Academic tat

With fall matriculation quickly approaching, faculty members turn their attention to one of the burning issues of the day (if not the week, the month--yea, even the millennium): what shall we do about regalia?

Fear not--I have a plan! But first, some background:

Academic regalia costs a fortune, never fits right, and makes us look like Darth Vader (if he traded in his light saber for a few yards of colorful velvet). The Powers That Be remind us that the only way to get our money's worth out of our regalia is to wear it often, but but more use = more need for dry-cleaning. (Did you ever try to iron an academic hood? Do NOT try this at home! That way lies madness.)

The PTBs also insist that wearing regalia increases the dignity of the professoriate--except, of course, for those members of the professoriate who trip on those too-long gowns and fall on their faces in front of the Provost--and that academic regalia communicates important facts about us. Those in the know might be aware that brown and orange indicate my doctoral institution (and why oh why didn't I take a long hard look at the school colors before selecting that program?!) while blue indicates my discipline, but regalia can also send other messages, like "I store my robe in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet during the off-season" or "I've gained a few pounds since grad school" or even "Yes, I'm aware that I look like a peacock. Want to make something of it?"

Wouldn't it be great if we could find a way to achieve these important goals without hauling around so many yards of velvet? Well, now there is:

Faculty tattoos.

Tattoos cost less than regalia and are available in a wide range of colors and motifs, from college logos to individualized designs expressing our academic identities. No one cares that my gown's blue stripe indicates that I teach in the Humanities, but a Scrabble board tattooed on my upper arm would send a clear message, especially if the tiles spell out logophile or plagiarism police.

My colleague the microbiologist could have microorganisms tattooed on the back of his hand, while the Leadership prof could have a "Follow Me" sign on his forehead. Give the broadcast prof a microphone and equip the accounting prof with a spreadsheet, but the real show-stopper will be the Old English aficionado who has the palimpsest section of Beowulf tattooed across his chest.

I for one would pay money to see that, and so, I suspect, would students, whose usual response to academic regalia is: yeah, whatever. The years of pain and suffering through which we slog on our journey to the Ph.D. will be so much more rewarding when we know that awaiting us at the end of the road is an orange-and-brown college logo discreetly tattooed on a wrist wrapped with the opening lines of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

Academe resists change, particularly change that undermines our discipline at its most superficial level--what we wear--but sometimes all it takes is for a few brave souls to lead the way, burst the bonds, and non the conformists. One of these days we'll reach the tipping point and look back on academic regalia with the sort of nostalgia we now reserve for dial telephones and cars without seatbelts. First, though, some of us must take the plunge.

So who's with me? Who will join that prophetic band throwing off regalia and ushering academe into the new world of faculty tattoos?

Go ahead! The rest of us will be right behind you.