Back on Campus

It’s Wednesday. Hump Day. The week is almost half over, and so far, this week has been pretty boring. Not that I’m complaining too much. Sometimes boring is better than the alternative.

The students are back, though, and that means one thing that makes the beginning of the fall semester a little more enjoyable: eye candy.

I still appreciate the fact that the new gym is now on the edge of campus closest to the museum. That means there is a fairly steady stream of guys passing by on their way to and from working out. Earlier this week, however, I saw something that I have probably only seen four or five times since I moved to Vermont nearly eleven years ago: shirtless guys on campus.

That probably sounds strange to anyone who has spent much time around a university in the South. On a warm, sunny day, shirtless college guys are practically part of the scenery. Walk across almost any Southern university quad and you’re likely to see guys tossing a Frisbee, playing an impromptu shirts-and-skins game of football, lounging around in the sun, or going for a run without a shirt. When I lived in the South, I never thought twice about it because it was such a common sight.

It happens at universities up here, too, although certainly not with the same frequency. There’s a decent chance that if you drive by the University of Vermont campus in Burlington on a warm afternoon, you’ll spot a couple of frat guys jogging along without shirts. On my campus, however, a shirtless guy is practically an anomaly.

I’m not even sure cadets are allowed to run around campus shirtless. There are rules governing so many aspects of their appearance that it wouldn’t surprise me if there were one about that as well. You would think the civilian students would make up for it, but apparently they didn’t get the memo.

So, when it does happen, it’s still a welcome sight.

Of course, on a campus like mine, where physical fitness is basically a requirement for the majority of the student body, the guys have plenty of other ways to show off what all those hours in the gym have accomplished. Tight T-shirts do a pretty good job of displaying shoulders, chests, and arms, while thin athletic shorts and sweatpants have been known to highlight certain other assets. I may be getting older, but I’m certainly not blind.

Summer would seem like the obvious season for more shirtless scenery, but unfortunately, we don’t have a large summer student population. Only a handful of programs hold classes during the summer, so there simply aren’t that many students around when Vermont finally gets warm enough for shirts to become optional.

And this is Vermont, after all. During the regular academic year—from late August through May—the window for genuinely warm weather is rather small. We might get a few weeks at the beginning of the fall semester and another few toward the end of spring before everyone disappears for summer. Before long, those athletic shorts will give way to sweatpants, then jackets, then heavy coats as winter settles in for what always seems like six months.

So, I suppose I should appreciate these warm September days while they last.

Besides, there’s still plenty of eye candy around campus, with or without shirts