History of the English Department's Purple Shirts for Scholarships

English Department Scholarships | English Homepage
 

In 1995, Ruth Callahan, English faculty member, came up with a novel idea (at least to us it seemed quite original!) to raise scholarship money by selling t-shirts.  After receiving approval from our department chair, the idea was announced at Assessment Day (what a venue!) and from the very beginning, the faculty members voted on color, style and motto.  We can't remember who came up with our earliest motto, "Write On!", but Ruth thinks it was Char Howey.

The first shirts were a fairly low-key red with black letters -- nothing too radical! The t-shirts were printed with a logo and sold to English faculty members for about twice what they cost, with the profit designated for the English department scholarship fund.  However, the fund-raising didn't stop with the delivery of the special t-shirts!   The last Friday of every month was announced as THE official t-shirt day--although sometimes we sneak an additional one in here and there.  Each English faculty member paid a dollar to the scholarship fund for the privilege of wearing the special t-shirt and playing fashionista for a day.  The money has always gone to the English Department Scholarship Funds.

Eventually, though, folk tired of the trusty old red rags, and after much discussion, we voted on white polo necked shirts, with 2 cryptic imprints. On the front, we had a sort of a badge effect which proclaimed "Rhetoric Ranger" and on the back, the equally strange "To Compose Is To Live," an idea offered by Pat Haas. Although we wore them faithfully, in fact, no one understood these shirts at all, and we finally gave up on them two years ago.

Our latest shirts are those producing the purple haze which people see before them now. The grape colored t-shirt sports a gold emblem on the front which looks like a squashed bottle cap and says "GCC English Department," and on the back we have Char's inspired "Write no wrongs!"  --  also in tasteful gold lettering.

The only drawback so far to these shirts is that if a lot of us stand together, we look a bit like the California Raisins.

People are goaded into wearing the shirts by the receipt of an appalling parody of a poem, song or excerpt from great literature, composed by our own Ruthie and e-mailed on Thursday before the Friday when the festivities begin.  Ruth's creative talents have unleashed some remarkable and memorable songs and poetry that sent many faculty members sliding off their chairs and onto their office floors in uncontrolled laughter.

Read Ruth's Remarkable Parodies