3 Tips for Moving to Shared Faculty Workspace from HubStar’s December Higher Ed Panel

In our December 2nd higher education virtual panel, Joe Harris from HubStar hosted Chris Morett to tackle one of higher education’s most controversial topics: shared faculty office spaces.

Chris Morett is the President at Co|Here Campus and Workplace, a consultancy specialized in campus space planning. Chris brings a unique inside-out perspective, having previously served as Director of Scheduling and Space Management at Rutgers University before founding his firm.

Over 45 minutes, Chris and Joe traded insights about why shared faculty offices aren’t the non-starter many assume, how to approach change management when faculty feel entitled to private space and why universities must lead the way in collaborative workplaces.

Here are the three most impactful takeaways from the discussion.

1) Transitioning to shared faculty offices takes a lot of effort, but it’s worth it.

Chris opened with a clear position: “Shared faculty offices are absolutely not a non-starter. And however true that was pre-2020, it’s even more true now. It’s just more of a reality, if not a necessity.”

The case is compelling. Joe shared a recent example where occupancy sensors revealed an entire 20,000 square foot floor of faculty offices was a ghost town, yet faculty leaders were requesting more space. The data showed utilization struggling to reach double digits.

And as Chris put it: “This isn’t just about wasted space, it’s about, is the activity matching the space? Is the space they’re in the best space possible for the activity they’re doing?”

The reality is that the traditional faculty office often fails students. Many students would “never dream of going to that third floor distant building faculty office,” Chris noted. The location, the imposing nature of book-lined walls, the unclear door protocol – all create barriers to the very interactions universities exist to foster.

2) Start small with data-driven pilots, then scale with a hospitality mindset. 

“Find the willing first and provide them with a pathway to implementation,” Chris advised. “Do pilots where the stakes are low to get people comfortable.”

Joe highlighted and example from HubStar customer Sheffield Hallam University. The space management team deployed HubStar sensors in the Vice Chancellor’s offices first, proved they could share spaces effectively, then used that as a benchmark to sell the broader vision. 

“My personal preference is to find the most likely to be naysayers and include them from the beginning,” Chris commented on making small-scale pilots really gain traction. 

But data alone won’t win the culture war. Chris introduced his now-favorite tagline: “Coffee is cheaper than concrete.”

He pointed to Colorado State’s Ann Schutz campus, where they created a  faculty club with amenities like dry cleaning services for faculty who gave up private offices.

3) Universities shouldn’t be the laggards of creating collaborative spaces.

Universities are where young people get their start before they move into workplaces increasingly built and designed for collaboration. So “shouldn’t universities expose their students to the world they’re going to go into and create?” 

Academia and traditional spaces should no longer be synonymous. Real examples are emerging of institutions creating these environments:

• Virginia Commonwealth University’s STEM Hub hosts faculty office hours in tutoring spaces, showing “highly successful” impact on student outcomes and sense of belonging
• Bristol University’s Sheds Project is creating mixed-use spaces for students, staff, alumni, and regional businesses
• University of Westminster’s Zone 39 places student collaboration space next to Meta and other tech offices, creating a professional co-working community

One event attendee shared her university’s win in the chat box, “One of our faculty have moved all student office hours for introductory level classes to their study hub. In doing that, the students make friends, they meet multiple faculty members, and have a real impact on retention.”

As Chris framed it, “The point of a university is to bring people together. It’s to make them better as a whole than they are individually… We have to explicitly aim for that.”