Harding changed dress-code policies regarding hair length for men and nose rings for women this fall. Men are now allowed to have shoulder-length hair and women permitted to have nose rings as well as studs.<\/p>\n
According to Zach Neal, dean of students, policies are reviewed by the Office of Student Life every year. If policies are adjusted, they are done while remaining consistent with Harding\u2019s mission. Though the phrase \u201coff the collar\u201d concerning the length of men\u2019s hair was removed from this year\u2019s student handbook, the expectation of neatness and cleanliness remains.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some questions related to hairstyles. Some hairstyles require longer length than others and so it was something that could be evaluated \u2026 and it seemed like a good time to be able to change that policy,\u201d Neal said. \u201cI definitely think hairstyles and hair length are generational and cultural, and it is something related to the dress code that is in response to communication from students and supported by faculty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior Josiah Abney learned of the new policies after his friends in the Student Association notified him of the change over the summer. Abney said he was pleased with the new wording of the rule that offers a vague interpretation, allowing both the students and administration a little bit of breathing room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m at peace with the new rule,\u201d Abney said. \u201cI\u2019m not worried about being called in to the deans about something as unimportant as the length of my hair \u2026 Students now don\u2019t have to bother putting their hair up every day, and administration can still call students in who have hair that obviously goes beyond what the hair rule seeks to enforce.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition, a change was also made to the section on acceptable piercings for women that now allows women to wear nose rings instead of just a small stud. Sophomore Ashton Castle said that she would often wear a ring last year despite the rule against them, and she felt many other students did as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was always kind of like, \u2018oh no, will today be the day that someone tells me I have to take it out?\u2019\u201d Castle said. \u201cI think the idea that we could have studs but not rings was weird just because there are some studs that are just as noticeable as a ring could be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although students seem to be pleased with the recent changes in the dress code policy, Abney said some students still hope that more changes will be made in the future. According to Neal, the hair and nose ring policies were rewritten because they were the two sections of the handbook that were emphasized most by students in the last few years. The Office of Student Life will revisit the policies next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have only received positive feedback regarding the change,\u201d Neal said. \u201cWe will continue our practice of listening to students and evaluating all policies on a regular basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information on dress code policy changes this school year, see Section 7, \u2018Modest and Appropriate Dress\u2019 on pages 20-21 of the Student Handbook 2017-2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Harding changed dress-code policies regarding hair length for men and nose rings for women this fall. Men are now allowed to have shoulder-length hair and women permitted to have nose…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14924,"featured_media":9013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9014,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9012\/revisions\/9014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}