Instructors in closet-sized offices wait out for rooms with a view

Monday, September 28, 1998

Instructors in closet-sized offices wait out for rooms with a
view

SPACE: Temporary faculty, TAs lack facilities to hold hours,
research

By Andy Shah

Daily Bruin Contributor

At UCLA, office hours sometimes have to be held outside of the
office.

It’s an all too common sight: a teaching assistant (TA) sitting
outside of his or her door while a student listens in the
hallway.

Office space is at a premium for professors and TAs. Visiting
scholars sometimes have to share offices with others, and TAs often
have to share rooms or small cubicles.

"We don’t have enough space for all faculty to be housed
comfortably," said Joan Silk, professor and chair of the
anthropology department.

Office space is allocated by department chairs and deans, rather
than a main administrative office.

In the anthropology department, Silk said that there had been a
"chronic shortage" of space for more than a decade.

"We have space, but not enough," she said. "For example, our
temporary faculty sometimes have to share space."

Silk said that the shortage of space in Haines Hall, where the
anthropology department is located, affects faculty recruitment and
retention.

"Sometimes it’s a huge loss because we can’t give them all the
space they need," she said.

Graduate students suffer the most, she said.

"It’s really important for them to have space to work, and they
don’t have that, so it affects them academically," she said.

Because office space allocation is controlled by the individual
departments, there is no main administrative office that can
orchestrate changes.

"(The lack of space) is no one’s fault," Silk said.

The space crunch probably affects TAs the most, who are often
given whatever space is left over after it is given to faculty
members.

"TA cubicles are not luxury boxes," said Barbara Jess, political
science graduate counselor.

Often, two TAs are assigned to one closet-sized cubicle. Office
hours are sometimes held outside of the office, in the hallway.

But whenever extra space is available, it is sometimes given to
TAs.

"We got a committee room for TAs in the spring quarter, and it
was really helpful. But then it was taken away, and we now have a
new space," Jess said.

Anthony Iaccarino, a doctoral candidate in history and a TA last
quarter, said his office does not accommodate students.

"(My office) is the size of a janitorial closet, so I had to
meet with most of my students in the hallway," he said.

However, the situation doesn’t perturb him too much.

"Even though this cubicle does resemble a closet, it’s still …
my space," he said.

In the anthropology department, many TAs share one big room with
each other, where they each have their own desk.

For graduate political science students to get an office, they
must be finished with all the requirements for a doctorate and
working on their dissertations. But they do not necessarily have to
be TAs.

On South Campus, Johnny Chen, a third-year graduate biology
student and TA, said that space is adequate.

"I have my own desk, and I can use the conference room for
office hours," he said. "Experiments don’t take up much room."

Even though he admits conditions are a "little crowded," he says
it doesn’t bother him.

"I’m just concerned with getting good results on my
experiments," he said.

Seniority does not play a big role in the space allocation
process, department chairs said.

When attractive offices become available, faculty members can
put in requests for it. Most department chairs say that a faculty
member’s seniority is not a consideration in deciding which office
goes to which person.

"Seniority is not an issue (when allocating offices)," said
Thomas Wortham, chair of the English department.

But, he says, a professor’s length of stay at the university
does play a role in allocating offices.

"A long-term professor will be accommodated in lieu of their
permanence, in a way a temporary faculty member doesn’t need to be
accommodated," he said.

For example, a new recruit to the department who is expected to
stay for many years will be given more accommodation because of his
or her permanence.

David Myers, an associate professor of history and director for
the Center for Jewish Studies, said that the history department is
democratic in allocating office spaces.

"My colleagues and I seem to have identical office sizes," he
said.

He said seniority wasn’t a factor when he was given his office
space.

"I was surprised at how democratic UCLA was," he said.

Myers, who did his undergraduate work at Yale and graduate work
at Harvard and Columbia (where he was a TA), said that these Ivy
League colleges do use seniority as a factor when dividing up
office space.

"They embedded the sense of elitism in (allocating) office
space," he said.

Problems also arise for science departments when storing
research materials because of lack of space.

The anthropology department sometimes has difficulty storing
fossil casts, for example.

Sometimes, the buildings where the departments are located can
cause problems.

For example, the Life Sciences building was built in the 1950s,
and is "not geared to the demands of faculty research in the
1990s," said Mike Olsson, an administrator for the Life Sciences
building.

"The labs, available power, water lines … and utilities in
general aren’t sufficient," he said.

To counter the problem, the life sciences student affairs office
is being improved and reconstructed to "make services easily
accessible," Olsson said.

Olsson said that many TAs in life sciences courses don’t have
their own offices and use "whatever facilities we have."

John Merriam, professor of molecular and cell developmental
biology, said the configuration of the life sciences building is
not beneficial to faculty and students.

"All the prime space is in the hallways," he said. "The labs are
isolated. A department is like a family and needs to relate and
interact."

Due to seismic renovations, all departments housed in Haines
Hall will re-locate to other buildings this fall.

Jan Freeman, management service officer for the Center of
African American Studies, said that the center, as well as other
departments in Haines Hall, will move to the east wing of Hershey
Hall for two years.

"It’s going to be really crowded," Freeman said. "This will make
it hard for … everybody."

Freeman said that many people will have to share offices, even
though they are accustomed to having their own.

Visiting scholars, who have had difficulty finding office space
before, will be even more affected by this change.

Visiting lecturers and scholars often share offices because of
their temporary stay.

"When people come in from special fields to teach special
courses, it is sometimes hard to accommodate them," Freeman
said.

Space allocation has been an ongoing issue, said Fran MacCannell
of capital planning.

"In the mid-’80s there was an effort to rationalize space," she
said. "Offices and departments were consolidated."

Currently, many department chairs say there is little anyone on
campus can do to expand on physical space.

But English Chair Wortham said there is a solution to the
problem.

"Let’s pray that generous alumni remember UCLA," he said.

He said that Ivy League schools benefit from gifts from alumni,
an idea UCLA only recently explored. Alumni can donate money and
establish a building in their name, which would alleviate some
spatial problems.

"Because of the glories of their UCLA educations, we hope they
remember us," he said. "We may have a future billionaire in the
class of ’98."

CHARLES KUO

Despite the closet-sized space of his room in 5285 Bunche Hall,
Anthony Laccarino, a teaching assistant and doctoral candidate in
history, is happy to have an office of his own on campus.

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