I've been collaborating with some colleagues in Computer Science, and they are currently very, very flush. I'm talking 10-20 new faculty lines this year, and a huge influx of funded PhD studentships. They are loaded. And their common room shows it: lots of couches and armchairs that look reasonably new and clean (they do not smell of twenty generations of butts), with an espresso machine and a milk steamer, and white boards and puzzles and games and enormous bay windows. It's gorgeous.
My department is not loaded, but we have a brand new, energetic, effective chair who has been working very hard to fight back against institutional inertia and get a room that has traditionally-but-not-officially-any-more been our conference room into a place that might serve as a common-room type thing. This might mean no more than moving out some ugly old stuff that's stored there for no reason beyond tradition, and putting in a couch or a few armchairs, but still! There is hope!
Before this shimmering hope is dashed against the hard concrete of reality, I'd like to fantasize about the ideal department common room. What makes a good common room? I think the following features are necessary:
1. Reasonable infrustructure. It should have good lighting, good heating, and the windows should not be drafty.
2. Quiet. If we need to sit down with a cup of coffee and read an article, I don't want to hear students milling about outside as they wait for their next class to start.
3. Whiteboards. No academic in a position to chat with other academics should be too far removed from a whiteboard when a complex idea strikes.
4. Refreshments: There should be some means of making coffee and tea, storing perishables and heating up lunch, and ideally provisions for biscuits. This is of course optional if there is a separate department kitchen.
5. Comfy seating: couch/armchairs that don't smell.
6. Usable seating: table and chairs where you can spread out your work.
Desireable features might include the following:
1. A library of frivolous fiction. We don't all eat lunch at our desks. It would be nice to be able to pull a novel off a bookshelf to read with your lunch for half an hour a day.
2. Some kind of projection equipment, for movie nights. My department is full of geeks, and it would not be impossible to imagine us getting together a monthly Star Trek rewatch or something.
Other ideas?
Really good cocoa, coffee and soup machine.
I recommend the kind they have at the Bibliotheque nationale.
Some days, one is tempted to go through their whole security rigmarole just to get into the break room for a cup of that cocoa....
M.
Get a Plant. Plants are cool.
Earth to ergative. Come in ergative.
I think u be dreamin' bruh.
As I pointed out on a different thread, at my uni, there is no faculty club, there is no casual lounge in our building, we eat lunch at our desks, and wash our dishes in the same place where we poop.
If your chair can finagle any of the items on your wish list, please let me know if you are hiring. Are you also hoping for free parking directly in front of your building???? It's good to dream. Hope is what keeps us alive in these troubled, troubled times.
A roomy cave with a fire and shadow-puppetry. ;)
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on December 12, 2019, 11:03:38 AM
A roomy cave with a fire and shadow-puppetry. ;)
And everyone chained so that they can only see the reflections of the activity going on outside the cave?
Absolutely no holiday decorations, knickknacks or frivolous things. No posters. Perhaps a fine art print, such as impressionism. I have seen dept rooms that look very unprofessional, loaded with Halloween junk, and other stuff. One person's decor is another's bore. Keep the fiction books out of the way.
Quote from: ergative on December 12, 2019, 02:04:03 AM
Before this shimmering hope is dashed against the hard concrete of reality, I'd like to fantasize about the ideal department common room. What makes a good common room? I think the following features are necessary:
1. Reasonable infrustructure. It should have good lighting, good heating, and the windows should not be drafty.
2. Quiet. If we need to sit down with a cup of coffee and read an article, I don't want to hear students milling about outside as they wait for their next class to start.
3. Whiteboards. No academic in a position to chat with other academics should be too far removed from a whiteboard when a complex idea strikes.
4. Refreshments: There should be some means of making coffee and tea, storing perishables and heating up lunch, and ideally provisions for biscuits. This is of course optional if there is a separate department kitchen.
5. Comfy seating: couch/armchairs that don't smell.
6. Usable seating: table and chairs where you can spread out your work.
#4. At least two microwaves so two people can heat up lunch or beverages at once. If there's a sink, a small collection of dishes and a dish rack.
I wish there were somewhere I could go and chat with colleagues while I eat my lunch, but the room with the microwave and sink doesn't have any seating and the outdoor spaces with seating don't have anything else. Thus I usually eat alone in my office. It's most efficient if the people who are heating up leftovers or washing up are still in a position to talk to the people who are eating. That way, even a quick 15 or 20 minute lunch break can be sociable as people come in and out on their individual schedules.
If we had such a space, we would end up talking about our classes and research projects and the institution would benefit.
One place where I've taught, the adjunct room had three computer setups and links to all the printers in the building (one in the room would have been nice, but the copier/printer room was only a couple doors down the hall.)
There were also two small meeting/quiet study rooms with sign-up sheets on the doors. One just had a desk, the other was really a small six-chair conference room with a very nice glass table.
There was a small fridge, could have been bigger, but there was a separate kitchen down the hall for staff and faculty shared, and I suspect no water hookups in the big room itself. But there were always two gallons of water in the fridge, and a microwave as well as a particle file with paper for the printer that was set aside for adjuncts to use only (the EA who supported the department chair was charged with upkeep of the room and we saw her daily. (She also dropped off candy for the candy jar on a regular basis, and put fresh flowers in the room).
There were lockers along one wall, a large wraparound desk under the wide wall of windows, and the usual stapler, stickies, etc.
They pointed out in several pieces of literature that since adjuncts taught 40% of the classes, they wanted to be sure we were well-supported.
M.
Quote from: ciao_yall on December 12, 2019, 12:17:28 PM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on December 12, 2019, 11:03:38 AM
A roomy cave with a fire and shadow-puppetry. ;)
And everyone chained so that they can only see the reflections of the activity going on outside the cave?
Chains, ropes, a moat and embankment... I'm not picky! Depends on the budget!
Of the 4 universities I've worked at, only 1 had a break room that was actually a common room. It was room, with a big table (would seat 12), lots of natural light and nice views, and was centrally located. Most of us would drift in around noon to eat our brown-bag lunches.
We've got a decent spot in my building. Natural light, two big tables, 2 fridges, 2 microwaves, a toaster, toasted sandwich maker, kettle, sink and counter space, and filtered hot and cold water.
Our/my (recent retiree, now adjuncting) relatively new building (almost entirely for my discipline--we have another building, too, but it's only a little bit ours), has nearly all of what ergative wanted, except whiteboards. And this at a CC. I will also say that what's in other buildings is a bit lesser, but "relatively new" was the first "even newish" building on campus for three decades. No, five.
I only wish someone would take on the duty of making coffee in the a.m. No one seems interested. And more pastry, please.
a working clock
a sink with hot and cold water.
a refrigerator with an ice maker
but mostly a working clock. a big one on the wall high enough so that it can be seen from any part of the room.
I just want coffee. I would be very happy with coffee (or tea).
We have no common room.
This is about the time when we get a call from the Dean stating that the planned common room will instead now be converted into an extra office space.
Quote from: Aster on December 30, 2019, 10:05:22 AM
This is about the time when we get a call from the Dean stating that the planned common room will instead now be converted into an extra office space.
That's better than the alternative, which was briefly bruited about in the consultations about our new building: Lots and lots of beautiful common spaces and so on, but everyone would have to share an office. We had a momentary triumph when we got the shared office idea shelved, but then the entire project was put on hold, so we're back to the status quo.
If I had to make the choice, I'd 100% rather have a private office and no department common room than a shared office space with a nice common room. I have to be in my office most of the day every day. A common room is a luxury I'm willing to pass on if it means I get the security and privacy to do my work.
One of my colleagues at another institution had a nice "common room" once, long, long ago.
But the two professors whose offices were adjacent to the common room decided that the common room was now "their space". Students were run off by the professors as being in a "faculty space". Other (new) professors were told that the space "isn't actually a common room, but my outer office area". Since one of the two a-hole professors practicing this lie was the Dean, nobody could countermand or ignore him.
I've visited this space once myself. It is a nice open area, with a large table and chairs. I sat down once and worked with a student on her research. And then afterwards my colleague who works there told me that the one of the a-hole professors had told my colleague to tell me that I shouldn't be there and that it wasn't a common space. What an a-hole.
So just a warning. If your planned common room is next to faculty offices, make sure that those faculty remain *junior* to everyone else. Ha ha.
I don't understand this common room of which you speak.... in the admin office for our department, we have a microwave and a table with two chairs outside the HR person and head admin asst person's offices, does that count? And a tiny refrigerator in the supply closet :D
Similar to what the_geneticist said, I'm pretty happy with my nice large-ish private office (with fantastic view from the window) and I'm so glad not to be sharing space.