The Chronicle of Higher Education: Colloquy

COLLOQUY

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Fashion and "school" clothes are fine for a person who works behind a desk all day or who simply has to lecture in front of the class, but would you wear your Donna Karan in a chemistry lab with solvents? What about a fine suit in a histology class with all of those permanent stains? So much for that Armani...

Perhaps a few more scientists should have been interviewed for this article. Clothing depends on what you are doing and most of my colleagues would rather wear clothing that works rather than clothing that shows off. Clothes do not make a person and respect is not earned solely by your appearance.

What message does this send to our students? That only good looking ones will succeed, and all of you less than perfect ones might as well get a job at McDonald's, where your clothes will be chosen for you?

-- Laura Rhoads, Assistant Professor of Biology, Western Kentucky University (posted 1/26, 11:25 a.m., E.S.T.)
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