Hi Marty:
I have dealt with space crunches on several occasions and have not heard of regular faculty sharing offices as a common solution. In my experience, the typical solution is to find a vacant office -- somewhere, anywhere -- for the required time period.
In the past, the ASU psych department has housed faculty from several departments when we had vacant offices. When our building was renovated a few years ago, the faculty was scattered across the entire campus. (That year+ period is called 'The Diaspora' of course.)
My concerns would be the impact on productivity and confidentiality issues. Regular faculty have similar hours of work. When I am working on some task (academic, administrative, or educational) then I don't want to be interrupted by someone in the room talking to a student, colleague, or fishing buddy. But I can't ask my roomie to leave or be quiet. I have materials that I can't just gather up and go to the library. Some of these materials are very sensitive, like budget or research data, and I have promised the relevant body (Administration, IRB) that I will keep them confidential.
Students come by to ask for help or to discuss personal circumstances. You can have official office hours but those darn students often won't/can't follow the official schedule and just show up in your office. I don't want to hear my colleague's discussions with students and I don't want him/her to hear my discussions. Many of these discussions can take a quick turn from a bad grade to very personal issues like pregnancy, brain tumor, return of cancer in parent (all of which I have encountered last semester). These students will be inhibited by the presence of another faculty member.
On the other hand, sharing an office has often worked well with some adjunct arrangements. A faculty member who teaches only on Tuesday and is never in the building otherwise will not have much conflict with a faculty member who teaches only on Thursday and is otherwise never on campus. In these cases, we make sure that the faculty members have clearly-defined personal spaces that are never to be used by their roomie.
Ken --------------------------------------------------------------- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. [email protected] Professor Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA --------------------------------------------------------------- On 6/12/2012 3:21 PM, Bourgeois, Dr. Martin wrote:
Hi, everyone. Faced with both a space crunch and a budget crunch, my university's administration is planning to have faculty begin doubling up and sharing offices. I have never heard of regular faculty being asked to share offices. I'm curious as to how common such a policy might be. Please let me know whether your institution has any faculty sharing offices, and, if so, how decisions get made as to who shares offices and who doesn't. Thanks! Marty */Martin Bourgeois/* */Professor and Chair/* */Social and Behavioral Sciences/* */Florida Gulf Coast University/* */Fort Myers, FL 33931/*
--- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=18371 or send a blank email to leave-18371-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
