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?

Stipends are for part time teaching such as the 8 hours per week during term time. At Oxbridge this is supplied and paid for by the colleges and has always been offered in this way to junior researchers. Many STEM postdocs use teaching stipends to supplement their (lowish) externally grant or departmental,y funded salary.
Unfortunately humanities academic junior staff do not seem to be able to get external grant funding for their normal salary so to continue on this career path without being paid a full salary is devotion indeed to their subject. Alternatively they get stipends from several colleges (if they are lucky and good enough).

The very good (and lucky) humanity postdocs do get external funding for their full salary. TBH I personally would not continue along this career path at Oxbridge if I did not achieve a grant , unless the stipend was an add on to some other external job.

The salaries are outrageous and I don't know any uni that could field only senior staff for Open Days just because senior staff such as readers and profs are usually traveling much more on grants/meetings and aren't as available as lecturers/post-docs- although my uni has a policy of everyone taking a turn so you usually get the spread of all levels at every Open Day on weekends.

As Oldie says, though, I don't work solely for the money. I still love my work and love my research, and am not terribly motivated by money at all, which is why, given I have a permanent job I'm happy.

I get offers quite often from students offering to work as interns/researchers for free- when you have people who will work for free (our policy is no) and post-docs fighting over jobs on £28k, the funders just rub their hands in glee at the ability to fund cheaper projects, but you do get what you pay for if you have a workforce with one eye on the door/their next job all the time.

To what has already been said about postdocs, I would add the custom of keeping more senior staff (suspiciously often female) on part-time contracts which have not been requested by the member of staff in question.