January
24, 2003
A
Short(s) Story: Professor James Hartley's Unique Approach
to Winter Dress
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Photo: Fred LeBlanc
Associate
Professor of Economics James Hartley
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Although
his focus in the classroom is on economic terms such as forecasting
and aggregate demand curves, such concepts literally go out the
window when it comes to the way Associate Professor of Economics
James Hartley dresses in winter. There is one economic condition
that comes to mind when you see Hartley trudging through deep
snow on campus: "monopoly," since he seems to have cornered
the market when it comes to wearing his favorite article of clothing
during the chilly season. The long and the short of it is that
the professor sees no reason to let subzero temperatures, snow,
and ice keep him from wearing clothing in which he feels relaxed—even
though his garb of choice happens to be shorts.
When interviewed for
this article on a cold winter day in January, Hartley was sporting
a pair of classic (in summer anyway) khaki shorts and sneakers,
charging through snowdrifts with nary a shiver. "I just don't
like wearing long pants very much; shorts are much more comfortable,"
he says. "I also don't like having to think about what
to wear so I have a really simple rule for getting dressed. If
I have to lecture during the day, I wear long pants; if I don't,
I wear shorts." Hartley also doesn't like wearing shoes,
but Jack Frost has forced him to make concessions. "It is
hard to walk on snow and ice without shoes; you tend to slip a
lot (I rediscover this every winter)—so, I tend to wear shoes
outside during the winter—but I skip the shoes too when the
ground thaws out."
Hartley's ability
to withstand cold seems all the more unusual for his having spent
his formative years in a relatively warm climate. He didn't
even see snow until he was in junior high school. How long has
he been exposing his bare legs to frigid temperatures? Hartley
doesn't quite know. Perhaps it's all a blur, or at least
a brr. "I can't remember exactly when I realized I didn't
have to wear long pants," he says. "I grew up in California,
and it stays relatively warm there year round. When I got the
job here, everybody told me that I would have to stop wearing
shorts in the winter now that I was moving to a place with real
winters; they were (rather obviously) wrong."
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