Managing the Department Office and Facilities
Your Department office will likely house the chairperson and a secretary. You may possibly also have Work/Study students working in the office. As Chair, you are the secretary’s immediate supervisor (see section on Personnel: Staff) and most of his/her work will be assigned by you but the rest of the department faculty should also have secretarial needs and should be given access whenever possible.
The Department office is also the first point of contact for visitors, be they current majors, other students at the College (perhaps taking courses in your Department), prospective students with their families, or professionals. There should be a reception area with your secretary or a Work/Study student acting as receptionist. A chair or two for people to sit while they wait is also a nice touch. You may want to decorate (or have your secretary decorate) the Department office to create a good impression.
If your secretary takes the day off, visitors to the Department office may not be able to find you. The department office door may even be closed! You should arrange for students to sit at the secretary’s desk or, if that’s not possible, put a sign on the desk indicating how they find your office for assistance.
The Department office is the repository for documents pertaining to Department business. Some of these will be confidential. Any document with personnel actions or containing Identification numbers (A00…) needs to be in a secure location such as a locked file cabinet. Even other department faculty members do not have access to personnel information concerning other employees. When disposing of such documents, they must be shredded first. This must be done by you or the secretary. A Work/Study student can shred documents if he/she is under direct supervision by you or the secretary. Some faculty members still submit exams to the secretary for typing and for submission to the Print Shop. It’s a good idea for these exams to be locked in the cabinet as well.
Your Department will have a number of clerical and academic supplies such as paper, blue books, Compact Discs, etc. Keep these locked in a supply cabinet or closet or they will disappear. It is up to you as to whether you allow all faculty in your department to have free access to the supplies. If you don’t, it will certainly take a lot of your secretary’s time fetching requested items. If you do allow free access, it’s a good idea to have a sign-out sheet where faculty report what they are taking. That way you know if anyone has a need for a lot of certain items, like dry-erase markers. It also allows your secretary to order more when some items are depleted before they are completely gone. Having a special stash of a small number of each supply item in the office will prevent faculty from using all of something before you can order more. Nevertheless, remind your faculty to report to the secretary whenever they use the last of any item in the supply cabinet.
If your Department has a copy machine, you probably have a service contract which allows you a maximum number of copies per year. When you exceed that number, your OTPS will get a surcharge. Also, the copier life will be shortened. To avoid that, faculty should take all large print jobs to the Print Shop, reserving the copier for small jobs of 1-9 copies each and emergencies. Keep track of the number by having faculty log their jobs with the counter number from the copier. This should not be anonymous so that if one faculty member is consistently running large jobs, you can speak to him/her about it. The secretary should NOT question the faculty member. It puts the secretary in a bad position. The Chair is the proper person for this. Sometimes heavy copier use is unavoidable, especially for new faculty who often are working on handouts and exams at the last minute. However, it should not become the normal procedure. That’s why we have a Print Shop.
Faculty offices are assigned by the Dean, not the Department Chair. The Dean will usually approve your requests, but be aware that there is a serious office space shortage on campus. You may find offices in your area are assigned to faculty from other Departments. Similarly, classroom and laboratory space belongs to the College, not to the Departments. The Registrar may schedule classes in what you consider “your” classrooms. Lab rooms are specialized and your faculty will grow to consider it their work spaces. Usually, that will be the case in practice and nobody but your faculty will use the space. However, rooms, buildings, and facilities still belong to the College. If the College decides to move you, then you move.