This article is published in the August 2013 issue.

Taulbee in Depth: Department Space per Faculty Member

By: Betsy Bizot, CRA Director of StatisticsIn: /

Every three years, the CRA Taulbee Survey asks a set of Department Profiles questions including questions about department space. In the full Taulbee report published in CRN in May 2013, we reported on the space data collected in fall 2012. Tables in that report provided percentiles for department space in the categories of total space, offices, conference and seminar rooms, research labs, and instructional labs. The percentiles were across all departments of a given type (US CS Public, US CS Private, US CE, US Information, and Canadian) without regard for the size of the department. However, department size is clearly a major determiner of space.

To allow departments to better compare their own space allocations to the overall Taulbee numbers, this analysis reports on space per faculty member in two ways: by number of tenured and tenure-track faculty, and by number of tenured and tenure-track faculty plus number of research faculty and postdocs. Those values were computed for each department; percentiles of the normalized space for all US departments and for each type of department are given in tables Space1 through Space6.

The total space per tenured or tenure-track faculty member varies little across the US department types; the median value ranges from 1,141 (US CS private) to 1,297 square feet (US Information). Space allocation, however, varies. Not surprisingly, Computer Engineering departments have the highest median per capita research lab space at 442 square feet, while Information has the lowest at 62. Computer Engineering likewise has a higher median per capital square footage for instructional lab space at 242, while the US CS and Information programs range from 128 to 185.

There is substantially more variation in per capita total space across departments and across department types at the 90th percentile. There’s no clear pattern for these departments; some are small and some large, and some are colleges of computing or information rather than individual departments, but some are not. Probably the variation represents some type of “other” space.

Table Space7 offers a different way of looking at space allocation. For each department, the percent of total space represented by offices, conference and seminar rooms, research labs, and instructional labs was computed. The table shows percentiles of these percents; for example, the median of space allocated to offices is 41%, and the median of space allocated to research labs is 23%.

Table Space1. Department Space, net square feet per faculty member (tenured and tenure-track, or tenured and tenure-track plus research faculty and postdocs), 135 US institutions
Percentiles Total Space Faculty, Staff, and Student Offices Conference and Seminar Rooms Research Labs Instructional Labs
Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch
10 758 579 252 202 20 16 33 29 0 0
25 892 790 350 298 39 31 130 100 78 55
50 1,214 1,029 489 430 77 66 248 225 156 134
75 1,647 1,378 772 612 123 97 455 393 315 281
90 2,514 1,926 1,055 846 217 163 652 578 449 415

 

Table Space2. Department Space, net square feet per faculty member (tenured and tenure-track, or tenured and tenure-track plus research faculty and postdocs), 86 US Public CS programs
Percentiles Total Space Faculty, Staff, and Student Offices Conference and Seminar Rooms Research Labs Instructional Labs
Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch
10 717 625 247 205 23 22 76 57 16 9
25 892 804 335 302 36 31 145 129 94 86
50 1,207 1,050 456 433 72 65 262 239 168 148
75 1,639 1,429 729 603 105 91 442 405 311 283
90 2,068 1,894 1,001 816 164 150 599 513 449 415

 

Table Space3. Department Space, net square feet per faculty member (tenured and tenure-track, or tenured and tenure-track plus research faculty and postdocs), 31 US Private CS programs
Percentiles Total Space Faculty, Staff, and Student Offices Conference and Seminar Rooms Research Labs Instructional Labs
Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch
10 767 509 271 204 0 0 4 3 0 0
25 855 675 370 292 39 29 131 71 33 27
50 1,141 852 501 379 77 55 219 170 128 80
75 1,672 1,337 813 610 163 116 560 393 251 204
90 3,173 2,980 1,440 877 326 227 917 792 499 440

 

Table Space4. Department Space, net square feet per faculty member (tenured and tenure-track, or tenured and tenure-track plus research faculty and postdocs), 6 US CE programs
Percentiles Total Space Faculty, Staff, and Student Offices Conference and Seminar Rooms Research Labs Instructional Labs
Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch
10
25 702 552 145 127 13 8 100 100 87 76
50 1,181 872 318 260 60 50 442 370 242 162
75 2,821 2,566 1,411 1,088 159 141 1,219 1,107 427 386
90

 

Table Space5. Department Space, net square feet per faculty member (tenured and tenure-track, or tenured and tenure-track plus research), 12 US Information programs
Percentiles Total Space Faculty, Staff, and Student Offices Conference and Seminar Rooms Research Labs Instructional Labs
Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch
10 901 612 375 196 39 36 0 0 0 0
25 1,079 860 460 321 74 68 14 13 41 24
50 1,297 1,053 599 513 88 77 62 54 185 167
75 2,813 1,688 790 690 227 133 299 263 361 321
90 4,009 3,560 1,667 1,259 378 299 1,651 495 553 413

 

Table Space6. Department Space, net square meters per faculty member (tenured and tenure-track, or tenured and tenure-track plus research), 13 Canadian programs
Percentiles Total Space Faculty, Staff, and Student Offices Conference and Seminar Rooms Research Labs Instructional Labs
Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch Ten-Track TT+Rsrch
10 68 68 6 6 0 0 3 3 0 0
25 90 77 31 25 4 3 28 28 5 4
50 131 116 34 33 8 7 49 39 18 15
75 176 172 48 43 12 10 58 53 28 27
90 241 210 87 87 25 24 78 75 35 35

 

Table Space7. Department Space, 135 US institutions
Percentiles Percent of Total Space Allocated To
Faculty, Staff, and Student Offices Conference and Seminar Rooms Research Labs Instructional Labs
10 20 2 2 0
25 31 3 11 6
50 41 6 23 15
75 53 9 37 22
90 66 14 48 31
Taulbee in Depth: Department Space per Faculty Member