College Professor Hats: It's In The Syllabus

Professors are a large, very online and self-mocking tribe, and their catchphrase is the syllabus. 'It's in the syllabus' is sold as a shirt at Walmart and has its own CustomInk fundraiser, and a professor interview put the feeling into words: a question 'addressed 50 times in the syllabus' is enough to make anyone sigh. Tenure has its own hat market on Redbubble, with titles like Tenured AF and Tenure Queen. These College Professor Hats cover the faculty side of the desk. Two badges, PROFESSOR and PROFESSOR EMERITUS, anchor the search terms. The sentence designs are the syllabus in bold, twice, the empty office hours, the grading curve that tracks the mood of the day, the cardigan that holds tenure, the tenured professor who is unstoppable, the sabbatical with a do-not-email notice, and the professor who could have gone into industry. That last line has a real basis. The American Association of University Professors reported that part-time faculty were 48.6 percent of the academic workforce in fall 2023, that median starting pay for part-time faculty was $3,121 per course section in its 2025-26 survey, and that nearly 70 percent of institutions hiring per-section part-timers provided neither retirement nor medical benefits. The humour is dry because the numbers are. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Give one to the professor whose students finally read the syllabus, or keep it for yourself.