Office Space Principles and Use Guidelines 

Principles 

  • Owner of the space on campus: the provost 
  • Owner of the space assigned to units within the college: the dean 
  • Owner of space within a department/unit: The chair/director as defined by Professional Rights and Duties. 

Use Guidelines by Occupant Type 

  • Faculty 
    • Private office or workstation. Faculty with multiple work locations might have a shared office in a second location, depending upon the location, need, and availability of space. 
    • Department chairs are to use their department chair office, if their department has one. If desired, the in-coming chair's old office can be held for them, but during their tenure as chair, their old office is to be available for use by others, such as in a hoteling fashion for post-docs and visiting faculty. 
  • ²ÊÃñ±¦µä Faculty on Sabbatical
    • Single-use office if sabbatical involves substantial time on campus, otherwise vacated space can be temporarily reassigned to others.
  • Emeritus professors, post-docs, research faculty, visiting faculty 
    • No private offices. Shared or common space, however, research and post-doc faculty might have private offices within a PI research space. 
  • Part-time faculty of all types, lecturers 
    • Shared or common space 
  • Staff
    • Dependent upon work responsibilities. Supervisors and staff with high confidentiality responsibilities will often have single-use offices, otherwise shared space.
  • Graduate Students
    • No appointment: no space 
    • TA appointment: shared or common desk space, at minimum a space to meet students 
    • RA appointment: within PI lab space where applicable, shared or common space otherwise. 

  • General Square Foot Recommendations by Position/Category

    Due to the varied age of buildings within our infrastructure and outdated space configurations, rigid adherence to a blanket square foot standard is impractical. But, departments should implement these guidelines and attempt to make do with their current space allocation even if they are recruiting new faculty. 

    All requests will begin with an audit of the department’s current space, reconciled with these guidelines.

A massive spreadsheet that can be understood by following the image's link to the space allocation guidelines.