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Students at my small liberal arts college wear shorts year-round.
Not all students. But more than a few.
Frequently, shorts are accompanied by a sturdy winter jacket and boots. Hats and gloves might complete the ensemble.
Shorts-wearing students in winter would not be surprising in Miami, or Honolulu, or San Diego. In New Hampshire, however, a year-round dedication to shorts makes an impression.
Why do some students wear shorts year-round?
If clothing is as much about signaling as it is about function, what are winter shorts-wearing students trying to tell us?
As far as I know, the reasons why college students wear shorts in winter has never been studied. Which shows how little I know.
Google "college students wearing shorts in winter," and you get 42,100,000 results.
The first result, from PopSugar.com (a site I've never heard of), provides this screenshot from Twitter of a University of Minnesota student wearing shorts in winter.
There are stories of students wearing shorts in winter at Penn State. And of students wearing shorts in winter at UW Madison.
Walk around your campus, and I bet you will see students in shorts.
But will you see professors in shorts in winter? Deans, provosts?
Here is my theory to explain students wearing shorts in winter.
For those lucky enough to attend a residential institution, and to live and study in the same place, college can be a time of exploration, experimentation and freedom.
Students can wear whatever they want, as there is no parent or other adults to make sartorial demands.
Shorts in winter are assertions of individuality and nonconformity.
Wearing shorts in winter signals robust health and a willingness to tolerate, and even embrace, whimsical extremes.
A student who wears shorts on campus in winter does so with the knowledge that her window in life to do so is -- well -- short. She will not be able to wear shorts in the workplace.
Sooner or later, we all need to conform to the social norms and expectations around clothing. Why not get as many shorts-wearing days in as possible?
Or maybe they are just on their way to, or coming back from, the gym? Maybe I'm reading too much into students wearing shorts in winter?
Do you know any professors who wear shorts year-round?
How else do students signal nonconformity and individuality in how they dress at your school?
