Door slams shut on a room of one's own

Academics' book-lined private offices are under threat as administrators try to cuts cost by introducing open-plan layouts. Alan Thomson reports

For academics, it is a cherished private study space to retreat to for quiet contemplation. For university estate managers, however, it is a relic that has to be banished to the past as the academic workplace is made cost-effective and fit for purpose.

The walls and bookshelves of lecturers' private rooms are being ripped down in universities across the country to make way for the introduction of open-plan offices. But these changes, which have significant effects on the working practices of academics, are proving painful.

Alun Woodruff, head of estates at Glamorgan University and a member of the Association of University Directors of Estates (AUDE), said:

"Traditionally, academics want single-occupancy rooms full of books so they can shut the door on the world, so they can have one-to-one chats with students and have their scholarly quiet time.

"But academics have to get real. Space costs a lot of money, and there are some cynics who would say that lecturers should spend most of their time in class - so why would they need their own rooms?"

Sian Kilner is director of the property and planning consultancy Kilner Planning and the lead consultant to the AUDE's space management group. He said: "I think there is a growing interest in exploring open-plan offices as an option within universities.

"But there is a danger of seeing it too simplistically and saying that if universities all move to open-plan offices they will save loads of money."

York St John University College is one of many institutions that have reviewed student learning needs and come to the conclusion that many individual offices must be abolished.

Colin Parkin, director of facilities at York St John, said: "It wasn't uncommon for members of staff to have been here for 15 or 20 years with 15 square metres of office space in which they had a fridge, settee, bookshelves and what have you. From the outset, there were arguments against open-plan offices.

"One of the aspects academics found challenging was when we asked them to review the number of books and other stuff they do not use on a regular basis."

Sue Holmes, assistant director of estates at Sheffield Hallam University, said that a fifth of the institution's 1,000 academic staff had their own offices.

"I often go into offices lined with books and do the dust test. You can tell that the books have not been opened since they were bought ten years ago," Ms Holmes said.

"When we looked at the capital costs of cellular offices they were quite horrendous. Our students are paying for a service, and we need to provide that," she added.

But many Sheffield Hallam academics take a dim view of the changes. One lecturer, who declined to be named, said that in addition to causing problems involving student-staff confidentiality, open-plan offices provided less storage space for private documents including research that could contain sensitive data.

She said that the inevitable interruptions and distractions that are part of life in an open-plan office were driving more academics to work from home.

"It privatises academic work. There can be a culture that active researchers are not seen much on university premises," she said.

But change is coming, and some university administrators believe that no one should be immune.

At the University of East London, the culture has long been open plan, and this extends to Mike Thorne, the vice-chancellor, and his senior management team.

Richard Allanach, director of finance, shares an office with Professor Thorne and three other senior members of staff.

"We think the future lies in open-plan offices. They are a more effective way of providing space and they foster communication and teamwork," he said.

"If I want to talk with my finance team, then we will sit in what I call the huddle space, which is part of the open-plan office."

alan.thomson@thes.co.uk

 

'In the open-plan office a number of people are seeing less of their colleagues than the past'

Although little research has been carried out on the effects of open-plan offices, one study suggests there may be unpredictable consequences that may do more harm than good.

Simon Bradford, senior lecturer in the School of Sport and Education at Brunel University, is studying the impact of open-plan offices on academic working. He and his research colleague Valerie Hey, deputy head of the school, moved into an open-plan office last August. Much of their empirical research is done on colleagues.

"An interesting irony is that, despite being in an open-plan office, a number of people have told me that they are seeing less of their colleagues than in the past," he said, "because there are some kinds of work they just can't do in an open-plan office, so they take themselves off to quieter rooms."

Dr Bradford and Professor Hey plan to present a paper on their findings to the British Educational Research Association's annual conference in September.

There are other reservations. According to a review of evidence published by the Health and Safety Executive in 1992, open-plan offices with more than ten work stations have been cited as a possible "risk factor" in sick-building syndrome.

Roger Kline, head of higher education, equality and employment rights at lecturers' union Natfhe, said: "Natfhe would have very real concerns about such proposals [to make academics' offices open plan], especially as they are almost certainly driven by motives to make financial savings rather than to improve the work environment."

But many estates managers believe that the way offices are designed in universities will be determined ultimately by younger generations of academics more used to open-plan working and technological developments that increasingly free academics from their desks.

As one estates officer recently commented ruefully in an online discussion forum: "We have tried open-plan spaces for academic office-based staff, but I have since realised that life is too short."

 

A retreat within four walls

The open-plan reforms are not being embraced unanimously by university heads. David Chiddick, vice-chancellor of Lincoln University, believes that the moves may be misguided.

"The pedagogic base is formal tutorial, and if you are not doing tutorials in staff offices then you have to build tutorial rooms," he said.

"Then there is the whole question of academic materials. At one extreme there is the argument 'when did you last take a book off your shelf and look at it?'

"But at the other end there is the fact that academics have to be able to access a range of materials to prepare for lectures, tutorials and for research," Professor Chiddick said.

Derek Southwell, a member of the University Space Management Advisory Group at Cambridge University, said that although the university had implemented reforms to make everyone in the institution more conscious of the cost of floor space and the need to make the most of it, this did not mean that academics were about to lose their private offices.

"It is an old university with its traditions, and academics would resist open-plan offices strongly. We have to bear that in mind and make changes elsewhere.

"Cambridge also competes internationally in a very competitive market for the best academics, and if you are able to offer an office in a nice college then that always helps," Mr Southwell added.

Carole Poole and her colleagues at the media studies department at Edge Hill University College in Lancashire were moved to new offices 18 months ago, but they rejected the option of going over completely to open-plan offices.

Ms Poole, head of department, said: "Our view was that academic work is not like working in a building society or a call centre."

She added: "It requires a more closed environment, although we were not talking about a return to the halcyon days - if they ever existed - of individual offices."