Ann K. Newman: How to Combat Space Hoarding

Ann K. Newman

While I am not an architect, I am a psychologist. Space is a psychologically complex matter. On college and university campuses, this is evidenced by the importance many faculty members place on the size and location of their offices and their research space. Space hoarding is common and is often exacerbated by space policies that do not assure allocation of space in an equitable, transparent, or just manner.

Space utilization has historically been focused primarily on classrooms and teaching labs. This has likely been due to the ease of collecting and analyzing such data. Colleges publish and collect data regarding class schedules for state and federal reporting. However, classrooms and teaching spaces occupy a relatively small percentage of the total campus inventory.

Of course it is important to look at classroom utilization, especially since the factors that lead to low utilization are often ones that affect student learning and satisfaction in big ways. The tendency for courses to be taught primarily between 10 and 2 Mondays through Thursdays is an issue not only because classrooms sit empty many hours of the week, but also because it creates scheduling conflicts for students. The mismatch between the size of course sections and the available rooms creates less than ideal conditions for learning. Stretching the course schedule more evenly through out the day and week, and balancing the classroom pool to class enrollments, can often result in found space that can be repurposed to meet other pressing needs.

More significant to space management is the utilization of offices and research spaces on a campus. These are the areas where a sound policy and space-management structure can result in the highest and best use of space, freeing up room for new programs, faculty hires, etc.

Many institutions, however, do not know how much space they have or how they are using it. An inventory of spaces on the campus is a necessary starting point. Colleges that have inventories may not have robust processes in place for maintaining the data.

Many institutions will want to develop a more refined set of room codes within the structure of the Postsecondary Education Facilities Inventory and Classification Manual to be able to analyze data easily — for example, to look at the average size of faculty offices versus staff offices. The benefits of such fine-grade coding are even more important for campus planners, who are major users of space data on many campuses. Suppose your president wants to add 40 faculty members — how long would it take you to let her know how many offices are available for professors now, and how much research space of what kinds? —Ann K. Newman

Ann K. Newman, April’s Buildings & Grounds guest blogger, is head of the planning group at Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott. She is a psychologist by training. You can read her earlier posts here.