By Michelle Barger
Staff Writer
Last week, resident students in both Robinson and Arnold halls received an email from Resident Directors Kim Tuttle and Bonnie Spallinger reminding students of Bryan rules and saying that the resident assistants and resident directors are going to be more consistent with upholding school policies.
One of the policies included skinny jeans in the list of form-fitted clothing when the dress code previously not included them.
The email read, “at Bryan College you are allowed to wear jeggings, leggings, yoga pants, skinny jeans, exercise pants, tights, but anything that is form-fitted on the bottom half of your body you must have a top that completely covers your butt and crotch at all times (sitting, standing, walking, stretching, etc…) and it should fall halfway (or longer) between your hip joint (not your waist) and your knee joint. If your clothing has spandex in it, then you must wear the long top that covers your butt and crotch to meet dress code. “
For some, the addition of skinny jeans to the list raised questions about whether dress code had changed.
Tuttle said the inclusion of skinny jeans was a miscommunication, but the goal of the email was to remind students of the dress code.
She and Spallinger said that skinny jeans are fine; however, the reason they were initially included was because of the inconsistent standard clothing manufacturers have for categorizing skinny jeans and jeggings.
Spallinger said that part of the reason the email was sent was because the current handbook does not include the changes to dress code that took effect at the beginning of the 2014-15 school year.
The updated rules state that “when wearing leggings, jeggings, tights, or yoga pants, the torso attire (shirt, blouse, dress, ets . . .) must meet the skirt/dress length requirement and be no shorter than half way between the hip joint and the knee joint.“
Spallinger stressed that jeggings and other forms of form-fitting clothing on the lower body are not against policy when worn with a shirt that comes half-way between the hip joint and knee joint.
As for the dress code reminder, Tuttle said that RDs normally send out an email every spring semester reminding students of dress code policy.
Both Spallinger and Tuttle wanted to emphasize that the email did not contain any changes to either dress code or other policies regarding student life. The purpose was to serve as a reminder to students who may have not read the handbook or needed to be refreshed on some of the school’s policies.
Tuttle said that her and Spallinger’s “goal is to help students be successful. We don’t want them to spend so much time focusing on clothing that they’re not able to do the things that they’re here to do. But within that, there are policies that we’ve all agreed to live by while we’re here, and by following those it will enable [the students] to focus on the things that are more important.”
