Today's Thursday, so I thought I'd tell everyone about the "Michigan Thursday" tradition I started shortly after arriving as a faculty member at Texas Tech University in the fall of 1997.
As early as my Texas Tech job interview in February of '97, I was told by some of the faculty members in the department (Human Development and Family Studies) that faculty and staff members throughout the campus were requested to wear the school colors of red and black on Fridays. As someone who has always had a lot of school spirit, I have adhered to the "Red and Black Fridays" dress code at probably a 99.99% rate during my seven years (thus far) at Texas Tech. Not only that; I sometimes nag new faculty members about wearing red and black on Fridays (in a friendly kind of way).
I don't know why, but early on it somehow occurred to me that I could start my own tradition of wearing maize and blue University of Michigan clothing on Thursdays, hence "Michigan Thursday." Probably the most fun aspect of Michigan Thursday is the reaction of students in my undergraduate classes, whom I inform about my tradition right at the beginning of the semester. The students seem to get a kick out of it, and I've even had a couple of students join in with me in wearing Michigan items (e.g., shirt, cap) on Thursdays. One of my departmental faculty colleagues told me once that her father had attended UM Law School. While up in Ann Arbor a few years ago, I bought my colleague a "Michigan Law" T-shirt for her birthday, and she's worn it a few times on Thursdays.
Upon learning of the tradition, people ask me if I have a "UCLA Wednesday" in honor of my undergraduate alma mater. I don't (it would mean having a majority -- three-fifths -- of my weekday clothing decisions governed by rules and I don't want to cross that line). I do, however, frequently wear UCLA clothing on an ad hoc basis.
Talking about school spirit, an article about a teaching activity I organized with colleagues from 20 colleges and universities around the nation on measuring school spirit has just come out. With a primary focus on how to define and measure a conceptual variable (in this case, school spirit), we had students in our research and statistics classes go around our respective campuses counting the number of students wearing school garb, displaying school decals on their cars, etc. The reference is shown below or you can contact me to receive a faxed copy (see right-hand side of page for web link to me, which contains an e-mail link).
School Spirit Study Group (A. Reifman, organizer). (2004). Measuring school spirit: A national teaching exercise. Teaching of Psychology, 31, 18-21.