Open your e-mail inbox and you may find a message from Chancellor Wrighton redefining the alcohol policy and what is acceptable behavior in the dorms. In your own hallway, you may hear an RA telling a student about the “party” policy in the dorm room and how one should restrict the number of people so the event can be considered a gathering. Stroll down the pathway to Brookings and you might be bombarded by a social norming banner stating, “2/3 of Wash. U. students drink 4 shots or fewer when going out.” Walk into the Bear Necessities shop and, after looking around a corner, you can find a T-shirt saying, “You can always re-take the test, but you can never relive the party.” It appears that one of these things is not like the others.

At a school so heralded for the academic accomplishments of its students and faculty, it seems inconsistent to sell a shirt on campus encouraging one to concentrate on the party. Is the administration sending mixed signals – and if so, will this shirt have a detrimental impact on the average GPA?

Dean Darla Dale believes that the shirt provides comic relief for the highly stressed students on campus. Dale explained that one must take from the shirt the spirit of it rather than specific instructions.

“You all are under so much pressure, and in a way, it puts it all in perspective,” Dale said. “The T-shirt sort of lightens the mood. Test-taking is not the end of the world, and we have to put it in a different light, but then I hope you all are mature enough to realize that that approach won’t get you very far.”

Dale reiterated that an important part of being in college is being able to differentiate between the many mixed messages received throughout the day. Even though this T-shirt may be different from what a professor might say, she believes that students are adult enough to understand the difference.

“We are sending different messages, in a way,” Dale said. “However, we receive messages all the time. Part of us coming to college and becoming adults is to figure out what we are going to do with the messages we receive. I don’t think it’s wrong for them to sell that T-shirt in particular. If we are acting by what we see on T-shirts, I don’t know what I would think. If I acted on everything I saw, I would be a very ignorant person.”

University students do not seem to be reacting to this shirt at all. In fact, according to Bear Necessities buyer and manager Mary Hovland, only 26 of the shirts have been sold in the last three years. Compare that to 158 green T-shirts with the University logo, and it is easy to see why Hovland doesn’t plan on ordering more. According to Hovland, the average Bear Necessities shopper is just not looking for a joke.

“The idea of having a funny shirt sometimes appeals to students,” said Hovland, “but by and large, the shopper here is mostly the student and family or alumni, and they are looking for mementos, for souvenirs. They aren’t looking for funny things.”

In addition, the market for these funny shirts is monopolized by the many student groups who give away or sell many different logos. From “Emory was my safety school” to the various W.I.L.D. T-shirts, University students clearly have many cheaper options in this genre versus the $15 in Bear Necessities.

Bear Necessities plans on refining the number of T-shirt styles in their stock for the next year. Run by the Women’s Society of Washington University, Bear Necessities provides most of the funding that the Women’s Society donates to University projects, including Service First and Dance Marathon. These donations totaled about $25,000 in 2005-2006. In addition, the Women’s Society also funds two scholarships for students transferring from a community college. Hovland seeks to stock Bear Necessities in a way to earn the most profit to donate back to the University community.

Maybe the way to the University student’s heart is through a T-shirt poking fun at their academic integrity. But in the end, do students really want or follow this kind of message?

“I would guess that most of you, from what I know, would take it the way I would,” said Dale. “‘That’s really funny, that’s totally right,’ and then show up to all of your classes.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Monday, March 27th, 2006 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Scene. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.