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Dear colleagues,
I'm writing to make you aware of several planned space reconfigurations and to request your input to ensure we have a configuration that's effective and accessible to our community. If you'd prefer a visual aid, Rose did a great job of annotating our floor plans with the proposed changes, which are attached and below for ease of reference.
Faculty/staff lounge and postdoc seating changes: October - November completion timeline
- 219 Upson as future Faculty/staff lounge: Based on feedback and suggestions I've received on the need/desire for a faculty/staff lounge, 219 Upson (KK Wang Conference) is being converted for this use, and I expect the transition to be complete in November. The space will be open to all faculty and staff, and will house our local coffee/tea supplies, and will hopefully foster informal connections.
- 223 Upson future postdoc/visitor office space: As many of you are aware, we are at capacity to provide office space for our growing postdoc and visitor population. Earlier this year, I was able to secure this additional room from the College and it's being converted to house up to four additional postdocs/visitors. This conversion will be complete by October 19th at the latest, and we anticipate move-ins to begin by October 30th.
Copy room & grad student seating changes: November - January completion timeline
- 340 Upson future department copy and supply center: This change is precipitated by our growing PhD seating needs (see 423 Upson changes below), and the need for better coordinated printing/copying access in the building. The copy center will house two copiers and a color printer, all accessible over wifi. The copy center will also house some of our office supplies and will be accessible to our faculty/staff/Phd student community. The copy center will also become our legally mandated place to post the many dept of labor notices we are required to hang conspicuously where staff are likely to see them. As part of this conversion, the large staff desk in 340 will move to our reception area in the main office suite in 130 Upson. We anticipate this conversion being completed by end of November.
- 423 Upson future grad student office: The copier in 423 Upson will move to 340 Upson to form the copy center. The plotter in 423 Upson was reported to me to be broken. Many students and research groups use the large format printing services in Mann Library. I would like to gauge interest in our having a functional plotter on site. Please email me if you or your group had used the plotter in the past and are now sending your print jobs to Mann Library or an external print shop like Gnomon Copy. Once the copy center conversion is complete, 423 Upson will be converted to grad student desk space. Desk space is at a premium in Upson due to both our growing PhD population both in terms of students in MAE and students outside MAE supervised by our faculty. We anticipate students will be able to move in by end of January 2024.
Package receiving and staff seating changes:
141 Upson package receiving moving to main office suite: Our storage room in suite 130 Upson is being cleaned out to facilitate conversion to our primary package receiving and handling space. And the mail room student workers will facilitate package retrieval. This change to our package receiving operations will facilitate better integrated staff oversight and management of our packages, especially our temperature sensitive deliveries, which have tended to sit outside 141 during gaps in student staffing. This transition has multiple complex pieces to coordinate, including updating our main delivery address, notifying our local shipping agencies, and coordinating the change with all our constituents including our research groups and the student project teams, in addition to managing the logistical challenges.
Given that we're moving our receiving operations to an even smaller storage space, we will need to implement a more proactive package handling process than we have before, including requiring our student workers to deliver packages that sit for more than 24-48 hours, and implementing a robust internal package tracking process to avoid deliveries being lost or misplaced.
As part of these configuration changes, I'm currently working on hiring someone to replace Ashton Danko, and that individual will sit at the main office reception desk in suite 130 Upson and be part of the staff oversight and management for our packages in addition to their other administrative duties.
Once this transition is complete, 141 Upson will be converted to staff office space. The tentative timeline for completion is by the start of spring 2024 semester. Please let me know any downsides to the plans above, or any concerns you have that I may not be seeing. Thank you.
Best,
Trisica
Trisica Munroe
Director of Administration
Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering