Two years ago, I wrote a couple of columns for The Chronicle about the various offices I had occupied during my first four years as an instructor. Now, in my sixth year of full-time teaching, I'm sitting in my sixth office. The saga, in other words, continues.
To review, my first office — the fruit of a one-year visiting position — was on loan from a full professor on leave. I loved it so much I moved into it briefly with my family when a winter ice storm knocked out the power in our apartment. My second office was also a loaner, this time from a Shakespearean on sabbatical. It was haunted by Queen Elizabeth. My third office was a colonial outpost on foreign soil. I'd finally landed a tenure-track job, but was assigned a drab, windowless office that wasn't even in the same building as the rest of my department. And my fourth office was even worse than the proverbial broom closet: It was an ancillary office to the converted broom-closet office.
As of my last column, I was habitually holding office hours outdoors. In an attempt to avoid my broom closet, I consulted with students on a bench in the Shady Quad. The al fresco approach introduced some minor complications (like bird droppings and sunburn), but it vastly improved my mood.
As with all real estate, though, the greatest benefit of my outdoor bench turned out to be location, location, location. Just across the quad from the dean's office, my bench was in the direct sightline of her large picture window. The dean could not lean back in her chair or look up from her desk without her eyes landing on me. Apparently the sight was so pathetic that it pricked her conscience. That was not my original intent, but each day on my bench had the effect of a nonviolent protest. In the same way that college students in the 60s brought about change by antagonizing the administration with sit-ins, I won a new office by staging a sit-out.
However, finding an available office for me was tough going, even for my motivated dean. The best she could do was a vacant space in the back of the student health clinic. My new office — a former exam room — not only had a window but also a working sink. Had I been so inclined, I could have scrubbed in with antibacterial soap at the start of each student consultation.
At times I was tempted to do just that. The nurses, who were my new neighbors, told me all about the campus outbreaks of bronchitis, mononucleosis, and influenza. What really touched me, though, were the stories they shared about students with common colds who broke down and cried because they'd never been ill away from home. "The poor things," the nurses would murmur, "they're more homesick than really sick, but that doesn't mean they're not suffering." I found their compassion both unsettling and inspiring, for it stood in stark contrast to my customary approach.
Trying to make the most of my time with students, I tended to dispatch with all the stuff that did not directly relate to student learning. Chitchat? Personal anecdotes? Bonhomie? No thank you. I'm out to fill, train, and sharpen minds, and everything else feels extraneous. The nurses in the health center, however, modeled a more holistic approach. To them students are not merely minds in need of training. They are young adults trying to make their way in a bewildering world, and doing so for the first time without their parents.
At this point in time, I'm almost 20 years removed from my own freshman experience. It takes concerted effort to remember the anxiety, self-doubt, and fear I felt during those first few years of college. I have made the university my home for so long that it's hard to experience its institutions, expectations, and requirements as alien or intimidating. But the year I spent in my health-center office repeatedly reminded me that the transition to college is not only fraught but downright frightening. A little empathy was in order.
Yet even as the health-center office helped me see students differently, it did not help me see them easily. Students had to access my office from the back of the clinic, but because my room was adjacent to the drug locker, the area had to be secured. Anyone who wished to speak with me had to bang on the back door and wait for me to unlock it and admit them. I felt like the porter for a Prohibition-era speakeasy. More than once, I wanted to ask for a secret password to be whispered through the keyhole.
Although the old-time speakeasies did brisk business, my office didn't attract many customers. (Perhaps I should have started mixing gin in my sink!) Off the beaten path and under lock and key, I saw only a handful of students each semester. The multiple barriers to entry pared away the majority of students, leaving only the stellar or the struggling, each of whom visited only infrequently. I soon began to see my semi-solitary confinement as a boon. As student traffic decreased, my personal productivity peaked. I was really getting a lot done.
For that reason, I hesitated when I was offered another office the following year. But because boxing up my books is an inevitable rite of spring (would summer even come if I were to stay put?) and because I'm a sucker for sunlight (did you say two big windows?), I ended up trading in my sink and steel door for a more traditional office, both spacious and bright.
Back in the main English building and blessed with a well-appointed office, you'd think I would be happy at last. But in those first few months I felt hectored, not happy. Who were all these people? And what were they doing in my office? Students, faculty members, staff members — there was a never-ending stream of visitors. Yes, they were coming during the time ostensibly set aside for "office hours," but hadn't I reclaimed that time a while ago? The hours I spent in my office were supposed to belong to me, not to anyone wandering by who wanted to talk.
As I wrestled with my resentment, I realized that the semi-seclusion of the health center had shifted my sense of purpose and system of values. Even as the nurses were pushing me in the direction of empathy, the solitude was pushing me in another direction altogether. My isolation had put distance between me and my students, my department, and my university. Behind that locked clinic door, I had become my own little world, and all the other worlds out there had become less and less significant.
Teaching, for instance, had transformed into that thing I did twice a week during the scheduled course time. But once I'd discharged my duty in the classroom, I saw myself as done. I was ready to return to my productive retirement, where every visitor amounted to an unwelcome intruder, taking me away from my work and trying to exploit my good will to get extra instruction for free.
After recognizing how self-centered and unaccommodating I had become, I made it a point — as painful as it was at first — to keep the door of my new office propped open. The number of drop-ins increased, and my efficiency rapidly decreased. But it didn't take long before I felt part of something more meaningful than my average daily output. With an open door and a welcoming office, I began to feel that I had come into my own as a colleague, mentor, and friend. I felt accepting and accepted, generous and generative. I felt like I belonged to a dynamic intellectual community, even imagining on occasion that my office was one of its hubs.
In my sixth (and hopefully last) office, I have been able to act as host, haven, and harbor. And there's the rub. If you're going to throw your door open to the larger academic community, it helps to have a door. If you're going to promote illumination and enlightenment, it helps to have windows and some natural light. If you're going to turn an office space into an intellectual space, it helps to have something to work with. It's awfully hard to develop effective mentors, teachers, and scholars if you're forced to stick folks wherever they'll fit.
I realize there are no easy solutions to the issue of office space. And my point is perhaps out of step with the current economic climate. Amid all this uncertainty, university faculty members feel fortunate to have jobs, let alone nice offices in which to do them. But as one who has toiled in tough spaces for some time, I'm here to tell you that offices can have a profound effect on our professional efficacy and personal well-being.
Having scored a nice space (at long last), I feel tremendously grateful. The recession could very well continue, and I suppose my university could go under as quickly as any other. But if it does, at least I'll have two big windows through which I can watch it all happen.
Addendum: Two hours after finishing this final installment in my "office series," I received word that my entire department is being moved to another building. In eight months' time, I will have to relinquish the glorious office I just got. But the streak will be unbroken: This time next year, I'll be seven for seven.
