Not having the option to roll out of bed and go to class in pajamas and flip-flops may seem like a nightmare to some Ohio State students, but having a required, professional dress code is a reality that undergraduates in the dental hygiene program have to face every day.

The department has had a dress code since the 1960s, when students were required to wear all-white attire. However, about ten years ago, the department changed the dress code to require students to wear professional attire to class and either professional clothes or scrubs in clinical study, said Michele Carr, director of the dental hygiene program.

“I know there are some people who aren’t happy about (the dress code) just because it is college,” said Carey Zsembik, a sophomore in dental hygiene and president of the dental hygiene class of 2008. “But I think it’s good for us, just to get us ready for the profession we’re going into.”

“For me personally, (having a dress code) makes it easier to get ready for school,” she said. “I don’t have to stand there for an hour in the morning trying to pick out my outfit.”

Carr said if students do not follow the dress code guidelines, their final grades will be negatively affected.

Zsembik said it is important for students in the dental hygiene program to dress professional because it “gives a professional look and a professional appearance to not only the dental hygiene profession, but to also the college of dentistry because there are outsiders coming in all the time for dental treatment.”

Kelly King, a sophomore in dental hygiene, said during class, students are prohibited from wearing “normal college apparel,” such as sweatpants, flip-flops, pajamas, tank tops, shorts, hats, low-cut tops and t-shirts advertising anything except OSU. Other guidelines include no holes in clothes and skirts no shorter than two inches above the knee.

“These guidelines bothered me at first because I didn’t understand why we couldn’t wear other t-shirts or flip-flops to class,” King said in an e-mail. “(However,) it doesn’t bother me to follow these guidelines now because I am used to them.”

King added that in clinic, students are expected to follow the same guidelines as in class, plus they are not allowed cartilage or facial piercings, jeans, loose hair, colored nail polish or dirty shoes.

Carr said the only new guideline for the 2005-2006 school year is facial or cartilage piercings have to be covered up or removed when working on patients in the clinic.

She said until this year, OSU was the only dental hygiene program out of the twelve in Ohio permitting piercings in clinic.

“I know it sounds very silly that we have to police this, but the way that students were treating patients – with the scrubs rolled down real low and the short shirts so their belly button piercing would be showing, or their underwear would be exposed – it’s just not professional,” she said.

Trisha Gillen, a sophomore in pre-dentistry and dental hygiene said the new rule against piercing affected her at the beginning of this school year because she got her cartilage pierced last summer.

“(The piercing) wasn’t all the way healed when I came back so taking it out three to four afternoons a week was kind of hard,” Gillen said in an e-mail. “(But) I think the rule is a very good one. It is unprofessional to have multiple piercings in your ears, nose and eyebrow and detrimental to your oral health to have lip and tongue rings.”

Carr said most clinical study programs around the country and throughout OSU require their own dress codes in order to maintain professionalism in their students.

“I feel the dress code is relative to my future and thus believe it’s important,” King said. “Even though some days I just want to roll out of bed and wear pajamas and flip-flops like everyone else.”