Looks like I’m years late on reading, and responding to, this article but here goes.

Its interesting how polarized this thread reads.

I agree that students may be more attentive to a spiffed up Professor than someone who merely throws themselves together in five minutes, and stumbles out the door.

I also agree that overinvesting in outward appearances is no substitute for thoughtful, informed, pedagogical practices.

University restructuring, I would argue, is the larger culprit that has adjusted student orientations to learning and knowledge acquisition, makes them more prone to use potentially disruptive technologies, and has them more focused on the pitfalls of credentialism – processes of certification that makes acceptable the student pursuit of little pieces of paper that proclaim they are qualified to do something if only they make it to the end of their programs.

This whole “dress-up” question really deserves much more consideration regarding disciplinary context.

I’m either blessed or cursed teaching sociology/criminology. Some days I walk into class with business casual attire and other days I walk in with pink hair and a dog collar.

Students do notice – especially first time students – when I walk into class in both cases, and have very different reactions depending on my outfit.

But their reactions to me and my clothes is really the point. No matter what I’m wearing on day one, I talk to students about how professionalism is illusory. Your clothes very well might influence how you are received, but it doesn’t speak to what a person does or does not know, or their teaching ability.

I sometimes tell the students that the reason I dress up is to try to trick them into thinking that I actually know something.

My student and administrative reviews are hard to beat. Students pay close attention to what I say, what their colleagues around them say, and it is a rarity that students will text etc. in my classes. I tell them that if someone engages in unauthorized use of electronics that it will only happen once, and it usually doesn’t happen.

I’m known as a “tough” grader with high standards, but even so I tend to have students seek me out and take 2 or 3 classes with me.

My clothes have nothing to do with my commitment to teaching, or the respect I receive in any of my classes.

The students know I am available for them, I want them to do better, and they can talk to me about anything, and I wont judge them.

Teaching (for me) is about cultivating relationships. It is the development, maintenance, and continuity of these relationships that create environments of honour, integrity and respect.

As a result, I am held in high regard by students, colleagues, administrators, community figures (police, reporters etc.). This is the case no matter our political agreements, discrepancies, convergences, or divergences.

Treating people like people, especially in the case of students, goes a long way. I’d rather break down social divides as much as possible and greet people on a more balanced footing than contribute to the assembly line manufacture of obedient students and consumers who yield to little cotton, tweed or polyester costumes.

Finally, I often tell students to not believe anything that I tell them. I ask them to be curious and question everything and everyone. To learn about “things” not for that little piece of paper as an end goal but because knowledge is its own reward.

I am unfortunately guilty at times of this. The dynamic of my student body is everything from high school students to non-traditional college students. The high school kids find me more approachable with the dumbed down attire and my laid back approach to the class. However the adult learners might have issue with that.

Being “dressed up” conveys the message that you can only learn from well-dressed people. It’s a sad, sad statement on our society that exteriors are used to draw conclusions about interiors. I recommend that we end this tradition.

It is not always practical to dress up in neat pants with tie and jacket. In my subject (maths) I have to make extensive use of blackboard and chalk, including the cleaning of the blackboards at the end of the lectures (roughly, 16-18 of them). All that chalk dust ruins quickly any decent piece clothing I wear, as I’ve discovered to my horror in the early days. That’s why I tend to dress down when I have to teach. Also, most of the teaching rooms are windowless, stuffy and I tend to sweat for the whole 50 minutes (most of my classes have 150-250 students)…..

You have some good points, despite your obviously reactionary, aristocratic/materialistic mentality. But the formality of teachers and professors should be distinctive, setting them apart from the appearance of degenerate, venal corporatists. I would NEVER wish to be mistaken for, or associated with, an acquisitive lawyer, banker, or any other species of “professional” private sector yuppie vermin. I think for myself I’ll go somewhat retro like Indy there, with a bowtie, etc.
To assert that teachers should ape, and therefore flatter, mere bankers (just because they have the resources to horde more material wealth for themselves!) is patently insulting.

One must keep in mind that most undergraduate students on today’s college classrooms are more interested in attempting – and sorely failing – to conceal ongoing text message conversations, check social media updates online, or otherwise fiddle with electronic devices during class than even lay eyes on the person of their professor. Furthermore, daydreaming, barely whispered conversations between a student and his classroom neighbors, and the frantic finishing of assignments due later that day add to the distraction. At best, a student’s involvement in class material is generally limited to half a Word-document page’s worth of notes or bulletin points which were likely typed in between checking facebook updates and playing Angry Birds.
I am nearly finished with my undergraduate degree. I’ve had professors that dress to Hegel’s standards. I’ve also had those whose attire is more unkempt than my own (I generally wear jeans and a button down or polo to class). The truth is that I have noticed no correlation between instructor dress and student participation. When I reflect on it, the few professors who have truly stood out to me as exceptionally intelligent and proficient in their field have dressed less formally than the author of this article would approve of. Indeed, the professor who is currently directing my thesis research – by far the most impressive I’ve met on campus – dresses rather sloppily. Alas, I do realize the author does not wish to suggest that proper dress correlates with intelligence (although I suspect he privately holds that assumption).
The bottom line is that there are innumerable problems with today’s campuses. The dress of professors is not one of them. In my opinion, a professor would have better luck engaging students if he or she made clear on the first day of class that no laptops would be allowed and that use of cell phones would result in immediate removal from that day’s lecture. Even then, a professor who was truly mastered the art of lecture should have no problem garnering his or her students’ attention, regardless of attire. If the author believes that most of his students would take the time to glance away from their glowing screens to catch site of his polished wingtips, he is sorely mistaken. If anything, I’d tend toward the idea that overdoing formality in dress possesses potentially negative results. A professor who comes to class looking like Winston Churchill runs the risk of immediately appearing unapproachable and dispassionate to his or her students.

“As a society we need to put to death the notion that appearance is indicative of the quality of the idea.”
This is indicative of the sloppy thinking that leads so many academics to dress like slobs. As part of the leftist attack on tradition, the old-fashioned idea that people should dress professionally has been rejected on the grounds that such “stuffiness” is a substitute for substance. From this comes the perverse corollary that sloppy dressing is a sign of “authenticity,” and so any argument that professors should dress professionally is “refuted” on the specious grounds that professional attire is a substitute for quality thinking.
Okay, since so many here have obviously not been paying attention (or are refusing to listen), let me spelling it out in simple words. No one is saying that simply dressing professionally makes your thought superior. What is being said is that students take you more seriously if you dress in a respectable manner than they do if you dress like a slob (as so many academics do). Appearances do count, not in that your appearance affects the quality of what you say, but it does affect the *impression you make on others*. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply fooling themselves.
If you take yourself seriously, so do others. If you look like a slob, many people treat you accordingly.

As a society we need to put to death the notion that appearance is indicative of the quality of the idea. We spend too much time on the facade. By demanding that teachers/professors “dress up” you are teaching students that people who are dressed up have important things to say (and should be listened to), and those who are not dressed up do not have important things to say (and should be ignored). What a sad state of affairs. What next, the return of robes?

I teach at the high school level and wear a blazer, a dress shirt with tie, slacks, and appropriate shoes. Teachers need to know content, but students respond to presentation.
Why do science teachers don lab coats when the vast majority of labs won’t cause a mess? They are signals of what is going to occur. They are also signals of seriousness and if a teacher or professor does not realize that something as simple as appearance is important, then students will not take the content of the lesson seriously. And why should they? It was presented by an unserious person. Clothes, as they used to say, make the man. If that truism is no longer known, it does not mean that it is no longer valid.

Teaching is a profession…an honored one at that. By dressing professionally one shows respect to the field as well as to the students, which is crucial to gaining their attention. Just as with parents who try to be “cool” in order to be a buddy to their child, so too I’ve seen with instructors, who are decades older, using the latest teen descriptives and dressing as if hoping to be one and the same. Students are not impressed by this.
Does dressing well cause students to pay attention? It shows the student that the teacher cares enough to present him/herself in a professional manner. Of course, one needs to be able to effectively teach, but one is not mutually exclusive of the other.
Teachers by definition….teach….not simply what one is assigned to instruct throughout the term, but teach through example…..to be professional in appearance, demeanor, speech, grammar….the entire person…for we set the example. By taking on the role of teacher, that should be part and parcel of the position, not an aside casually dismissed for ones own comfort.

The article is dead on, but in my experience, only when it comes to male faculty. Here at Stony Brook, where the men do indeed dress as the article indicates, all the faculty women dress very professionally – as do all the administrative staff.