LEEWIND: Dress code altered
Courtesy of Preston Steger, Social Media Manager
LEEWIND is a weekly series by the Lee Clarion featuring a story from our archives to celebrate Lee's Centennial.
Oct. 1993—Lee students have found a new way to beat the heat this semester—shorts. That's right. Shorts are in, sweats are out.
If you drove down Church Street in the 1960s, you might have seen your parents, or Paul Conn, sporting socks or pantyhose and clean-shaven faces. In their day demerits were given for the simple crime of having facial hair. No doubt Lee kept Gillette in business!
In the early '70s, varying dress code violations included women wearing pants (even for sports!), men with "bizarre" hair (whatever that means), men with no hair ("The shaved head is not an accepted style") and men donning plain, white T-shirts. Naturally, shorts, beards and goatees were out of the question…for both sexes. If used (I guess by women), cosmetics were to be applied "conservatively."
The huge breakthrough for students came in 1981: women could wear pants. Excluding the hours between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, Lee College ladies were finally able to sport their Levi's.
In the mid-80s a vague change occurred allowing students to wear shorts for intramural athletics and other "approved" sports.
Unfortunately, what some people considered "sport" was not always recognized as such by the Lee College administration and security.
In 1990 women first started wearing pants to class, and now, three years later, shorts have arrived—legally. Who is responsible for bringing this joy into our lives?
According to President Paul Conn, "Despite the annual adjustments in the student dress code, the policy has never changed, simply the interpretation of it."
The interpretation is up to the president of the college and his administration. With this in mind, Conn doesn't feel Lee College has taken a liberal stand on the shorts issue. To the contrary, he believes we needed to "catch up to the Church of God in this issue."
When asked if he felt the new rule had been abused, Conn commended students on their adjustment to the new dress code. As long as the shorts don't get "too short" or immodest, he promises they're here to stay. Conn added that he hasn't seen "any more people wearing inappropriately short shorts than inappropriately short skirts." I think we can all add a hearty, "Amen!"
What will be the next step in this constant evolution of the Lee College dress code? Are shorts truly here to stay? The answer rests on how we, as students, handle our new privileges.
Conn has made his position clear: "We never know which way the next step will be—and I'm prepared to move either way."
