SCRIPPS OVERVIEW
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Report submitted 29 October 2001 by James H. Swift, Chair DSAC A brief DSAC report was filed in October 2000. This expands on that report and also covers DSAC activities up through the present time. Preparations for every DSAC walk-through reported here have been excellent, thanks to much hard work by Cammie Ingram, and also by the MSOs responsible for the building spaces examined. The DSAC's work would not be possible without this support and it is very much appreciated. 1. Endurance Hall The SIO Director's Space Advisory Committee carried out a walk-through of the building known as Endurance Hall on May 8, 2000. Endurance Hall is a newly-occupied laboratory and office building which also includes a sample archive facility. In general the facilities, if not always attractive, are nicely functional. There remain a host of small quirks in the building, especially with regards to the HVAC system. The committee suggests that if these quirks remain, rather than continue to deal with these on a piecemeal basis, the SIO facilities manager should solicit comments via email and a town meeting of building occupants, collate the complaints, and work with the institution to solve the problems together. Most spaces in this building are being used in the intended manner. There was, however, some evidence of spaces outfitted originally as chemistry laboratories being used preferentially for office space. The reasons provided for this practice by the occupants are generally well-intended (mostly to keep close ties to the laboratory), but the DSAC notes that chemistry laboratory spaces are prized and very expensive and should always be put to the intended use, or, if not used in the intended manner, noted as such so that as soon as chemistry laboratory space is needed by another investigator, the original occupants can be asked to move out or share space. The DSAC further notes that in general shifting the investigator's office - presumably originally too remote from the laboratory to be of use - to one "across the hall" is preferred to actually placing the investigator's office in the laboratory. As always, the DSAC strongly discourages instances of investigators having offices in two different locations, and is wary, at best, regarding the growing practice of investigators combining two adjacent offices to form one large office There appears to be generous space in this building for growth, including new groups needing laboratory space. The sample storage/archive facility in the basement of this building is remarkable. At least one room in Endurance Hall appeared to be used primarily for gas sample storage. The room itself was acceptable for the purpose, but some of the stored items may have been more appropriate for Seaweed Canyon. A photography laboratory appeared to not be in current use. The building is not regarded as especially friendly by those who work there. The DSAC was told by building occupants of photocopiers in somewhat out of the way locations, a lack of vending machines, and a more serious lack of spaces for small groups to gather and talk. The occupants told the DSAC that there are two conference rooms in the building, but the main public rooms, such as these, are locked and available only on a pre-scheduled basis. [The Directors Office responded to the DSAC that there are photocopiers in the office support spaces on the main halls of the second, third, and fourth floors, and that there are four conference rooms, only two of which are locked due to security reasons.] 2. IGPP The SIO Director's Space Advisory Committee carried out a walk-through of IGPP I & IGPP II on May 15, 2000. The DSAC found essentially no instances of mismanaged space or gross inequities in these attractive, well laid out, well maintained buildings. IGPP seems to have done a good job of self-regulating their space. Office and lab space assignments are generous compared to the norm for some (or even most) SIO groups. There also is a pleasant degree of general use space, library, conference rooms, coffee nooks, etc. that provide opportunities for interaction among members of a large group. Some of the less-desirable spaces seem to be somewhat under-utilized but, as there is a long-standing tradition of keeping IGPP space separate from the rest of SIO needs, those spaces can probably be thought of as room to grow. Indeed there is ample room for IGPP to grow within its own walls, and in the immediate future the Director should probably consider asking IGPP to examine its existing spaces before granting IGPP requests to expand to other SIO spaces. Regarding self-management, the DSAC notes that the IGPP buildings are an excellent example of SIO spaces which are managed well by the occupants. But the DSAC has observed that self-management works well only when one division nearly totally dominates a building, as is the case for IGPP. (Presumably the IGPP residents are provided a voice in the allocation process, but the DSAC has not followed that issue.) In buildings where space assignments are mixed up between different groups, where a research division may not even control contiguous sections of a hallway, space tends to be more poorly organized and less well or equably utilized. The DSAC notes that space allocation issues should improve if SIO sets a goal of bringing people within research divisions together so that each division would control a building (or buildings) or at least entire floors, wings, halls, etc. of buildings. The occupants would then know where to go to deal with perceived local injustices. This would also make it more straightforward for the institution and divisions to deal with space-, safety-, and security-related problems. If and when SIO divisional reorganization takes place, the opportunity should be taken to shift offices and laboratories to achieve better environments for self-management of space. 3. Sverdrup Hall The SIO Director's Space Advisory Committee carried out a walk-through of Sverdrup Hall on April 4, 2001. Sverdrup Hall is a older (1963), renovated laboratory-and-office building housing a large number of researchers and students, plus the business offices for the Marine Research Division. The building is designed with a central core for laboratory infrastructure support, surrounded by laboratories, in turn surrounded by a hall with offices with outside windows. Sverdrup Hall is thus similar in concept to Hubbs Hall. One stark difference that sets Sverdrup Hall aside from most other SIO research buildings is its almost complete lack of shared spaces, especially the small conference rooms that are essential for meetings. The DSAC has since been approached by a group of Sverdrup Hall occupants who are hoping to convert a small alcove created by the destruction of the Sverdrup-Ritter bridge into a small conference room. This looks like it has the possibility to provide a much-needed addition to this building. Sverdrup Hall is a busy building, and its resources seem to be stretched. Offices are on the small side to begin with, and there is almost no public space. Alcoves and one side of the wider hallways usually have items in use (such as the freezers at the west end of the third floor) or more often bicycles or storage (e.g. the unused refrigerators at the east end of the 2nd floor), rather than being outfitted with furniture to attract small gatherings. In most cases laboratories and offices are more crowded than in the newer buildings such as Endurance Hall, NTV, or Keck/OAR. As in all SIO buildings one can find a vacant or obviously little-used office or laboratory, but not so often here as in many other SIO buildings. The lack of staging areas for field work is fairly serious and consideration should be given to providing additional space for that purpose. Cold room and other environmental laboratory and storage is in short supply relative to demand. Consideration should be given to giving divisional (research unit) control over environmentally-controlled spaces rather than individual investigator control. Clean-room spaces and usage were also discussed (including after the DSAC walk-through), and it was noted that there is a need for more shared usage space, perhaps overseen by the Analytical Facility. A petrology laboratory in the basement may appears to be under-supervised and/or underutilized. The space could be better managed or re-allocation considered in favor of new Analytical Facility instruments. The NSCORT area stood out as underutilized (at the time of the walk through). A laboratory electrical upgrade in the 1990s did not extend to the offices, some of which may be underserved. In general some spaces have been reconditioned and others have not. This appears to have little or nothing to do with favoritism, instead being a reflection of opportunity to remodel when each space becomes temporarily vacant. The DSAC hopes that the institution will continue to upgrade and recondition spaces in this building, and perhaps could approach long-term occupants to see if they could accommodate a temporary move while their space was renovated. The DSAC noted that an assessment of needs and reassignment of some spaces was recently carried out internally within MRD, with apparent success. This is an example of space management following the model favored by the DSAC. 4. Nierenberg Hall, NTV, and the Keck Center (OAR) Buildings The SIO Director's Space Advisory Committee carried out walk-throughs of Nierenberg Hall on May 16, 2001, and of the NTV and Keck Center buildings on May 18, 2001 (including in the latter examination of some business office spaces in Deep-Sea Drilling West). All in all this is an impressive group of buildings, with some first-rate facilities, numerous conference rooms of various sizes, gathering places, etc., nearly all in excellent condition. There is good room for expansion for most groups in these buildings, though not evenly split between the groups. There are generous reserves in most of these buildings, and there is room for substantial growth, including groups which require workrooms. In many cases investigators who formerly shared laboratory space or had little or none now have full-sized laboratories, which is very pleasant for them, but in the future some of these spaces could again be shared. Sometimes the large space reserves lead to small problems. For example one of the large laboratories on the first floor of Nierenberg Hall is not currently assigned, and is being used as a furniture storeroom by the Director's Office. This is not a problem in itself, but the reduced number of people working daily on the first floor has significantly reduced the interactions that make it more enjoyable to work from a group of laboratories off a common outdoor staging area. This and other similar problems will solve themselves as the buildings come to full occupancy. Some groups have the appearance of being more shoehorned in than others. For example, the PORD and CRD researchers in Nierenberg Hall appear to be somewhat more tightly packed than some other groups in these three buildings, and appear to have less common-use space close by and less space for new hires close by. On the other end of the scale sits CAS, with three small conference rooms they call their own and a number of vacant (at the time of walk-through) offices close by, making them stand out as a "space wealthy" group. The DSAC does not outright call into question the CAS assignments, but does note that many other active groups at SIO plainly do not yet have such facilities or room for substantial growth. The partitions in NH417 appear to be ill-considered and probably should be removed. This is an example of an SIO-wide, albeit occasional, tendency for researchers to physically subdivide larger spaces in order to provide individual offices. This trend should probably be resisted as much as feasible by the Director's Office. While there is a certain cachet to the private office as a perk for a valued staff member, the tiny offices that have sometimes been made (in NH417 with a large amount of wasted space) are clearly unsatisfactory from an institutional standpoint, plus they act to reduce the workplace interactions that shared laboratories and other such spaces were originally designed to facilitate. The DSAC notes to the Director the present oddity of splitting the PORD/CRD/CalSpace regional business office into two buildings at significantly different elevations (most of the business office is in upper NTV and some of it is in Deep Sea Drilling West). This creates functional problems for both the business office and for those SIO investigators served by that business office. There appear to be several possibilities for bringing the office back together, and the DSAC hopes that this is made so, and soon. There are other split groups, for example the multimedia group. Part of the rationale for the present assignments and splits has to do with the fact the NTV was built partly to house specific groups displaced from unsafe (in terms of earthquake) buildings. But surely the Director can persuade whatever powers are currently forcing the odd layouts that so long as ample and high quality spaces are provided to the various affected groups (e.g. multimedia) in the greater Nierenberg/NTV/Keck area, a more sensible space allocation will achieve an even better result than blindly following a rule that Building A was built partly for Group X. There may be some mis-matches of space to activity in this regard, for example comparing the more heavily used business office space to what seems to be generous assignments, relative to daily workload, provided to multimedia. The walk-throughs and subsequent discussions also uncovered the issue of a seeming lack of communications between the MSO of the PORD/CRD/CalSpace business office and the divisional directors, for example concerning space-related matters. This may be a simple oversight, but it has potentially severe ramifications. In nearly all other divisions examined by the DSAC in recent years, the business offices have been informed and involved in their divisions space and other resource issues and discussions. This not only helps the business officers plan, but they in turn have always offered valuable advice to their divisions. In the most successful cases, such as in IGPP and Marine Biology, there is a tight functional relationship that works to help balance and plan for the evolution of space needs. Nierenberg Hall is not an especially friendly building. There are no windows from the halls into the offices, and with lights low for energy savings, the halls are long and dark. The contrast to the Keck/OAR buildings is dramatic. There the offices have interior and exterior windows, the halls are open, with small common use areas near by, and there is abundant natural light in the interior. Nierenberg Hall formerly had more common/shared use areas, but many of these were made into offices. It may be worthwhile to seek the advice of a building consultant regarding opening one or two of the offices to the halls, perhaps with a half-wall divider. For example this could be done with administrative support offices or coffee/refrigerator/copier rooms; perhaps some form of night/weekend shutters could be provided. A similar approach might be used to help open up the interiors of other SIO buildings. Numbering on doors in the NTV and Keck/OAR buildings is provided at present only by taped-on numbers. There are many known problems or deficiencies in the Keck/OAR (and NTV?) buildings left over from design and construction. The SIO Director's Office appears to be aware of these matters. 5. Small Conference Rooms at SIO The matter of conference/meeting rooms bears further discussion. Small conference rooms (the size of 1-3 offices) are not even remotely equally distributed throughout the SIO campus. The need for such spaces is, however, approximately distributed the same as the faculty and researcher population. For this reason a large, busy research building such as Sverdrup Hall stands out as grossly undersupplied with conference room space. Many of the small conference rooms are "owned" (meaning scheduled and with use controlled) by research groups, and there is a clear reluctance, if not outright refusal, to schedule conference room use for outsiders (meaning SIO users other than the "owners"). There are good reasons that research and curricular groups should have conference rooms close by and that they should have a major say in the scheduling of these rooms, but there would be benefits to availability for use by a wider SIO population. The DSAC suggests that conference room scheduling be opened up. One suggestion is that all conference rooms, perhaps excepting those provided to the graduate department, be assigned to the Directors Office and hence made available for shared, open use. Usage could remain scheduled by the local business office. This way, even though local users would have a reliable pipeline for scheduling their use of the conference rooms, others at SIO would be more aware of the various conference rooms and may feel more at ease using those important shared-use spaces. If necessary, guidelines could be established to permit appropriate scheduling and last-minute use by other qualified SIO groups. A special note might be made about wider scheduling of the CAS video conference room, which may be a unique facility at SIO. As far as the DSAC can determine, others at SIO are unaware of the existence of this potentially valuable facility, and are at present directed to upper campus when there is a need to arrange a video conference. 6. Seaweed Canyon Space Allocations The DSAC strongly supports the view that all Seaweed Canyon spaces which are not part of institution-wide facilities, such as institutional archives, be assigned to the SIO divisions (and other equivalent SIO organizational units) only, with no Seaweed Canyon space being assigned directly by the institution to specific SIO investigators. The research units would thus each be responsible for organizing and internally allocating their own spaces. They must meanwhile remain in accord with SIO's Seaweed Canyon space use policies and procedures, and use of Seaweed Canyon space would be reviewed periodically by the DSAC as it is now. This plan would put management of the individual Seaweed Canyon spaces into the hands of those close to the needs of the research programs and would also help to provide greater awareness by the group directors and MSOs of the possibilities and benefits of storage in Seaweed Canyon. The DSAC notes that major improvements are ahead for this area and that it would be best to have policies and practices updated and ready. A comment passed to the DSAC was that it would be beneficial if Seaweed Canyon were assigned a truck so that groups without a university vehicle could be spared the cost of rental. 7. Student Offices The present policy of distributing offices designated for graduate students throughout the SIO campus, and providing authority over assignment of these offices to the SIO Graduate Department, appears to work very well. While this leads to some empty or single-occupant student offices, it also means that student office spaces close by the student's research group are available more often than not. 8. SIO Space Policies The DSAC has been working since fall 1999 to clarify its role, both in its responsibilities to the SIO Director and to the SIO community. The most often voiced comments received by the DSAC have to do with issues regarding fairness (specifically unfairness) of space allocations. The DSAC finds it extremely difficult to make meaningful evaluations of this issue. The DSAC is unable to verify if allegations of unfairness are true, nor can the DSAC do much about perceived unfairness. This has prompted calls from DSAC members and others from the SIO community for additional information regarding space allocation policies and procedures. The DSAC has begun examination of official policies in place, discussion of de facto policies as best as can be ascertained from incomplete information, and extended discussion of suggestions for revisions to space policies. The moves brought about by the opening of new buildings and renovations (or demolition) of others has provided many on the SIO campus with fresh information and misinformation regarding space allocations. The most common complaints voiced to DSAC members have to do with perceptions of favoritism in assignments provided to those who appear to appeal directly to the Director, seemingly bypassing group- and institution-wide planning. The DSAC, while recognizing that the Director should be able to support new or special initiatives with institutional resources, believes the record should be clear how space is assigned for all groups, individuals and programs. The DSAC believes that ordinarily the divisions should have the primary role in oversight and assignment of their spaces, with unused or under-used space at least temporarily reverting to the Director's Office as at present, and that instances of special consideration, such as Investigator A bypassing the divisional director and MSO and appealing (and receiving) extra space from the Director, be clearly and publicly identified as such. The DSAC has prepared a draft advisory to the SIO Director regarding SIO space allocation policy. The reference point is the present (January 1988) Marine Science Space Policy: (draft from Director's Space Advisory Committee, June 2001) Space allocation within each SIO organizational unit is assigned to be a responsibility of that unit. It is important that uniform guidelines are applied across the institution, meanwhile taking into account the differences in needs among units. Specifically it is proposed that the MARINE SCIENCE SPACE POLICY be redrafted emphasizing the following guiding principles: 1) Space is assigned to the SIO Department, research divisions, laboratories, centers and individuals only on a TEMPORARY basis. 2) Space is a scarce resource which is assigned on an UTILITARIAN basis: the Director's Office will reappropriate space that is not or little used. 3) Each unit (e.g., SIO Department, divisions, laboratories, and centers) assigned space must report annually to the Director its use of each assigned space, including, for example, the person responsible for the space, primary person(s) using the space, and primary use(s) of the space. 4) As a guideline to the Director, the SIO Department, research divisions, laboratories, centers, and investigators, an institution-wide formula for office space should be created and made available. 5) Allocation of laboratory space should adhere to SIO community norms. Variance from the norms can and must be allowed, but can be based only on strong and current justification. Specifically, in the case of inadequate laboratory space relative to both the SIO norm and current research needs, the Director's Office is to provide a justification and a plan, including a time frame, to remedy the situation. In the case of excess relative to the SIO norm, regardless of current research needs, the investigator, with endorsement from the research unit director, must provide an annual justification for continuance of such variance. Active use of laboratory space should take priority over past or set-aside/future use, and use of laboratory spaces in the intended fashion should take priority over other uses, for example for offices or storage. The Director's Space Advisory Committee will review no less than every three years the space allocated to each division and compare it with the actual space in use, and recommend corrections to the Director if significant deviations or inequities among divisions are apparent.
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