The Fascinating History of Undies in Olin

It’s that time of the year again when Undies in Olin has passed in typical chaotic Wes fashion. Maybe you attended but got banished to the side or floor because there wasn’t enough standing room left on the tables. Maybe you slept through it, as I devastatingly did sophomore year. Or maybe, like a true WesBo$$, you were there on that table, directly staring into the eyes of horrified 17 year olds and their parents over the pages of a “Lesbian and Vagina Studies” textbook. 

Hopefully you didn’t destroy any lamps 

The 20th anniversary of this Wes tradition sneakily passed by this year, a fact which very few know. This editor had the luck of finding out that her third grade teacher was in fact one of the creators of this tradition, and so Wesleying has the honor to publish an interview straight from the two masterminds behind such a beloved and widely celebrated day of the year. 

On how they got the idea: 

“We were preparing to go abroad for spring semester and feeling preemptively nostalgic about missing Wes, plus it was an absolutely miserable time of year - just before finals, the days are so short, it's cold and gray all the time. One day Gelman was studying in the info commons and our friend Dan Cerruti came by, and was bitching about having to give a tour, and Gel, hoping to make him feel better offered to be in his underwear when Dan returned with his tour group. Cerruti said he'd only be impressed if everyone in Olin was in their underwear and so, the idea was seeded.”

"The broader context was that students feared Wesleyan was getting less weird (an ever present concern?) - chalking had recently been banned, Wes was getting a lot of press for its naked dorm, the campus radio station had fallen to a hostile takeover from an NPR affiliate. But the Wesleyan we knew was still unapologetically itself. Our friends and fellow students were smart, curious, independent, fearless, zany, and fun-loving; but above all, they were down. Like, for whatever.”

On the email:

“We sent the initial email to 100ish people, expecting it to be small. We also wanted it to be totally straight faced - pin drop silent and people were earnestly studying, so we were going for a small but committed crowd.”

The original email:

 -----Original Message-----

Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 1:33 AM

Subject: The most important email of your life

Dear Fellow Wesleyanites:

You are receiving this email from Alex Gelman and Laura Vollmer, two upstanding people who believe passionately in good-hearted collegiate fun. You may be our best friend, a casual acquaintance, or just someone who came to mind after we took acid and wrote this email (just kidding. we took peyote). But regardless of your personal standing with us, we need your help.

For you see, Laura and I have been giving tours for nigh onto two years, and walking backwards and making shitty jokes to a bunch of awkward high-schoolers and their neurotic parents can get to be a little boring. This Saturday may be our last tour ever, and, in order to go out with something of a bang, we've devised the following scheme:

If you frequent Olin library often, then you've undoubtedly noticed the tours roaming through the main room. We want you, our comrades in collegiate comedy, to give these prospective Wesleyan frosh a more intimate view of the student body.  Meaning:

WE WANT YOU TO BE IN YO UNDIES!!!!!!

No, not running around all crazy like in yo undies, hurling feces at each other. Rather, the humor will come when this group of hopefully 10-20 people saunter into the main room of Olin, only to stumble upon 100+ Westudents studying diligently. IN THEIR UNDERWEAR. Sitting at the big tables reading Flaubert, typing away furiously in Info Commons, checking your email on those stand-up computers. all completely straight faced, all completely naked. And by "naked" I mean in dignified yet flattering undies.  I'm not talking g-strings and banana hammocks here people; the point is amusement, not arousal. Boxers and tank tops are just fine. Our tour is at 1 pm on Saturday, and you'd only need to be seen in your underwear for about five minutes. 

If you're willing to climb aboard this Prank-o-motive and ride it all the way to Hilariousville, hit us back at lvollmer@wes. Also, if you know anyone else that wants to bend this tour over our collective knee and give it a royal pranking, feel free to forward this email. 

Martin Luther King had a dream. General Tso had his chicken. And some dude wished that he had a hammer, to be used in the morning, evening, and all over this land. Together, this can be our dream, our chicken, our hammer. Join us. for America.

Gelman and Laura

Does the Special Collections and Archives want a copy of this email or what? Excellent historical source.

On how it went for the first time:

"On Saturday, the day of our tour we arrived to a tiny group, just a couple of families. It was an awkward time of year - too late for seniors, and too early for juniors." We set off on our tour as usual and when we got to the lobby of Olin we paused, telling the group about what a stressful time reading week is for students, and that the tour group should respect the sanctity of the library as we walk through and remain silent." As we began our walk in, we started to think the message got out - at the library catalog computers in the hallway there were three people, in just their underwear, looking intently at the screen.

"We then round the corner, and the first thing we see at one of the long tables is this senior, lacrosse player and actor with a body like Hercules, and he’s sitting there reading the Argus with this look of intense concentration on his face, and he’s in his underwear. It is pin drop silent in the main room of Olin and every seat is taken by a student, reading & working in just their underwear. No one even looked at us as we walked through."

"We get through the main room, stop, look at the tour, and say, “Hmm… well, something seemed a little off.” We turn around and walk back into the main room, and everyone erupts into cheers. We break out into the fight song, and then head back to the lobby, with everyone on the tour buzzing a little big. By the time we made it to the front lobby, one of our classmates, who was working at the front desk and had been clothed when we walked in, had stripped down. He didn’t look at us as we left, just kept his head down on his work, and that was a cherry on top of the whole thing."

On the follow up after the first edition:

"We don’t really remember the rest of the tour. There was one dad who just kept saying, “boy, that was crazy!” Like, he was jazzed as hell. We did it again in 2007, and even more people showed up. Same timing over reading week. And then we graduated! We think it took a year off and then it came as a WesFest thing - we didn't pass the baton to anyone but clearly someone picked it up."

Email us at wesleyingblog[at]gmail[dot]com if you were this mysterious torch bearer 

On how they feel about the tradition today:

“It is absolutely wild that Undies in Olin still happens! We never could have imagined that nearly 20 years on, Wes students would still be stripping down to their undies in Olin in the name of pure fun. Heck, if you would have asked us back in 2006 what Undies in Olin in 2026 would be like, we probably would have said, “the robot students will be wearing underwear???” We’re sure a lot has changed. There are phones with cameras, there are people dancing on tables, there’s whatever the heck TikTok is. But what clearly hasn’t changed is the undeniably zany, creative, slightly anarchic spirit of the Wesleyan student body. As we said when questioned by admissions deans after the second tour for presenting what they said was a false picture of Wesleyan to our tour group… all we did was send an email. It was the students who showed up. In their undies. And that they’re still showing up 20 years later. It’s un(dies)-believable."

While we've kept the tradition more than well alive for 20 years here at Wes, it's clear it has grown into an unrecognizable version of how it first began. Administrators and library staff are well aware and go as far to leave signs out about it. Tour guides battle for years to snag the 12pm WesFest tour. Wes students struggle to even fit in the main room, blast music, and pick out their sexiest underwear so they can get the perfect pic for their Instagram story. We erupt into applause and laughter the minute the family arrives.

Today, it is far more social event than prank. And while in some ways it's fun it has become such a popular tradition, we in turn lose the seriousness and earnest playfullness of how it began. Do you think it's lost the original charm from when it started, or that it's changed into something even better? Tell us your opinion or favorite memories of Undies in Olin at wesleyingblog[at]gmail[dot]com. Happy almost reading week!