Tattoo Culture In Higher Education

A recent study by Diaz (2011) suggested America has shifted toward an acceptance of tattoo culture, as four-in-ten adults have at least one tattoo. Yet there is still an obvious stigma associated with tattoo culture, explicitly in higher education. On the question of tattoos on academic bodies, it is considered a violation of the mores and values of education. As Leonard (2011) writes that “men should feel free to express ourselves with tattoos as members of academia because tattoos can make us more human in the eyes of our students – challenging the myth of the professor as an untarnished vehicle of knowledge. Not only are we as learned men able to express our knowledge and our competencies, but we can display our personality and authentic pedagogy by distinctly displaying our art for the world to see.” From his own …show more content…
The discussion is set against the building blocks of credibility and the four dimensions of credibility that was promoted by McCrowsky and others. Each set of factors that were perceived by students as critical of what it meant to be credible professors was discussed with examples to illustrate the extent of meaning of the elements. Expectations of all students vis-à-vis those factors are considered the norm in most college and higher education teaching-learning environments. In conclusion, it can be surmised that credibility of professors and teachers should not only be seen, but should be experienced by the students under his/her tutelage. Good university teaching is something that develops over a career as college/university professors learn to make different aspects of the subjects accessible to different students. There must be thoughtful planning, and re-planning, in the face of success and failures, and this is what makes teaching so endlessly rewarding and