Average number of academics per office?

[dimples76]

I was wondering what is the norm at your institution. I have been in 2,3 and 4 people offices (which seems in keeping with provision across the faculty and university).

However, today we learnt in our department they are planning to put some of us in 8 and 12 person offices. This fills me and my colleagues with horror. We have an open door policy so students are in and out all the time. There are a lot of interruptions with two room mates I cannot imagine what it would be like with 11.

Can anyone cheer me up with positive tales of this working. We are fighting it but I 'm not hopeful. We are very much the poor relation in our faculty and it just feels like another blow

[Peanutbuttercheese]

Retired now but both Red Bricks I worked in only post docs shared offices.

DH is in is an older University but not post 1992 sorry my brain doesn't function correctly which is why I had to retire early so I can't remember. He has his own office but he is going to have to share temporarily whilst they have a new department built. He has had his own office for 16 years so is thoroughly displeased and may work at home
getting under my feet

[worstofbothworlds]

Oops 1994 group.

[worstofbothworlds]

Individual offices, plus a kitchen/chairs/small table for coffee (we have a pattern of admin staff sitting together at coffee and academics for lunch - takes hardly any more time than bolting your sandwich at your desk).

I'm in a 1992 group university in a STEM subject. I also have enough room for a table for project student meetings. I actually have more of a virtual research group as generally half or less than half of my students are either a) actually mine [e.g. co supervise other people's PhD students] or b) working in a lab in the UK [do a fair amount of fieldwork] or c) working on the same project

So I don't need to hold lab meetings (or, we have them in postdocs' offices or actually in the lab) but I do need to bring project students together in groups fairly often.

[MarasmeAbsolu]

same here, Milady
Always a bit stressful to go from room to room with a tearful student, especially when all rooms are glass walled :/

[MiladyThesaurus]

Where i am, if a student turns up really distressed you need to take them out of the office and try to find an empty room to talk to them in (on a different floor of the building as there are no teaching or meeting rooms on the floor I was on). Seeing students was a complete nightmare and took up twice as much time as it should have.

[spinassienne]

No office at all, just a pigeon hole. I even had to put in a special request for a kettle in the staff room, they didn't have one until I arrived

[milkjetmum]

10 seats in our office (mostly lecturers, one prof) but we are lab based so usually 3 of us in there at any given moment. Busiest I have seen is probably 6.

Have to do student meetings in our large coffee area (seats around 50). Skype calls more problematic but very flexible unit and can work from home often

[MedSchoolRat]

"Research for me is essentially sitting in my officer reading/thinking/writing. Occasional trip to library to acquire a monograph but most of the material I use is on online databases. "

All that is same for me and many of my colleagues. Plus phone calls to arrange things (in multiple languages), writing, extracting, modelling. We still share with 3-8 others. There is often a morgue atmosphere, that's true,but how else could we make it work to share with so many?
The lecturers have to see students - I presume they book meeting rooms for that; undergrads can't come to our offices. My group are farmed off in another building, just above a cafe, so that's our social space. 1 main dept. building has an unfriendly cafe & the other main dept. building has ... er... 2 sofas in the foyer that seat 4.

[FurryGiraffe]

Is there a subject area division I wonder? I'm in a humanities subject. Research for me is essentially sitting in my office reading/thinking/writing. Occasional trip to library to acquire a monograph but most of the material I use is on online databases. You do need a bit of headspace for that.

There's also a space issue I guess. A department which does lab based stuff has to spend a good chunk of departmental budget on lab space within the university, perhaps leaving less budget for academic offices? A book based arts/humanities department doesn't have lab costs. Probably depends on university accounting systems a bit!

[bigkidsdidit]

I'm genuinely very surprised that it is routine to have individual offices. I've worked at 4 Russell gp universities, in all I've shared big offices. Only professors have had their own. We are medical science, perhaps something about that means we have to share (bigger research groups, office sites in hospitals)?

[chemenger]

So what happens in shared offices when a student just appears unexpectedly in great distress? Does everyone else tactfully leave? Is there someone other than academics who gives this sort of ad-hoc pastoral care. I have certainly had at least my fair share of distressed students who I don't think would have come to see me at all in a shared office, especially given that almost all my colleagues are men, so my office-mate(s) would be male. Often female students don't want to pour their hearts out to a man or in front of one, (and I assume the male students want to speak to a man).

Our PhD students are in large open plan offices and they almost universally hate it. They all have noise cancelling headphones on all the time, and the offices are as silent as the grave. When I go in to speak to the PGs I feel I should be using sign language or writing notes to avoid any chance of disturbing the peace. Far from encouraging them to be collegiate these large offices have killed all interactions dead. I remember being in a 4 person PG office and it was great, we discussed our work all the time and helped each other out. And we had coffee twice a day with the whole department. Those were the days...

[MiladyThesaurus]

I've now got an office to myself (for health reasons) but I was in a 6 person office before that (post-92, stupid teaching load). It was impossible to get anything done in the shared office and trying to see students was a nightmare. You'd have to arrange to meet them somewhere so you couldn't even do something useful while waiting for them to (not) turn up.

[Lules]

We all have small offices, unless you are very part time or a PhD student. At my previous post-1992 institution it was either individual or share with 1 or rarely 2 others.

[dimples76]

We have a shared kitchen which has a sofa and table and chairs. There are nine people in my team and we occasionally have lunch together in there which has been good. However, in the current plans which include the 8/12 person offices that kitchen along with some of the small meeting rooms we use for dissertation meetings etc is being convered into office space (and not being replaced).

This week is going to be fun

[MarasmeAbsolu]

we have a shared kitchen - which some of us us for our lunch, or a big open space type café - which we share with students.
Access to drop-in room for confidential meeting is near impossible though, as everything is either shared, or booked for teaching.

[Mumteedum]

Post 92 uni here too. We have 4 in our office and its impossible if we're all in at same time. We are literally stepping over each other but we all get on so can make it work. Management did try and bring in some open plan nonsense in another dept. There was uproar and pretty sure they backed down.

[FurryGiraffe]

Sorry- that said it hadn't posted...

[FurryGiraffe]

We have individual offices but no social space. We have a kitchen and in theory a common room, but pressure on teaching space means it's in service as a teaching/meeting room much of the time so you can never rely on it being available to use.

[user7214743615]

In my institution there is sharing/open plan offices in some departments but the norm is still one (permanent) academic to an office, with postdocs sharing. It does depend a lot on research field, though - for my discipline it is really unthinkable to make permanent academics share, to the extent that people simply wouldn't accept jobs, while colleagues in social/medical sciences subjects seem to be happy with sharing.

We do have social spaces, which double as rooms for informal seminars, and I agree that these are crucial.

I am an external examiner at a RG department that has seen a large expansion over the last 10 years. They have lost social spaces to make offices for new staff and indeed it has badly affected relationships within the department.

[Foureyesarebetterthantwo]

chemenger I miss that as well, not very good for collaborative thinking, checking out student issues, we used to have a Common Room that sold food, now the squeeze on space is too tight, and we just cram in with the students in the cafes and bar on campus, it's difficult if we have visitors as well to find somewhere to have a quiet conversation. I have been known to buy in food myself and set up in a nice seminar room than face the dinner queues!

[FurryGiraffe]

We have individual offices from lecturer up but very little social space. There's a tiny kitchen and in theory we have a common room but it's used as a teaching/meeting space so a lot of the time it's occupied. Very easy to go a long time without speaking to academic colleagues. Not much of a collegiate feel.

[Hoarybat]

We have neither individual offices ( except for a few privileged) or social space. Large city uni, space desperate, but it is also clear that women are more likely to share than men, and not just because of seniority.

[chemenger]

Can I piggy back here to ask about social space? The price we pay for individual offices is that we have no social space, our old coffee room was turned into offices, now we have a boiling tap in an alcove off a corridor. This means we can go for days without chatting to another academic, which I find isolating. Everyone eats lunch in their office, alone rather than getting together as we used to when we had a kitchen and seating area.

[chemenger]

Let's hope not! There is no sign of it, even in new buildings on campus here. Glass walls yes, but not sharing, so far, for academics.

[MarasmeAbsolu]

chemenger - so do I. I still share, in an office with glass wall :/

It might make sense (privacy, delicate / complex situation) but the managers certainly do not see things this way.

Coming to a university near you soon!!

;)