"Space" and "The Student Form"
Page Delano, BMCC

Page Delano reading "Space"

Space 

I saw this picture of a guy in his office in a college, and I was impressed.  Here was this guy who had an office all to himself, with nice furniture and built in things.  I know there are some offices like this in  CUNY.  But if you’re an adjunct in most places you get a stall.   As if.  As if your students don’t come to you with private things to tell you.  As if when you need to call your gynecologist it should be the whole line of people in their stalls listening in.  In my department there are about 45 full time faculty members, and over one hundred part time members.  The part timers have two offices – each office has three desks!  Just the other day I saw that the college renovated a large classroom for a new program to attract students who will graduate in two years.  It’s a nice room, a kind of lounge for the ASAP students, modeled perhaps after the lounges for the honors college students.  But we really need this office space.  Well, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and from somewhere the will for space for ASAP was strong.  I’m a full time faculty member.  I share an office with two other colleagues. Some in our department share with more people, they even share their desks.  I couldn’t do that.   I like my office mates.  I really do.  But I keep thinking of that photo of the “college professor,” and wonder if I should be just giving myself the reality pinch, and saying get over it, or if I should have that office too.  There’s something to the office – you work there, you have your books there, you meet students there, you converse and dialogue, you work there, you really work – in down time when you’re not teaching and not having conference hours you can escape into the writing you want to be doing.  I’ve found out a lot about things sharing my office with other people, really, I’ve learned things I wouldn’t have known.  But I tend to look on the bright side of things. 

Actually, the right to a decent size of work space is IN the contract.  But because we’re in a top-down situation, and it doesn’t seem that important to the administration, it’s hard for things like this to be enforced.  We’re at the mercy of a budget, a crisis, the need to squeeze more students into the college, a space crisis, a lack of will, of disrespect.  
 

The Student Forum 

Students are paid to go to school.  They are only required to take part in the student forum every month, where they meet with faculty members and other students.  Of course they have to go to their classes.  They have paid medical care, and the day care, where their kids go and socialize and nap with the children of faculty members and staff, has again won an award for being the best in the neighborhood.  The people who live in the communityhave come again for their bi-weekly workshop with students and faculty, small groups, or book clubs,  and the faculty who have come for special evening programs—walking from the new faculty housing.  There is of course not enough housing for all the faculty, but this is being worked on, and a lottery that is based on the most democratic principles, is being worked out so that those who want this housing can be accommodated.  Some students are waiting in line for their free bus and subway passes, and the poetry slam group is practicing in the small theater, while the students on probation are taking their mandatory violin classes or meeting with their therapists.  The TV screens, which used to flash “start here go anywhere” now have interactive debates with students from colleges and universities all over the world.  The faculty are asked what they do with their paychecks.  What do they spend their money on?   We buy food, they say, we buy food.  Peaches, fish, cheese. 

 

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