Dressing to Code

There has been a degree of controversy of late surrounding the dress code. The brouhaha began when it was announced that athletes will be allowed to wear official team uniforms on days when they do not have time to change into business casual attire before class.

This has caused a degree of consternation. Some perceive this as an abandonment of the dress code—a divergence from what has been part of our culture since our re-founding 12 years ago. Others question the legitimacy of any variation on the dress code for athletes. Student athletes, on the other hand, find this a welcome solution to their dilemma. Let me address a couple of these concerns.

Are we diverging from our dress code? The answer is an emphatic “No.” Not only is the dress code appropriate for our context—the professional business environment of the Empire State Building—the dress code is an important part of our mission. It easy to dress down; few people need to practice wearing jeans or shorts. But dressing in appropriate business attire—and becoming comfortable in that attire—is another matter. When I was an undergraduate student, I rarely wore a tie or suit. When I did, I felt like a fish out of water. Later I went to a graduate school that had relaxed dress standards. I spent four years in shorts and sandals, then moved to New York City and began working in the Empire State Building. Talk about an abrupt and painful shift. We want to impart those lessons to you now. When you graduate, you’ll recalibrate your attire to fit your work context. If you work for a dotcom company in Southern CA, you’ll likely relax your standards. If you work at Goldman Sachs, you’ll need to significantly upgrade your wardrobe. But while at King’s, business casual attire is what’s expected.

Why the allowance for athletic uniforms? A number of our sports teams practice in the early mornings. A handful of those team members have 9:00 AM classes and, hence, don’t have time to change before going to class. These students are permitted to wear official college athletic attire on those days. To put matters in perspective, we’re talking about a handful of students—a few members of the cross country and soccer teams who don’t have time to shower and change before their 9:00 AM classes on Wednesdays. Won’t this lead to slippage in our dress standards? If the perception in the student body is that the dress code is going by the wayside, yes, this will happen. But that is not the direction we’re headed. It is only students who are taking part in official college sports programs who are permitted to be in their official athletic suit—and even then they are only permitted to do so on days when they cannot change before class. There are no other exceptions.

There are times, traditionally, when we relax the dress code—namely finals week and homecoming. We will continue to do that. But during normal business hours (M-F, 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM), our commitment to business casual dress remains the same.

It is true that some rebels—who shall not here be named—have been spotted in jeans on campus. What you may not know is that students and staff are confronting such lawlessness on a daily basis.

For the dress code to work, it needs to be a standard everyone in our community upholds—from staff to faculty to students to athletes.