you that I do unpaid work to enthuse students. I try to dress in such a way that I don't intimidate those students who are least likely to feel that university is for them. I work really hard to understand what is most likely to help potential students feel at home.

And you think this is somehow lacking because I don't wear the clothing that might please a middle-class parent of a student?! Oh please.

Yes, this is definitely how I really feel. In the hierarchy of people I am concerned about, parents of students rank quite low, because I am actually interested in my students and how they respond.

[GiantSteps]

I really enjoy open days while I'm there. That does not stop me resenting giving up my Saturday.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about them, chemenger I was actually at one a few weeks ago when I didn't have to be. I was working in the library deadlines whooshing past and popped over to see friends/colleagues, and ended up staying to talk to parents for about 4 hours.

I don't do PR for my university. I talk to people, advise potential applicants, and sometimes suggest a different course at a different university might meet their ambitions or interests better.

So I think I'm a pretty good bet - excellent indeed - in terms of caring about my current & prospective students.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Oh, and in case you fondly imagine we can all afford to work without being paid, I'm currently paid well under minimum wage per hour, once you take into account my unpaid marking/prep time.

[alltouchedout]

I'm sitting here now thinking back to the open days I went to quite some time ago when I was about to apply to uni. I can remember being interested in many things, and being told and shown many interesting things, but literally nothing about what anyone was wearing.

[Oldie2017]

A lot of academics like teachers tend to feel a bit fed up about things and always have and always will. It seems to be part of being in those sectors. Anyway I am sure we just want them to wear what they feel comfortable in. I would obviously prefer the men in suits and women in some kind of suit, heels and blouse (particularly now I am paying £150k over the next 3 years to fund the twins) but it is not a big deal at all. We are certainly used to teachers at private schools being forced to dress like that for parents' evenings I suppose so we might expect the same. Laughing I type... I would not worry about it.

Anyone who feels under paid should consider different jobs. A lot of aademics are very clever and would be well suited for all kinds of other better paid jobs where they might be appreciated more - go for it. We have not had such full employment as now since 1975 - now is the time to get out there and fight for the more pleasant jobs.

[Svalberg]

I'd expect brown cords & tweed jackets with patched elbows in order to reinforce all the stereotypes

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

oldie, how about:

1. We continue to dress in a suitable way, not in a way middle-class rich parents think is suitable, which is actually liable to alienate the students we most want?
   
   
2. We continue to agitate for the pay we actually deserve, rather than jumping ship to other jobs?
   
   I think that's my general game plan.

[Needmoresleep]

Way back in pre-history Cosmopolitan magazine ran an article featuring attractive male academics. One was at the open day I attended, and when I started I took one of his courses, spending my time wondering whether to offer to repair the holes in the elbows of his jumpers. He later became very senior, and I would notice his name commentating on economics stuff. He was still on the staff when DS started. DS looked at this picture of a dull looking academic and did not understand why I got this dreamy look.

This is the only time I have ever noticed what an academic wore. I did note though, a couple of years ago, that UCL seemed to have stolen the hot lecturer crown from LSE.

www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2015/jun/11/worlds-hottest-maths-teacher-pietro-boselli-interview

How hard are Universities competing for students?

[Oldie2017]

LRD, why would you want one class of students more than others though? Is there something wrong with students and their parents who want people in smart suits? Is academia a hotbed of Corbynite socialism like a lot of state schools are?

By all means stay and lobby for higher pay.

Also isn't though a bit patronising for students from poor backgrounds to think they would be put off by high standards of dress particularly as plenty of them have gone to university to help them move into very high paid jobs where you might be judged on where you buy your suit never mind whether you wear one?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

We want to encourage students who are most underrepresented, all academic aspects being equal. Obviously.

There is certainly something wrong with parents imagining that their preference for academics in suits should have some bearing on their adult children's choice of university. Especially when they link it to money.

I sincerely hope my tiny bit of academia is a hotbed of something rather less wussy than Corbynite socialism, however.

There's nothing patronising about doing research into what students say puts them off, and acting on it. Which is what we have done.

[corythatwas]

I certainly don't have a feeling that I want to attract one group of students more than another (apart from, obviously, wanting the hard-working and enthusiastic ones). I just really don't feel that all-round business suits would be particularly representative of my workplace or particularly likely to prove attractive to the kind of students who are interested in my subject.

I want parents to feel happy and welcomed because I'm a generally nice kind of person who wants everybody to feel happy if I can possibly manage it.

But it's not the parents who are going to be sitting in my seminars nor (hopefully) deciding if my course is the right one for their offspring. In the end what matters is that the students should feel at home here. I go for quietly casual, not the business look.

And I would be very unimpressed if prospective students spent their time thinking about my dress sense rather than about what they might learn from me. If they were really going to pay their 27 grand just to enjoy the spectacle of me in heels (entertaining as that would be) I suspect there are more aesthetically pleasing sights to be had elsewhere.

[Fffion]

It's an interesting concept to attract the underpriviledged by dressing down. Surely some of this demographic will be attracted by the aspiration of dressing well?

[user918273645]

But at LRD's university the evidence is that underprivileged students are put off by the perceived formality, i.e. they are put off rather than attracted by people dressing formally. (Imo, just like LRD's I suspect, dressing formally is not equivalent to dressing "well" or "having high standards of dress".)

Once you get the students through the door, you can then start to work on them being comfortable in environments that are sometimes relevant to succeeding professionally: dressing formally (where required), making small talk for networking, being confident in formal dining etc. But if they don't come through the door in the first place you can't work with them at all.

[user918273645]

A lot of aademics are very clever and would be well suited for all kinds of other better paid jobs where they might be appreciated more - go for it.

I know this has been asked to this poster many times over the years - but do you really think that it is in the interests of society for clever people to aim entirely for well paid jobs? Do you really want academics to quit work on cancer research, future technologies, ways to deal with climate change etc? Would it be good for all the best academics to leave the UK for places like the US where academic salaries are twice as high?

[fairyofallthings]

In no walk of life can leggings be described as professional or much beyond "I'm not giving a toss today"

When you do a job where you have to demonstrate to children how to do physical exercise such as lying on the floor, raising their pelvis and hips then leggings are pretty much compulsory under a skirt.

Showing off under wear to children is generally considered to be less professional than wearing leggings.

[fairyofallthings]

@oldie2017 Anyone who feels under paid should consider different jobs. A lot of aademics are very clever and would be well suited for all kinds of other better paid jobs where they might be appreciated more - go for it. We have not had such full employment as now since 1975 - now is the time to get out there and fight for the more pleasant jobs.

Why are you equating pay levels with the pleasantness (or otherwise) of the job - low pay jobs can be extremely rewarding and high pay jobs can be unrewarding.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

YY, I don't think dressing formally is the same thing as dressing 'well' (whatever that is).

I think it also matters where you are. I wish it didn't, but it does. If your potential students are already feeling nervous because of the physical space they're in, the associations of it, the jargon around them, then you want to do anything you can to reassure them. Most of them won't even notice what you wear. But a few will, and some will feel worried there's some etiquette they're failing.

[housess]

I can't believe people are describing academics as low paid. The mind boggles.

[user918273645]

Academics on zero hours contracts are very poorly paid: they can get less than the minimum wage per hour when you take preparation time required for teaching into account.

A professor in the UK is poorly paid relative to professors in other countries. Lecturers are even worse paid compared to comparable rank academics in other countries. Given the level of education involved and the requirements of the job, the pay is poor.

[notquiteruralbliss]

Clothes would be good. 0ther than that, no preference other than something not too intimidating.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I get less than minimum wage at the moment. I have been better paid at other times. But, at the career stage I'm at, a stipend of 3k per year isn't unusual, and a salary might be somewhere between 15 and 25k. 25k sounds wonderful, I know, but less so if you've got it after a year of scraping by on 3k and the promise of 25. So, yes, academics can be badly paid. This is not a pity issue - just a point, that fancy suits would sometimes be quite inappropriate in terms of giving students 'aspirational' images, as well as anything else.