Do All Faculty Members Really Need Private Offices?

It’s amazing beyond belief that this article doesn’t even mention students’ right to privacy. The Chronicle joins with other centrists who are allying with reactionaries to cut back higher education, utterly ignoring the consequences. I supose next we’ll have multiple confession booths.

This is a terrible idea, suggesting that university teaching is no more complex than public school. Most faculty have more materials necessary for teaching, university service, and scholarly research, than can fit in a “locked storage space.” The ability to have some privacy to get work done, or meet with students individually without interruption from colleagues or other students, is why I value an office of my own.

“Could pulling professors out of private offices be the next step?”Sure, especially if you push it in the Chronicle. Let’s go cubicles!

I’m chair of a 20-faculty department. I think about a third of my colleagues would be happy with this, so the option is worth considering. I do think a middle version is worth considering: smallish cubicles where one can meet a single student and keep research projects spread out, combined with a nice common space as described. Now, what I’d do with my 1500+ books. . . .

@Jessel – the article does mention private conference rooms. The arrangement described would be a great improvement over my current office situation which is a lot like the TA offices I inhabited in grad school. The difference is we have no private conference rooms, only one phone line, and only 2 of the dozen or so desks has access to ethernet (which only works since most faculty are expected to provide their own laptop and pick up on the wireless network). The problem is the assumption that we can do our research and writing and communicating with colleagues from home or Starbucks or something. A quiet place to work to go on, separate from places to hold office hours for students, might be acceptable. For me it would be a step up.

“something like a library’s reading room?”What will be the metaphor when all of the reading rooms have been repurposed into computer labs?

This might be a little more complicated than it sounds. Some of us live a long way from campus, so it’s important for us to have a place of our own–even if it’s a very small space–on campus. Furthermore, many community colleges (I have taught at three of them, ans this has been true at all three) require faculty to maintain a fix schedule of office hours (often 10 or even more hours per week); it’s difficult to do that with a shared office and nearly impossible with no office at all. And on my salary, my own laptop is really an affordable options. If all faculty lived near campus, all were provided with laptap by their colleges, and colleges did not require faculty to keep office hours (which most of my students never use) and actually allowed them to work at home, this option might be viable. I still have an additional concern, though. It seems that our society awards very little respect or prestige (to say nothing of income) to faculty as it is, and taking away the office removes yet more dignity from the faculty member, and who has an office and who doesn’t is one of those little details that students notice, and on which they base their respect or lack of it. I think I also read–probably in the Chronicle–about a study or survey that had found students tend to perform better when they have professors who are full-time faculty members readily available on campus. If so, wouldn’t this be discouraging faculty from spending time on campus? I will say, though, that the idea of a common room of sorts is a nice one, provided that it is in addition to rather than instead of a faculty office.

Our School’s faculty and staff are actually poised to engage in a conversation in the fall about different ways of thinking about space, spurred by the fact that we are short on space. We are beginning with the reference that follows and hope to utilize the professors and students in our School of Architecture and our university space experts to help us think through the myriad of issues. The concerns that have already been expressed above are addressed in this piece and others like it: http://opensource.com/business/10/5/rethinking-office-design

“Faculty members are complaining that the state-mandated standard, 120 square feet, isn’t big enough.”"That led me to wonder whether every faculty member really needs an office.” Well, the laws of logic in your part of the world are not the same as those in mine.Landrum Kelly

I guess I have trouble figuring out where the three large file cabinets that are in my office at the university would go. These supplement my two large file cabinets at home. As an English prof, I do write quite a bit at home, but my 6 large bookshelves in my office at the university house most of my “working library,” while my home library is mostly casual stuff. My office at the university is an archive of materials that I use constantly with students. This idea also begs the question of faculty phone lines. My dept. has periodically questioned the need for phones for all faculty, with at least a few people suggesting that “everyone already has a cell phone.” Disregarding the problem of giving out one’s personal cell number to students, this is another instance of trying to offload the costs of university business onto faculty members. Sure I have an office at home, and I pay for the space as part of my mortgage. That’s why my office at home is tiny compared to my office at the university and why it can’t accommodate my working library.

This is so stupid. There is no reason to do this except as a symbolic gesture of disrespect and denotation of difference between fac and admins.Are buildings going to be made smaller? No.Are we making room for more departments as universities cut programs? That doesn’t make sense.Are we somehow going to turn the unused office space into classrooms to maximize the universities physical plant? um, nope, it’d be cheaper and more effective to build more buildings.Then what besides the symbolic?

This is a truly revolutionary idea (which does not mean its a brilliant idea). Such an idea can be considered by professors when university presidents, vice presidents and others on the status-driven gravy train embrace the concept and attempt to function in such an environment.On the other hand, implementation of such an idea would be a great incentive to faculty to work from home, including conducting classes and office hours via skype rather than in person. The virtual work environment could be extended to faculty meetings and, especially, meetings with administrators. What a stroke of genius. Of course, this shared space approach, especially for meetings with students would mean that the academic and personal affairs of students enter the common domain via the shared commons. No privacy for anyone, especially students! Yay!

RE: 11151195′s comments:I am a music professor, and many offices in my building are former practice rooms that have been converted for use by faculty in music and theatre, as well as various teaching assistants. Meanwhile, the students seem to prefer to practice together in the classrooms, lounge, and outside… so your idea is already in progress at my university!

Since the Chronicle has increasingly become a decidedly unfriendly place for professors, may I suggest that we all cancel or fail to renew our subscriptions?I have already done so, but I still get these ridiculous mailings seemingly every hour on the hour.Landrum Kelly

As someone who has spent 30+ years teaching at the college level (including being housed in open-air carrels as a grad student, sharing offices, and then “graduating to my own office), I want to obbject to the commentor who suggested that university teaching is “more complex” than public school teaching–I think it does a disservice to el-hi teachers to say that. What IS different is that, in the best cases, el-hi teachers have a room to which they are assigned and this room can serve as both classroom and office. Unfortunately, my guess is that there are far too many who must be nomads from room to room. In any case, I also think that, even though it creates a caste system, tenure-line faculty should have individual offices–many live in cramped circumstances at home or with families and they need quiet places where they can produce the scholarship required. Ideally, all faculty would have individual offices.

Unbelievable. So many have already responded with concerns about privacy (confidentiality) of meeting with students, faculty up for review, job candidates, etc. and the need for faculty to have a place to work on and store their research. Not to mention a place to prepare and refine lectures, write grant proposals, complete various committee or assessment reports, etc., etc.But I want to know who spends only a few hours a week in their office? My colleagues in the sciences certainly are in their offices a lot more than that and when they are not (at least between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., they are in class, the lab (teaching or doing research) or out in the field.

If anything, faculty need MORE space–not less. I like the idea of a common area IN ADDITION TO private offices–this would promote community. I also think that we need to provide sufficient space for adjunct faculty to have a private space to work between classes and meet with students.I haven’t shared an office in twenty years, but when I did I spent most of my time in a private carrel in the library–which made me unavailable to students. And my office mate was a good friend. If I lost my private office now, my on campus presence–and my involvement with the university–would decrease dramatically. My office is where I work, meet with students and colleagues, and conduct my professional life.That being said, there are some faculty who underuse their offices but expect them to be maintained (along the lines of a young adult who has left home but wants their bedroom to remain intact). I am sure that there is room for creative scheduling.And perhaps deans and senior administrators could have smaller offices. It would be nice to think that the academy could move beyond the idea that office size in a reflection of status.

My 121 sq ft faculty office was critical to my work. All my books were there. The office was next door to the lab so that students could easily consult me when problems arose in their research. As a science faculty member, I was at work at least 60 hours a week. I could only do that because I had a private office. I can’t think in the presence of extraneous noise.As director of the teaching and learning center, one of my biggest dreams, never realized, was to establish a faculty center with comfortable furniture and good coffee (and wine and cheese a couple of evenings a week). I never envisioned the faculty center as replacing offices, but as the “living room of the university.”Now that I’m sort of retired and working half-time as a faculty member again, I’ll probably be sharing an office. But I won’t have an active research lab, and I’ll do most of my work from home.One of my colleagues has been arguing for private offices for technical staff, citing research that shows that knowledge workers are much less productive in cubicles than in offices. If you want people who work with their brains to be productive, you need to provide them with an environment that lets them think.

Of course private faculty offices are necessary. Only an utter moron would think otherwise.

Bizarre that the article doesn’t menton grad students’ “office” conditions. Niether do any of the comments I could handle reading (too many cry babies for me to pay complete attention–I can’t read all the whining and self-righteousness that accompany privledge). There’s so much concern here for “a private office to help me keep my sanity…” but apparently insane grad students must be acceptable in your view education? Oh, but professor’s here are concerned about education–you need your private offices for your student’s privacy when you meet with them! While every study shows (and every undergrad knows) profs spend less and less time with their students; your students are all meeting with you TA’s–in shared offices with no privacy!

When I was a graduate student I shared an office and never felt I was harmed by the experience, but then at that point in my life I never expected a private office. Similarly, the few times I was an adjunct I would meet with students in the cafeteria. Once again, I never felt particularly outraged. I think it all has to do with expectations. When I was on the tenure track I didn’t like sharing an office. Although towards the end of my office sharing career (even after I was a full professor) I shared a large office with a divider and had an office mate who was in the office at most 2.5 days per week. He was rather congenial, so that office sharing experience was not too bad. I think our view of office sharing depends on your expectations, as grad students and adjuncts we never expect private offices so we tolerate sharing quite well.My biggest issue with moving back to a shared office situation is that the office allocation process is likely to be arbitrary. It is never usually the case that everyone shares, so some people still get to keep their private office and it is never on the basis of productivity. For example, when we shared offices at my school the most senior people got private offices. Of course, half of the senior people were deadwood who barely showed up for class let alone made any reasonable use of their offices.

Working on my Master’s as a graduate teaching assistant, I taught reading and shared a large room with the other TAs. When I compare that to working as an adjunct,it wasn’t so bad. I had space for files and student material; there was no guarantee of student privacy.As adjunct faculty, I usually have a line of students at the end of class. They have no privacy. Keeping records is a problem. I use my kitchen drawers.

“hopems wrote:This is a terrible idea, suggesting that university teaching is no more complex than public school….”It’s not. University teaching is far easier than teaching in public schools. I have spent an equal number of years doing both, and public school teaching is FAR more demanding, complex, and difficult than teaching university students, who, for the most part, are there by choice and can read and wite above a 3rd grade level.-Dr. Graviton

Yeah, and all students in dormitories ought to have singles.Just kidding (I think), but I do have to part–I gather from the vast majority of the comments–from my fellow academics on the issue of individual private offices. 1. If one pulls the lens back to a wider angle, what one sees is a group almost reflexively resistant to change, which is of course, the very thing that most faculty (in my experience in the humanities) advocate, e.g., all that “re-thinking” this and that in their courses. 2. All change is not, of course, good change, and most change is uncomfortable to somebody. But a gradual shift from private, one-professor offices to something else, is on balance a good thing–economies of space and money, innovations in design, etc., outweighing “loss of privacy,” et.3. Just because there ought to be economic adjustments, even greater ones, elsewhere (administration, athletics, Club Med-like campus amenities, etc.), doesn’t mean than an adjustment in faculty offices is bad.4. Just because faculty members are subject to unfair and counterproductive economies elsewhere (teaching loads, salaries, sabbaticals, etc.) doesn’t mean that any economizing whatsoever is unfair and/or counterproductive.5. We have computers now; we have laptops; we have flash drives; we have the Internet; we have Blackboard and Skype; we have e-readers and e-mail; we have iPods and good earphones; we have smartphones that send text messages. The need for space for shelfloads of books, cabinetsful of paper records, drawersful of stationery supplies, and for in-person conversations with students regarding (my rough estimate) about 60 percent of the stuff they want to talk about, is greatly diminished.6. Cubicles, in my opinion, are a bridge of dimunition too far. But shared offices, especially only two to an office, are perfectly fine. Most full-time faculty aren’t on campus M-F, and certainly not M-Sat. where Saturday classes are held. Many faculty have, in fact, MWF or TThSat schedules; that plus the fact that faculty are in class much of the time and elsewhere on campus at others, makes conflict of use (e.g., two professors needing to have crucial conversations at exactly the same time) easy to get ’round.7. Sharing offices is rather good for faculty, just like having roommates is good for students. (We “never stop learning,” do we?) It opens another avenue of intra-departmental communication and when two are in an office it makes it a little easier for a third to drop in and have a conversation–about sociology (if it’s a sociology department office), about departmental politics (fewer surprises at departmental faculty meetings). And, it promotes diversity, which is harder to put into practice when variegated faculty members shut themselves up in their own little roommateless individual offices.8. The design of classrooms, auditoriums, gyms, laboratories, dormitories, and other campus buildings has changed; there’s no good reason why single offices for faculty should stand sacrosanct. So if there’s a new social sciences building constructed, it should indeed feature some innovative new arrangement of faculty offices. And in the old Modern Languages building or wing, doubling up can be nicely accomplished with just a little furniture-moving.9. Naturally, as per the veritable avalanche of complaints in the comments above, there’ll be discomforts, there’ll be unfamiliarities, and there’ll be inconveniences. But–intense individual neuroses about pride, and peculiar (perceived) special needs aside–they’ll prove minor. Don’t be such princesses.NOTE: I’m talking about full-time and generally TT faculty here. Adjuncts still get the very short end of the stick. But maybe if some T’d and TTers could double up without yelping, some adjuncts might obtain that incredible luxury of an office to share with but one or two others.

Sorry, to echo the same shrill cry over and over — but where is the data? How many hours do faculty spend in their offices per week? * It probably depends on the discipline. Do scientists spend less time in their offices because they spend more time in their labs? Do, fine arts professors spend more time in their studios than their offices?* Architects working on solving faculty office space issues should first spend time shadowing faculty. (Administrators of all stripes should shadow faculty so that they understand the nature of the work faculty do and how their policy decisions affect faculty work. My hypothesis is that very few administrators shadow professors — but more would benefit from doing so.)* The nature of faculty work varies *dramtically* across institutional type. Faculty at small liberal arts colleges are expected to spend lots of time with students, mentoring them, advising them. “High touch” is what some call it. Should the liberal arts college professor who is on campus 40-50 hours/week (and really uses his/her office) get a smaller pay check than the professor who is only on campus 15-20 hours/week and is thus willing to forgo a private office? * Faculty at research universities are expected to spend substantial time on scholarship, grant writing, etc. How much private/quiet space is needed for these activities? Shouldn’t we ask? Should the person who is writing lots of grants and publishing a lot (but who needs a private office to do so) receive a smaller paycheck than the person who is less productive — but who uses less office space?Hypothesis (from labor economics) tying faculty pay to anything other than quality of work in teaching, scholarship and service (evaluated using metrics consistent with institutional type)is not going to promote the outcomes that students, parents, legislators, alumni, donors, faculty and administrators presumably seek.Economic theory: when demand for a resource (e.g., office space) exceeds supply — a rationing mechanism must be adopted. But, a proposal to supplement the pay of faculty who are most willing not to use an individual office seems guaranteed to create perverse incentives.

I’d gladly swap my office for a parking space.

A complex issue such as the one we are discussing, requires much more brain power than we may accomplish responding on our laptops, computers, etc.Say, how about forming a special committee on each campus dedicated to reducing the professoriate to the status of custodial staff? After all professors “maintain” students.We all know the only “important” people on campus are administrators, so we might as well just shred everyone’s personal dignity and tell everyone the truth; the rest of us are as worthless as a pair of old dingo kidneys.I think faculty common rooms are a great idea to supplement the faculty environment, but taking away valuable work space and dignity provided by just 120 sq. ft. and a lockable door is problematic. The laundry list has already been discussed at great length above.It might be worthwhile to stop thinking about how institutions may further cut spending on “unnecessary” dignity and privacy and figure out how to get administrators salaries within line, in the proper spirit of taking a hit for the team. Professors take a hit on salaries, departments work more on fewer faculty members while administrators force staff and faculty do more with less money.The actual savings realized is purely in the short term and disastrous in the long term.It is the department chair’s and dean’s responsibility to remind professors to maintain offices that are hospitable to students and are not stationary rubbish bins. Actually, no. It is the professor’s responsibility. BTW, “old geezers” are not the only ones who recreate the aftermath of Hurricane Camille in their offices on a daily basis.~JC~JC

For people who are not in their offices much, cubicles with common space might be good. A combination of shared or semi-private space, some private space for meetings, storage areas, and access to a printer/copy machine would be an improvement in working conditions for many part-time faculty. For most full-time faculty members, I think a combination of private offices and common space would be best. Attractive, purpose-designed common space would be wonderful, but it has not been part of any department I’ve been in. You can see how people crave it;they stand in halls, near the copy machine, and in other less-than-good places.But an office is important–for privacy; to focus without distractions; to avoid distracting others, especially on the phone (or when students yell); for handy, secure files; for a feeling of permanence. And what about our books? I worked in cubicles for much of my previous career, and while the cost savings are appealing, it is more difficult to focus and to avoid getting drawn into over-socializing. A shared office is better, but can create some of the same problems. I’ve also worked in a tiny cement-block private office, though, and I think that below a certain minimum size and shape, many people would prefer a well-designed spacious shared office to the claustrophobia of a closet- or tunnel-like room.I wonder how much the writer of this article knows about faculty work and needs. Has any place added so many faculty recently that they have space problems that would lead to this? Or is the need caused by the eating-up of department space by administration?Unless it were designed to meet real faculty needs, I would probably interpret a move such as this to signify a message to faculty that we are no longer the backbone of the university. I might think it meant that the architect or space planner is someone’s in-law. Unless faculty were behind it, I think it would be open to interpretation about its “real” meaning, and that would lower morale.

I hope that those who enjoy taking shots at administrators see the effect it has on TAs and others. I’m well aware that some administrators make lives miserable, but this is yet another case of groupthink promoting stereotypes and hatred on easy prey. It’s childish.

If the desired effect is to send the faculty home immediately after class, I’d say “Go for it!”

I can see the value of this approach, but I can also see the disaster of it:* We had “project rooms” on our new campus, which many thought was wonderful, but these were all converted to offices within two years. Thus, I would fear our “faculty shared space” with “private meeting rooms” would be lost shortly after they were promised, and then we would all be stuck.* I actually do some work in the lobby of the building because I can’t get wireless signals in my office reliably. We removed student physical mailboxes a full year before my department had any scanning abilities closer than 9 floors away. I was in my office for my second winter before I finally took a screwdriver to the radiator cover, and opened it up to realize the reason that my office was so cold was because –the heat was shut off completely– by a valve in my wall. We have two networked printers for our department, one of which sat in an empty office for well over a month before IT would even assemble it. Wee had six “loaner” laptops for faculty and students, and they sat in a closet for a year because we had nowhere secure to plug them in and charge them (that was not also a fire hazard). Facilities once gave a few faculty only two days notice to pack up their offices for a move. These issues have been topics of complaint for several years with little resolution, and so I would fear the general failure to plan well to use our space and resources would result specifically in serious disruptions to our work and teaching after such a move. It’s sort of like the oxymoron “We’re from the Government(or Facilities). We’re here to help.”* Privacy is the largest issue. Advisee meetings, grading results and discussions with TAs, confidential student and staff emails… do not lend themselves to public work areas where a student can look over your shoulder to see a peer’s grade or read a confidential email. Further, when I was an administrator I had about 1000 files of confidential material, like performance reviews, notes on student problems, memos from administration… While I could have carried these on a flash drive (and often did), many of us switching amongst computers will lead to lost confidentiality when flash drives are misplaced, documents print to the wrong printer, temporary files from the wordprocessor are “undeleted”… Of note, I did use secure encryption on my flash drive, but IT was of absolutely no help in selecting and using the software for this, nor would the school pay for this software (yes, I know truecrypt is free, but you must have admnistrator privileges to use it, and this is not allowed at our school on the public computers).* Some of it is status, and to tell the truth I think our dean’s office IS smaller than mine. However, we are psychologists and our faculty are expected, per the requirements of our contracts, to engage in professional work of some kind at least one day a week (you know the old saying about “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”) as a way to “stay fresh” in the field. We could easily get our own office spaces off campus, but consider that this creates much more of a “second job” mentality (seeing enough clients to cover the rental costs, and with more clients comes more billing and paperwork requirements…). The more we have to deal with these concerns, the more we are likely to short the “first job” as a result.I’m wondering how much money and waste of space could be saved if restaurants let customers eat in the kitchen? Medical doctors asked clients to disrobe in the waiting room so they didn’t need to use the practice or clinic’s one examining room for too long? Accountants consulted with you on your taxes in line at Starbucks?

Unfortunately, this is already the reality for tenured professors at many state universities in California. I am not one of the unfortunate faculty on my campus who must share small offices, but if I were, I would simply not work on campus anymore. I would teach, hold office hours, and leave.

A lot of the comments in this discussion talk about student privacy, and that’s a very important consideration. Let me add that research involves a lot of privacy concerns as well. I’m in the social sciences, and much of my work involves interviewing and observation that is strictly governed by confidentiality rules. It would violate my human subjects protocols to work on my data where other people might see it, or to store it where I don’t have total control of the privacy of the space. I can’t call a potential subject on the phone to set up an interview unless I’m in a private setting; I can’t discuss the data with a research assistant unless we’re in a closed office; I can’t use a computer to analyze the data which anyone else might have access to. Virtually everyone in my department is in the same boat. I imagine it’s similar for much social science work, and for some areas of the humanities as well. Many historians, for example, work with sensitive subjects and documents that can’t be studied in public. Much as I like my privacy, it’s not just a personal luxury — it’s a very real requirement for my work.

I’m a social scientist. I do serious research in my field. Others may beg to differ, but I won’t pass judgment on what happens in the STEM disciplines if they don’t diss my discipline. [Indeed, I collaborate with many scientists and engineers.]With that in mind, I will give up my office–at which I meet students, potential research funders, collaborators, etc.–as soon as bench scientists give up their labs. After all, their apparatus could all just be put in some sort of locker at the end of the day, right?This “no offices” idea, as some rightly suggest, is daft. Indeed, our department was in a bit of a pickle over a recent accreditation visit, in which it was noted that junior faculty were doubling up in offices, and that student privacy was grossly compromised.

I echo most of what has been said above about privacy, access to one’s own library and files for research and meetings with students. But the comparison to library reading rooms seems particularly inapt. Imagine what would happen if the New York Public Library’s reading rooms were suddenly used for conferences, phone calls, and meetings? One of the great benefits of a private office of any size is silence.

I am at a largeish university that already puts its faculty in shared cubicles. The result is that faculty spend the bare minimum of time on campus – classes + mandated office hours. The administration is always moaning about the lack of a real campus culture, but they can’t see that driving faculty off campus contributes to the poor atmosphere in a very large way.

This idea is quite popular in some settings, but that doesn’t make it a GOOD idea. Not only are concerns about privacy, prestige and the potential for conflict over scarce meeting room resources, but open office formats are disruptive to work that requires concentration (e.g. writing, which is more than a little important in this field). And, while they SEEM like a good idea for fostering collaboration, they actually make it less comfortable to carry on conversations with one’s colleagues because of the collateral damage (distraction) to others.I imagine a comfortable faculty lounge with coffee in it would be far more effective for that purpose.From conversations I’ve had with ergonomists, it’s clear that their research community knows this idea doesn’t work well. But somehow that knowledge appears not to have made its way into the management world yet, because -despite the evidence- the “open office” idea keeps getting suggested as the next big thing. I hope it’s not.

Space is at a premium at the community college where I teach. Most faculty (yes, including full time) share small offices. There are exceptions — some departments are such that there are faculty who have their own offices — good luck changing that once it happens.)My first five years I shared with an adjunct who was always there. The office was so small that we sat back-to-back with just inches from one another. And he often slept at his desk (and snored.) It was horrible.I don’t think the proposed solution will work (for reasons such as those already mentioned.) One large shared space leads to lots of conversation — which is great fun, but not very productive.One thing we’ve done (with varying levels of success) is to try to assign faculty to offices such that there was very little “overlap” time. Face it, faculty spend 10 hours a week (or less) in their offices. Some prefer to be on campus in the morning, others in the afternoon. Some spend most of their time on campus on MWF; others on TTh. So in some cases, it is possible to assign faculty so that while they have to share the space, most of the time, only one faculty member is in the office at a time.Once faculty know each other, they can choose their office mate – which also makes it more bearable.Just one of the things we have to deal with . . . still the best job on the planet.

I have no problem with this idea, as I am a full time tenured professor who lives 120 miles from campus and only uses my gorgeous office-with-a-view on Tu/Th. But I do have doubts about using tight classroom space as a reason for jiggering faculty space. We have a dean who, in a pique of inter-dean competition, rejected her designated suite of offices in our new building and took over a huge lovely new smart classroom as her office instead. We have one less classroom now and a suite of offices sits empty. All this because another dean had a bigger office than she did. With that type of nonsense going on, I suspect motives for altering faculty offices.

Wow. I am aghast at this prospect, because I have been a graduate student in a cubicle trying to conduct student conferences. I have been an adjunct sharing an office with THREE other people (usually with at least two of them there at the same time). I have had to move my office hours to a local coffee shop, and while the coffee was good, it was not a substitute for my own workspace. It was also not private, in these days of FERPA, etc. when I cannot even leave graded papers in my hallway anymore.This is a terrible idea. When I want to chat with my colleagues, I seek them out and we often move to a more convivial location (usually one that serves drinks). I do not intend to air my grievances in a faculty lounge where they can be overheard by others (which is why a bar works well–nobody can hear anything).Like other commenters above, I have a home library for personal books, and I have bookshelves and filing cabinets in my office (which I do not share) for my school-related work. Where is all of that material going to go? A “small storage locker”? In your dreams. When I was a student, I went to the “study lounge” to socialize; I did my real studying, reading, and writing in my dorm room, where I could control the environment. There’s the crux of this whole thing: control of environment. At this point in higher ed, just about the only environment a faculty member has control of is his/her office. And now these folks would like to take that away too.

How would this save space? Maybe at some universities faculty members have offices with lots of empty space. However, by the time I get my files, books, and journals stored, then add in the desktop computer and printer, add in all my teaching materials, and a workdesk to prepare classes and meet with students, my office barely has room to walk around. I have less stuff in my office than most faculty.So I’d need a private place to store all of my stuff, half as big as my current office, plus a place to meet privately with students, plus a quiet place to work. And it would have to be available to all faculty members whenever they need it. It’s good to throw out ideas, but I think this one needs to go back to the drawing board. When you start out with the assumption that the only purpose of offices is to serve as a status symbol, you need to do some more research.

Actually I think renting space would be the farest solution. Given every faculty member a budget that covers things like computers, software, travel and office space. Then let people bid on the available space. If people are willing to give up a private office and then spend the money on a nicer computer then everyone will be better off and nobody will be harmed.

I have worked in both private offices and in “bullpens” of cubicles, and I can tell you that the only one who benefits from cubicle-land are the architects who design the space and the vendors who sell the dividers and modular furniture. Everyone else loses. The workers (faculty in this case) lose their privacy, their status, the ability to fully concentrate, and a lot of their motivation. They have been demoted, and there is no way to sugar-coat that. Students lose the ability to have private talks about serious matters (the conference room is always in use). The dean and the students lose a motivated faculty, who know they are now just cogs in a machine. Being a faculty member used to be a trade-off between less money than one could make in industry for a workstyle in which one had control over the contribution one could make to the ideal of generating and dissemenating knowledge. One could be contemplative, which is impossible in a shared workspace. One could live a more meaningful, if less lucrative life. Put me in a bullpen or a cubicle, no matter how many sofas you leave lying around, and a lot of meaning is subtracted from my work. Forget it. I’ve been in business in cubicle-land; put me in a cubicle as a faculty member, and I’m going back to business and make more money and give up on meaning.

On our campus (4-4 not selective comprehensive) using your office more means you have a better chance of keeping it AND moving up to a better one on the chain.For example, a new tenure track hire will get a private office (some converted from old bathrooms in old houses, so a small one) but as he or she is recognized for teaching, service, or scholarship s/he can put in a bid for a bigger office and justify it. Most new hires who are on track to be tenured have decent offices by year 3. The system works pretty well because people on campus who are only here on T/R or M/W generally stay in smaller offices even if they become senior faculty because they tend not to put in as much time on the major areas of emphasis for tenure.We have a person who recently got a former dean’s office (fireplace, bay window, and all), even after only being here 8 years, because she has taken on several large service committments and published often.There is competition for the offices, but once you get a nice one it is yours to keep as long as you are reasonably productive. And we did have someone who moved an hour and a half away and was never around and he lost his office to someone willing to put in more time after a year or two. The system is not perfect, but it seems to work here. I have a middle of the road office with several nice offices in my building and we all bust our humps in here from 8-5 M-F so we have lots of time for collaboration but also the privacy for working on reserach and teaching prep and conferencing with students.Losing the office isn’t really used as a threat but people do tend to treasure their office space more and be more visible on campus.It does take several years to get unproductive/never around faculty out of their offices due to “reassignment” and they are warned repeatedly that they need to work harder in one or more areas.

People keep mentioning FERPA as the show stopper. Well, I work in open shared cubes at my university, and there have been no lawsuits over privacy. In the healthcare world, HIPAA, which is much a much stronger regulation, never stopped any healthcare providers from discussing intimate details about a patient in shared hospital rooms. In the end, money talks.

OMG yes we need private offices. I am sometimes in my office more that 10 hours a day and often on weekends.Privacy is definitely an issue. I purchase a lot of my own equipment which I try to keep in my own office. Lots of tech equipment, too. This would be stolen from an open space. I am an Oscar Madison. No self respecting Felix Ungar would want to share an office with me. Not I with them. It would be very bad. But now that you brought it up – I’m sure that our administration will jump on the bandwagon. If that happens I will work from home.

I guess I could take the two large desktops I use for my research and put them into the rolling cart and wander around looking for open space. I could use the other things I have in my office as props for my re-enactment of the “I Don’t Need Anything..” scene from Steve Martin’s “The Jerk” (“I don’t need anything…except these files…and these books…and these journal papers…that’s all I need…and maybe this laptop…”)As for the home office – so I should be subsidizing my funded research from my own computer, making calls on my own cell phone, using my own kilowatthours, printer, etc.? Can I get part of my electricity and cell phone bill subsidized by the university? Maybe I’ll think about it. Maybe where USC158 works there is an absentee culture, but I don’t see it here at all.

Depending on the semester, I have shared an office with as few as three other contingent faculty and as many as eighteen others. At one point, when we were considering ways to alleviate the office shortage for contingent faculty in my department, I suggested that full-time faculty, who mostly teach during the day, offer to share their office with someone who only taught in the evenings. Nobody, I repeat, NOBODY, was willing even to give it a try.

wilkenslibrary: Re, 97 – Gee, I’m awfully surprised by this! ;-)

As an adjunct, I shared workspace, including five computers, with 200 other adjuncts. If I needed to have a conversation with a student, we moved to a bench in the hall. If I wanted to print something, I had to wait for someone to abandon one of the desktop computers. The cameraderie was more than offset by the impossibility of getting any work done.Once I became temporary fulltime, I had a computer with a printer, but was still in shared space, high on noise, low on privacy. And a requirement to be on campus at least 35 hours a week.Now that I have my own office, I am able to meet with students in a productive manner and complete my own work with far fewer interuptions. Surely productivity means something to these bean counters!

About half of my job is research, which involves deep thinking, data analysis, writing and editing. These tasks require quiet and a lack of distraction. This is just not possible in the suggested commons set up. About half of my job is teaching, which also often involves some of these same tasks plus having discussions with students. Would my colleagues like to listen to me explaining the same problem over and over to students who stop by at random times with questions? I think not. Would I want to be interrupted during my research tasks with the noise of other faculty meeting with students? I think not. Would I want other folks wandering in the commons to have access to my exams or student information? I think not.Has this author ever heard of FERPA? On the service side, some tasks require a lot of concentration, organization and space, for example, a conference program chair’s job would be aggravated by the commons set-up.Has this author ever been a professor or even thought about what the job actually entails? I think not. He seems to be writing on a topic that is well out of his usual experitise.