From every angle, Chris Svetlik’s (SFS ’10) beard is a sight to behold. The whiskers on his upper lip reach their full potential in two woolly peaks extending from the chin. Between these peaks, below a subtle soul patch, is a valley of shorter hair left over from an experiment in mutton chops. Svetlik and others show that campus is no stranger to the whiskery classmate and in many ways beard life and campus life intertwine as facial hair makes a fashion comeback to Georgetown.
Beards like this don’t just crop out of nowhere. Svetlik explains, “They were very strict about facial hair in high school, so this was an expression of freedom.”
Svetlik originally based his beard off that of the Civil War General Ambrose Burnside.
“I realize that the original dream of bringing back that late 1800s style would require a great deal of effort in costumes and props. I gave up that venture pretty rapidly.”
Svetlik stopped shaving in November due to too much schoolwork. He likes the added warmth for the winter. When asked how he deals with potential collegiate inconveniences to the beard lifestyle, such as food and females, Svetlik is very clear on his priorities.
“My general ground rule is that beards come first, kissing and eating come second, so those really have to fall in line. Food in the beard, it’s an occasional problem but I have learned to deal with it and hopefully everyone around me has learned to deal with it as well.”
Another hairy Hoya, Seamus Sullivan (COL ’08), shares Svetlik’s sentiment.
“With the ladies, I find that’s something where if they’re willing to put up with you … then they’re usually willing to put up with everything else that you bring to the table. Or endlessly negotiate over it.”
For the majority of the last academic year, red-haired Sullivan wore a well-developed mustache that he said was the culmination of a couple of years of “dabbling in mustachery.”
“It’s nice to be noticed, you know, but there comes the risk of being just that guy with the mustache. What I really like is the idea of shaving something off periodically and re-growing something else as this kind of seasonal renewal thing.”
As an actor and director with Mask & Bauble, Sullivan’s facial hair often accentuates the different roles he portrays on and off the stage. His mustache grew out of a desire to accurately portray the homicidal Officer Barrel in last year’s production of Urinetown, as well as a need to appear more mature at the office where he worked over the summer.
In the spring of ’06, however, Sullivan’s then-girlfriend Clara Nieman (EX-COL ’09) didn’t take too kindly to his ‘stache.
“When we first started dating,” Nieman said, “he had a mustache and, shortly after the show for which he had to keep the mustache, I insinuated that perhaps life would be better if the mustache were gone. About a week or so after I began insinuating, it was gone.”
However, detractors haven’t stopped Sullivan from recently starting up a beard.
“During the summer I’d been something of a hermit living in a rather poorly lit, shabbily furnished campus apartment, reading hundreds of pages on Oscar Wilde for “The Importance of Being Earnest” and watching clips of old 1980s cartoon films on YouTube. It just seemed like those were the conditions from which a beard would spring.”
Although Sullivan says he’d have to see a charter before joining any campus beard club, Zach Rabiroff (COL ’09) said he and his friends are interested in starting such a club. He cites an increase in beards on campus this year and wants to keep that number growing with a strong anti-shaving flyer campaign.
“There’s a lot of brotherhood associated with beardhood,” said Svetlik.
“It’s a good male bonding thing,” Sullivan said. “You can’t really have this conversation with a girl, you know … You have hobbies when you’re young, and this is one of them.”
