Leah Wortham, Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America

Therese Stratton, Georgetown University Law Center

In our experience, faculty=s view of a building is strongly influenced by their opinion of their offices and the classrooms. The outline begins with the question of what one seeks to achieve with faculty space. Changes in space can encourage, or at least facilitate, changes in behavior.

As a second topic, the outline considers planning for the individual faculty office. It then moves to planning for adjacent spaces to support faculty activity.

The outline also considers what space may be useful or necessary to accommodate a range of special programs related to the academic program, e.g., J.D. certificate programs, research institutes, other Acenters@ funded with outside or law school funding.

A. FACULTY OFFICES

1. What do you hope to achieve in new or redesigned faculty offices?

a. As with any area of building planning, we think it helpful to take stock of your current situation. What does your school value about the way things are in the existing space? What are you frustrated in doing by the space? What different behaviors would you like to support or encourage? Here are some examples.

b. CUA (Wortham): We were concerned about facilitating faculty interaction. We had lost the faculty lounge and all comfort space in renovations of our too small previous building. We wanted to create a space where faculty would be encouraged to talk. We put faculty mailboxes in the faculty lounge and made the kitchen a walk-through from the faculty lounge to encourage people to go there. We have found a problem in that the faculty lounge gets used for candidate interviews and some other purposes that occasionally preempt the lounge. For another building, I would try to create or identify a second space for such functions so the faculty lounge could be used solely as a faculty stopping and gathering space.

I have visited schools where faculty offices are sprinkled around the building off public hallways and have been told this is for student accessibility. In our law school, there always has been a strong culture of faculty accessibility to students. We felt the need to have a space encouraging interaction with each other, and we wanted a design that directed a student to check in with a receptionist before visiting a faculty office so we would have more control of our time.

c. GULC (Stratton): With the east addition, our primary goal was the addition of windowed offices. Our faculty was growing. We were successful in recruiting senior scholars from other schools, and we needed good space for them. Some considerations in our design included proximity to assigned support staff as well as central faculty support, faculty library and lounges. We also wanted to continue our pattern of having all offices open directly on a hallway providing full access to the community. Our faculty had become accustomed to having their support staff outside their office. As our numbers grew this became more of a challenge. We=ve ended up with a Corner Faculty Assistant program supporting several faculty members.

2. Size, shape, design, and number of individual offices

a. Do you want offices to be as similar as possible, or do you want to plan for differences in size and accouterments? If you are renovating existing space, you may have limited control over this variable. If offices vary in desirability, will there be any Acompensation@ for people with less desirable offices? At CUA, an architect visiting the building once commented that almost all windowed corner spaces were public ones, e.g., classrooms, staff lounge, windowed stair wells. This ability to avoid Acorner envy@ has advantages.

b. Are there any issue with university Astandards@ for offices? Law schools argue, we think persuasively, that a law professor is based more in an office than people in some other disciplines, e.g., scientists with a lab.

c. Is your building smoke-free? If people are allowed to smoke in individual offices, are you sure the air handling system will not transfer smoke from one office to another? (Even if the rule is Asmoke-free,@ you may want to ask the architect if the air handling system would block the flow of smoke from on office to another. In our experience, there can be an occasional faculty violator of such policies.)

d. Will individual faculty be able to control heating and cooling? CUA quickly rejected an early engineering proposal that three offices be on the same heating and cooling control. That seemed worse than both individual controls or single administrative control.

e. Will your building have operable windows?

f. Bulletin boards: Before we moved at CUA, the architects noticed how many faculty taped cartoons, notices, etc., to their doors. We did not want things taped to our new cherry wood doors. The built in tackboard by each faculty office has been a terrific thing. As you would see on a tour of our halls, most faculty use it--some extensively--and it expresses a lot of individual difference among them.

You also will want to consider whether there is space, e.g., in the faculty lounge, where you want to post things for faculty.

g. At CUA, the square footage cut LW laments most was four additional faculty offices. You cannot plan for too many faculty offices. Faculties grow. In days of no mandatory retirement age, the ability to retain an office for an emeritus professor, who wishes to remain active in scholarship or teach as an adjunct, can be an attractive part of a package to give up a tenured line. If one is to do this, I think there need to be pre-set guidelines on a minimum amount of use, of value to the law school, that justifies an office. Some retirees will not be interested but others will and provide a valuable contribution.

All manner of potential visiting scholars will turn up. Many of these arrangements will involve people who come with their own funding and can provide valuable things to the law school if you can provide them space. Consider whether you want to make this possibility available on the faculty floor, perhaps in smaller and less fully appointed spaces. In both our experiences, scholar studies in the library will find many uses. CUA has two retired judges-in-residence who provide us with a number of services beyond the one course as an adjunct for which they are paid. This is encouraged by the office they share. GULC has a Distinguished Visitor from Practice. These retired law partners donate their teaching as community service so a decent office is not much to ask for the value their experience brings to our community. In Georgetown=s library closed carrels (AScholars Study@) have developed into a Scholars in Residence program. We received so many requests for use of the library by scholars that we needed to develop a competitive process where these spaces are awarded and scholars are registered for a fee.

h. Think about balancing privacy with ability to see when someone or busy without interruption. CUA faculty doors have glass panels. Upon moving in, we immediately realized we needed blinds for the windows facing the atrium and on the faculty doors. Faculty vary on opening blinds to the atrium, but all faculty keep the blinds on their doors down. On balance, however, I think it=s better that there is some glass rather than a solid wood door. The blinds provide privacy, but someone can tell if a light is on (and thus someone is around). Looking carefully one can see an outline of whether someone is in the office and has someone with them. This is helpful for avoiding interruptions. I believe there is only one faculty member who has felt the need to put something solid over the inside glass so all vision into the office is blocked.

3. Office Selection

a. If faculty are allowed to choose their office, what will determine priority for office choice? Start date at the institution? Academic Rank? Tenure status?

Managing the office selection process is relatively time-consuming if you want faculty to feel they have enough information to make a choice. In our opinion, an unrushed process with someone to provide support in the selection process is well worth it in faculty goodwill.

CUA: Office selection took a good part of two weeks to work through the 40 faculty with a person devoted to it near full-time. Faculty wanted to know not only where the office was but also to see its features and know what offices faculty before them had selected. We purposely waited until they could physically visit the offices rather than choosing from a floor plan.

I was counseled by the dean of a school with a new building that they didn=t have too much conflict among faculty because people really had different preferences. In general, our exterior offices on the campus side went first, street side second, and interior (atrium view) went last. It is true, however, that there are distinctly different preferences about being near and far from various things, in the thick of things versus more remote, etc. People also vary in how much their Aneighbors@ matter.

GULC: Office selection for our ninety faculty took over six months. We began the process with blueprints and the basic structure of the addition in place. We allowed each faculty member a few days to consider the options available to them. There were a wide variety of interest and considerations depending on the individual. In general faculty felt good about the choice they had and began to develop a sense of neighborhood for their area.

3. Furnishings

a. What are the budget and/or political issues about the cost of furnishings? In our experience, furnishings of the quality that will hold up for years do not come cheaply. At GULC, the east addition provided an opportunity to invest in faculty furnishings through non-tuition dollars. When current students saw the change in faculty accommodations, it was helpful for them to know that the investment in this upgrade did not come from their pocket, but from capital funds. At CUA, the entire building was being furnished with new things at once. The planning process had stressed the importance of quality so there was no particular question raised about having high quality furnishings. The CUA Building Committee recalled enviously a school with beautiful millwork built-ins in faculty offices, but we made the budget compromise of some cherry wood pieces combined with steel case storage components that give a built-in look.

As described below, GULC provided cost information to faculty in order that they may make choices within a set budget. At CUA, faculty had a narrower range of choices in type of furniture (although a number of options within that type) and were not told anything about the cost. In the CUA experience, faculty did not have much experience with the cost of durable office furniture and discussing the cost only generated some unuseful AWhy so expensive?@ discussion.

GULC has a replacement cycle for campus furniture built into the budget with a small set aside for faculty offices. Since only half of the faculty received new furnishings when they moved into the addition, there is work remaining to upgrade the faculty housed in the original part of the building.

What policies will you have for items faculty might want that are beyond the basics? CUA permits purchase of additional items within the original furniture choice Afamily@ from the faculty account, but these are CUA property. If a faculty wants to add something from outside that Afamily,@ the faculty must purchase with his/her own money, and it is their property.

At Georgetown we could process the purchase beyond the set budget if the professor wanted to fund the excess. If Georgetown bought the product, it belonged to Georgetown.

b. How much choice will faculty be given?

CUA: All faculty received the same cherry wood computer stand, desk, credenza, and upholstered side chairs. All offices have the same carpeting.

Faculty were allowed to choose:

-- four steel case storage units (bookcase, file cabinet, or storage cabinet). (The layout of some offices gave space for another.) Some faculty subsequently have purchased additional cabinets that go over these units with their faculty accounts.

--an office layout (couch and coffee table, round conference table and side chairs, oblong work table and chair, two easy chairs). For couch or easy chair options, faculty had four upholstery choices.

--a desk chair from among four styles with upholstery choices for each

--a desk lamp from four styles.

Although there is identity among the basic pieces and similarity among the range of choices, offices look very different from each other. The building committee chair does not recall anyone complaining about too limited a range of choice. All the furniture in the CUA building is in a related color scheme with the same family of materials. When we first moved into the building, we made a number of furniture swaps between offices where someone wanted a piece and someone elsewhere did not want what they had. We were able to accommodate almost all needs at the building opening by swapping furniture within the building. After moving into the new building, faculty and staff were allowed to return to the old building for up to two weeks to take things that had been left in the old building.

GULC: Beginning with a full wall of built in bookcases, each faculty member was offered a choice from three furniture styles: contemporary, traditional, or transitional. Seven fabric schemes were developed, which resulted in a family of fabrics that were both distinctive and coordinated throughout the building. A number of office layouts were presented, but each office was individually designed according to the faculty=s preference and budget considerations. Faculty were encouraged to contribute their own funds if they wanted more furniture than the budget could support.

3. Adjacencies

a. What faculty support configuration do you envision, e.g., dedicated secretaries or use a pool? Will your plan work as well if you change faculty support configurations?

b. How will you handle faculty reception? What other functions does the receptionist play, e.g., the CUA receptionist sends and receives faxes and handles parcel delivery and pick up? Is there space available for those functions?

c. What shared equipment do faculty use on a regular basis, e.g., walk-up copiers, fax machines, printers, special LEXIS or WESTLAW printers? Where can these be put so they are convenient? Does that location have adequate storage for accompanying supplies, e.g., paper? Do you need slots for material coming out of a shared printer that isn=t picked up immediately?

Will the room meet the power, ventilation, and phone connections necessary to run the equipment?

d. Where will faculty pick up supplies, e.g., pens, pads of paper?

e. What is the convenience to restrooms?

f. Do you want to provide the option in the building for faculty to shower, e.g., after running, after biking to school? (The student space session raises the issue of whether you want to build this option into the school for students.) Do you want/need to provide locking faculty bike storage?

g. Where do students review exams? If you do not allow students to take exams away, there should be a private, quiet place where a student can look at an exam.

h. Where will faculty leave things for duplication, and how is it delivered or picked up? New space gives a chance to consider greater efficiency and convenience for staff and faculty.

i. Providing a place for remote storage for faculty is desirable. If it is relatively convenient to the faculty area with decent light and temperature, you may encourage faculty to review things and move them out on a more regular basis.

j. Where do faculty pick up mail and leave mail to be sent out? What is the convenience of this location for those who deliver and sort this mail? If there will be one mail sorting location for faculty and the other users of this building, what location is most efficient?

k. Where are student course assignments posted? At CUA, it is a bulletin board between two frequently used classrooms. At GULC, this is done completely on the Web, as is grade posting.

l. Are there any circumstances in which you will provide space for faculty research assistants? People working full-time in the summer? People assisting on a particular conference? What space would they need?

m. Where do students come to pick up course materials? The slots at CUA, which allow easy adjustments of size, work well. Much time was spent on design and location of the CUA copy center for convenience and so it could double easily as the place where students buy course materials in courses that use a non-published book.

n. GULC has a faculty support center where manuscript and copyright assistance, conference planning, scanning, mailing services, high speed printers, docutech copiers, supplies and coffee are available.

o. GULC faculty are interested in a media room which would be available for press interviews. Current use of their office is disruptive due to the set up time the technicians need for a TV interview. CUA designed in a small studio for such tapings (as well as other media purposes), but it has not been outfitted.

B. SPECIAL PROGRAMS, INSTITUTES, CENTERS

1. What programs do you have now? What have been discussed? What have you heard of in other law schools that your law school might anticipate?

What facilities do these types of operations use? Do they just operate from a faculty member=s office, or are there staff, equipment, materials, and functions that would need to be accommodated?

2. Even if you do not know something you would do, you will be happy if you design a suite with some minimal usage that could be converted for this purchase. Perhaps you could design a small suite of seminar rooms that would work for a gradual conversion if you need some of them. Such programs likely will need/want an adjacent seminar/conference room.

3. Staffing needs for this sort of thing tend to go up and down. When there is an upcoming conference, there may be extra temporary help and materials to be assembled. When you need a room to be used flexibly, an open room with counter space around the walls can be an inexpensive and flexible alternative to desks. This space easily adapts to more and less workers and to assembly.

4. Storage space: These types of programs often need places to put boxes of brochures, etc., and keep files.

5. Are some of these programs likely to have distance learning or other special media needs? Is there any reason any of these need to be met in adjacent space rather than just somewhere in the building?