Successful Offices in Academia

Jeffrey Young muses on how professors should use their office. Some humanities faculty cherish having an office with a small library for their ongoing research, while others are comfortable "hoteling."

Some faculty complain that students do not make use of office hours, even though the times are in each course syllabus. make their office hours more popular with students. Young cites scholar Robert Talbert, who offers two problems with traditional office hours: first, that visiting the personal space of an authority figure is intimidating, and second, that an informal office can convey a lack of professionalism. His solution is to meet with students by appointment in a local bagel shop.

T. Kelly offered a practical way to increase student visits to a professor's office. Kelly now uses a scheduling app, and found this quadrupled the number of students attending office hours, as they know that their visit to a faculty office will not involve a long wait.

-DD