East Hall has become close quarters for lecturers, tenured professors and teaching assistants in the English Department, with a recent move leaving part−time faculty members with cubicles that they say make it difficult to carry out their jobs.
Around 20 faculty members relocated this fall to three East Hall offices renovated in June, English Department Administrator Wendy Medeiros said in an e−mail. The new offices — rooms 204, 312 and 314 — are designed in a cubicle arrangement, with dividers between desk areas for personal space for six or seven professors and one desk for a communal computer.
Last year, most offices contained four or five lecturers, Medeiros said. The lecturers enjoyed freestanding desks, too, which created more shelf and wall space than in the present offices.
The space is insulting and insufficient, English Department lecturers said, particularly as it limits their abilities to meet with students. Four lecturers requested anonymity for this article and one declined to comment out of concern for the security of their jobs, as lecturers' contracts are made on a year−to−year basis.
The lecturers said they were disconcerted by the lack of consultation they received before they and their belongings were shifted to a new space. They expressed frustration that they did not receive a say in the decision.
"It makes me feel that we're not particularly valued," Ronna Johnson, an English lecturer for 23 years, said. "This cubicle office space is like one given to people in entry−level jobs."
The restructuring created office space for a tenure−track faculty member without a permanent office and for two new full−time faculty members joining the English Department in Fall 2011, Medeiros said.
"If we had more space available in East Hall, we would have not been required to restructure the offices," Medeiros said.
English Department faculty received an e−mail from the department's administration in June telling them about the office renovations and relocations, two lecturers said.
"Strangers packed up my personal belongings," Johnson said, since she was far from Tufts by the time she received notice about the office shifts.
The lecturers said the designated area for each lecturer is insufficient for even typical office possessions and that it is now difficult to hold conferences with students.
"Some faculty were outraged," Johnson said. "Our working conditions were truncated."
Johnson and four other lecturers said the cubicle desks do not allow room for both a student and a professor to look over the same piece of paper, which is critical to discussing English assignments.
"It's insulting to the student and to the person teaching — like our work isn't important enough to have space to do it," one English lecturer said.
A few professors have yet to unpack boxes of personal belongings and academic records from their previous offices, as they no longer have space for them. Johnson said she has 16 full cardboard boxes that she has no idea where to put now.
"The English Department is way too squeezed for space," Professor of English Elizabeth Ammons said. "Lecturers previously had space which allowed people to personalize it, and it had character. The change makes these offices look like telemarketer space."
All tenured, full−time professors, as well as a select few lecturers, did not change offices, according to two lecturers. A number of full−time faculty members have offered to share their office with a lecturer in need of more space, Johnson said.
Meanwhile, the two rooms prepared for new full−time faculty members arriving next fall, rooms 308A and 308B, sit empty this entire academic year, according to Medeiros.
Edelman said in an e−mail to the Daily that lecturers may utilize these empty spaces this year to hold conferences with students.
He added that the office relocations were carefully planned out in an attempt to minimize inconvenience to lecturers.
"We have been able to increase the number of individuals assigned to those three offices without increasing the number of people actually using the office at any one time," Edelman wrote in the e−mail.
Office assignments were based on the lecturers' schedules and specific fields, Medeiros said.
Last month, the difficulties lecturers were experiencing in the new offices were compiled into a report, which was presented at a department faculty meeting, according to one lecturer. Lecturers anonymously contributed thoughts about the problems with the space to share with the full−time faculty, a lecturer said.
The lecturer said the report's comments included the fact that professors lack drawer space to lock up personal items, such as a laptop or briefcase. Professors worried about the office situation's effect on students.
"Students should feel their conversations are granted respect and space by the greater institution that their tuitions support," the lecturer wrote in the report. "I think the functionality of this space has been lost now completely. Where are students to sit? Where are they to share a surface and work with their professor?"
The lecturer lamented the loss of a space with a desk and a chair for a student, where students can feel comfortable sharing private conversations with their professor.
"With the space we have now, who's going to sit back and talk about serious, sensitive issues in a cubicle?" the lecturer wrote. "I don't feel like this space accords them or us, the staff, the dignity to have that happen now."
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