Caltech Folks Aren’t Afraid to Bare Their Soles

Nobody knows when the practice gained a foothold, but for more than a generation Caltech has embraced a tradition that doesn’t involve astrophysics or engineering or even science. Students, lots of them, pad about barefoot.

The shoeless say it’s mostly a statement of their laziness. Others suggest a deeper meaning. “It’s about our freedom to enjoy the world,” said Emily Russell, 20, a physics major wearing tie-dyed pants but no shoes. “Especially for us stressed Caltech students, it’s important to think up more things to enjoy.”

Graduates from as far back as 1970 recall ditching their shoes when they arrived at the Pasadena campus.

“There were quite a few undergrads at the time doing it,” said Luis Reyna, a 1983 graduate. “It made me feel free.”

But freedom can have a price.

One cold winter’s day, Reyna got his feet wet and decided to give shoes another try.

Still, the barefoot fad lives on at Caltech, nearly 30 miles from the coast. It’s so ingrained in campus life that shoeless techies roam the campus without prompting as much as a stare.

Quantifying the number of barefooted students on campus is the only thing at Caltech that isn’t an exact science. But on a recent sunny afternoon, one in four undergraduates -- men and women alike -- could be seen heading to the cafeteria sans sandals. One student went conservative and wore socks.

At beachfront colleges such as UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara, bare feet are nothing new. And perhaps it isn’t so out of character for Caltech, a footloose college notorious for its pranks.

In mid-May, the school celebrates “Ditch Day,” when freshmen break into senior dorms.

Seniors come up with long lists of humiliating chores, puzzles and combinations that unlock their dorms -- filled with food and drinks for those who successfully break in. The college is also known to exchange pranks with rival Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT students swiped Caltech’s 111-year-old Fleming Cannon in March and put it on display at the Cambridge campus. Two dozen Caltech students flew to Cambridge earlier last month to rescue it.

“The students work hard here, much harder than your average school,” said John Hall, Caltech’s dean of students. “They work so hard that it becomes necessary to do some things a little different for relaxation and fun.”

Which brings us back to feet. On a college-rating website, students listed “the barefoot thing” as a plus for the school.

One post noted that a TV series filmed on campus “definitely didn’t use real students. You can tell because all the students wear shoes.”

Caltech’s shoeless students join a short list of other college students bearing body parts.

Chapman University in Orange County is home to the “Shirtless Guy,” who wears nothing above the waist except sunglasses and black paint on his nipples.

In the 1990s, the “Naked Guy,” a student who created quite a stir by baring all at UC Berkeley, was expelled.

Hall, who teaches civil engineering at Caltech, said he doesn’t have a problem with students’ exposed toes. But personally, he wouldn’t lose his shoes.

“It’s true that debris on the sidewalks gets cleaned up usually within 24 hours,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want to eat my dinner off them.”

Going barefoot is more an underclassman thing that most Caltech students grow out of. But Chris Moore, a senior studying electrical and computer engineering, tossed out his shoes freshman year and never looked back.

He’s stepped on broken glass and a piece of scrap metal on a campus construction site. He’s probably stepped on more but didn’t notice because of the calluses on his feet, he said.

“To be fair, walking around where there’s a lot of construction does seem a little silly,” he said. “But I guess it makes sense enough for other reasons that I just keep walking.”

Students typically know when they’ve stepped over the line.

Protecting their feet during lab sessions is a must. Most will slip on shoes for dining off-campus. And one loyal barefootist, Chris Lutz, found a way to toe the line for his 1981 graduation ceremony. He polished his feet black.

“It felt good,” said Lutz, now a physicist for IBM.

But Tom Mannion, who teaches an etiquette class at Caltech, said no student has dared to attend his class without shoes.

When you’re trying to put your best foot forward, he said, it’s better to have a shoe on it.