March 20 L4L Forum
Structuring the University to Support Liberal Arts:
How Can Physical Plant and Institutional Organization
Enhance a Liberal Arts Experience?

Attendees:
Craig Hemmens
Nick Miller
Tara Penry
Tony Roark


Tara: We can pursue either of the two threads in the title question independently. I have some views about one of the two threads, but I’d like to hear what others think is important.

Nick: Because it’s easier for me to conjure up a mental image what I’d like the campus to look like, I have a preference for discussing physical plant issues.

Craig: I’d also prefer to talk about physical plant.

Tony: There’s so much room for improvement of the physical campus, I’m with you three. I can’t get in to my office without ascending stairs that smell strongly of cat urine. Our department copier is in what used to be a shower. Our communal refrigerator is in the department bathroom. It’s pretty bad.

Tara: I’m also more interested in physical plant. We’ve got all of these new buildings going up on campus, so it seems like we might be able to exercise some influence on their design and use that would be beneficial to liberal arts goals. I don’t know whether a contemplative walking circuit next to the river is in the cards, though.

Tony: Actually, the Master Plan includes enhancement of the greenbelt that flanks the campus. I think we’d be wise to try to piggyback some of our ideas onto initiatives that are already in the works.

Nick: There might also be some accidental benefits to be had. Todd Shallat’s center is moving out to the new land on Parkcenter, and other space configuration is underway. We might be able to direct some of the reallocations of space in ways that benefit more interaction between faculty and different departments.

Craig: The rate at which residential buildings are being constructed here is phenomenal, partly because these buildings can be bonded. In addition to the recent openings, there are more planned for the property south of the Lincoln Ave. parking structure. So it might actually be quite important for us to think about how we can capitalize on these projects in the queue.

Tara: What are some of the issues that need to be addressed in physical plant?

Nick: One basic problem in our college is that we don’t know each other, because we’re so spread out. The fluidity I mentioned earlier might create opportunities to centralize and concentrate faculty offices within a college.

Tara: So we’re facing a potential sprawl problem. What can we do to make it more likely, rather than less likely, that we’ll be seeing our colleagues regularly and interacting with them?

Nick: There’s also some talk that some departments feel out of place in their college. Since we’re brainstorming, we might want to think about that.

Tara: This obviously touches on the other thread in the forum’s title question: institutional organization.

Craig: Are you talking about creating a new college, Nick, or just reconfiguring the existing colleges?

Nick: Well, one option would be to create a new college. I’m not advocating that right now, though.

Craig: That would require new administrative positions, and some are complaining even now that we’re moving towards being top-heavy.

Tara: Maybe one part of our recommendations should be to ask the deans to have a conversation about whether there are reasons to consider shuffling the composition of colleges. They’re in the best position to identify and assess the relevant issues.

Craig: One of the reasons why Econ hasn’t left COBE is that they’re the only dept. that publishes regularly, so they keep the college’s pub numbers up. They’ve made noise about leaving the college, but the college won’t let them leave.

Tara: What sort of day-to-day realities would be affected by such restructuring of colleges? Might there be some other way to “peel the egg” and get the same outcomes? What is it that people want from changing their college?

Nick: In History, we feel like the other departments share publishing patterns and practices that we don’t, so we spend a lot of time explaining ourselves. So I expect that I’ll be having a conversation with our new dean and explaining how things work in our discipline, because social work is about as far from history as can be. From the student perspective, it would be really beneficial if disciplines that are closer to one another could interact more regularly.

Craig: Would we want to be housed with departments that are a lot like us? Maybe interdisciplinarity would be best fostered by mixing things up even more.

Nick: That’s a good question.

Tara: I see the kind of explaining that you talked about, Nick, happening in Arts and Sciences. When someone in English is writing a grant proposal in our college, we find ourselves having to explain what constitutes research in our discipline, how our methodologies differ from the sciences, and so on. There are huge disparities between the sciences and the humanities in terms of collaboration with other colleagues and students. How would this be affected by college changes? What dictates the college structure in a university? Probably budgets, student numbers, and the like. But maybe we could give the deans the agenda of discussing how college structure can promote connections, collaboration, and interdisciplinarity. If they’re resistant, we ought to be prepared with a Plan B to pursue those same ends, though.

Nick: We can solve the proximity issue without changing the college organization.

Tara: That points out the relation between the two threads in the title question.

Craig: So maybe there could be a building with all of the liberal arts-ish departments in it?

Nick: Sure, with a quad and lots of ivy! Seriously, though, I’d like to explore ways of getting faculty more together without affecting deans’ budgets.

Tara: Would it be good to have eating areas and comfortable furniture to study on?

Nick: Craig, you have that in Driscoll Hall.

Craig: That’s true, and it’s great. My office is vibrant and alive, with lots of student activity. From where I sit, BSU feels like a residential campus.

Tara: So one solution would be to have a common area in every building. The LA building, where my department is housed, has absolutely nothing in it. Our conference room is a storage room. We live and work in cinderblock rooms with high windows that you can’t see out of. We hear constant traffic noise from the parking lot and University Drive. Every spring brings fumes from the Art department when they start cooking things

Nick: So maybe the conclusion is that what we’re working with now is hopelessly irremediable. Our space at the back of the Library wasn’t designed for anything in particular, and we were told that we’d be there for just a couple of years. I don’t see any way of reconfiguring that space to make it more hospitable to creative activity.

Tara: Let’s propose that we turn our “warrens” into storage space, because we always need storage. Then we’ll move all faculty offices into buildings like this one we’re in now, where we can have natural light, decent air, and comfortable places to work and meet with students.

Nick: I’m disappointed that they didn’t do more with this building.

Craig: The open space is really nice, but given our needs, they probably could have done more with this space in terms of efficient use of space. Was there any faculty input in the design of this building?

Nick: Not that I know of. Here’s a related peeve of mine: we can’t even get into the library without exiting the building. There we are in the library building, and we don’t even have easy access to it. It’s clear that there was no faculty input on that score.

Tara: That’s another thing for our list: we should ask administrators to talk to faculty about how to design buildings. The faculty senate could form a standing subcommittee whose task would be to provide direction for the growth of the campus over the next twenty years.

Craig: We still want architects to design the buildings, but we should provide them with a list of desiderata that put constraints on their designs.

Tara: That’s a great idea. If nothing else comes out of our meeting today, I think that’s one thing that we ought to do.