WiNK

Recently, I've been wondering about exactly what our dress code is, especially after a year of a lot of changes, so I decided to talk to Dr. Martin to work through some confusions I've had and hopefully help out understand why some of the dress code rules are in place.

My first question: Blue Jeans -- why can't we wear them?

I went to Dr. Martin with this being my question that I was the most curious about. I've had many conversations with friends where we just couldn't fully understand why no blue jeans, but any color of khakis is fine. I asked a sophomore about the blue jean rule, "I disagree with the no denim jeans. I understand if they are ripped or really baggy, but other than that I think it would be fine to wear jeans." When talking with Dr. Martin, my question was answered, I was told that blue jeans weren't seen as something you'd wear at the traditional workplace and therefore they are not included in our dress code.

My next question was:

How did you come up with the most recent changes to the attire? Over the years, the dress code has changed and Dr. Martin says "still has room to change." One noticeable change this year was that Event Dress was altered so gender fluidity was included into our handbook. The attire is made to have everyone feel comfortable and be able to express themselves. I talked to two sophomores, they both agreed that this was a good step forward fro Wooster!

My final question for Dr. Martin was about a uniform. I was curious to see if a uniform was ever in the talks. I talked to a Junior who had a uniform while she was younger, "I personally didn't like it. It was annoying not being able to wear the new clothes I had just gotten to school when I wanted too." I also talked to a sophomore who had a uniform as a kid, "I didn't really like it at the time because of how young I was, but looking at it now it was so easy. There wasn't any of the stress that comes with getting dressed in the morning. When I talked with Dr. Martin, she said that while she's been here there hasn't been any talk about it.

Thank you, Dr. Martin, for your time and for clarifying my dress code questions.