Overcrowding
plagues faculty
By
Jeff Overley
On-line Forty-Niner
Increased
enrollment coupled with limited room for
new buildings on campus has created a significant
office shortage for faculty in the College
of Liberal Arts.
Two
to three teachers are sharing offices designed
for one, and four to five staff members
now split rooms meant for two. College of
Liberal Arts Dean Dee Abrahamse wrote in
a June 24 memo that her goal is to provide
a single office to all tenure and tenure
track faculty, but said regretfully that
the, "current allocation does not accommodate
that need."
Professors
and teaching assistants in the College of
Liberal Arts represent approximately one-third
of instructors at Cal State Long Beach,
but the office space provided to them remains
disproportionately small. The number of
students and lecturers in the College is
also growing more rapidly than that of any
other college, exacerbating an already difficult
situation.
"It's
been a problem for a long time, and it's
becoming a worse problem," said Paul
Schmidt, director of Facilities and Technology
Planning.
The
close quarters create clutter in the form
of stacks of papers and files, and often
force teachers to split time on a single
computer, and sometimes even a single desk.
"It's
hard when there are two of us. You're just
on top of each other," said Greg Beirich,
a history professor.
Instructors
sometimes elect to avoid the aggravation
of being crammed in together by dividing
their office hours. But that solution in
turn creates scheduling troubles for students
desiring personal meetings.
"It's
frustrating for the students because they
don't understand why we're not here all
the time," said Rebecca Thomas, an
American history professor. "The rotating
schedule makes it hard for them."
While
all College of Liberal Arts lecturers teach
in the five Liberal Arts buildings, their
offices are spread everywhere from the Macintosh
Humanities Building at Upper Campus to the
Social Science and Public Affairs Building
on Lower Campus. As a result, some professors
not only face long walks, but also crowded
working areas.
The
College of Liberal Art's addition of 25
new tenure track faculty members this year
was eased somewhat by the provision of some
temporary space in Library East. No additional
offices are expected to be available for
up to three years when a library remodel
supplying around 100 new offices will be
completed.
But
barring a sudden halt to the College's burgeoning
student and faculty population, the extra
offices will only be less than ideal.
"We're
always trying to anticipate the future,
and so we have to look at the rate of growth
[in enrollment and faculty]," said
Richard Outwater, the special assistant
to the provost who is responsible for finding
room for new faculty offices. "It is
likely that [the College of Liberal Arts]
will continue to need more offices even
after the remodel."
Outwater
noted that there are currently no other
sites that have the potential to alleviate
the office crunch. "We're constantly
looking at all opportunities, but we're
pretty limited in our options," he
said.
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