The Computing Research Association

Computing Research News

August 2013 Vol.25 / No.7

Taulbee in Depth: Department Space per Faculty Member

By Betsy Bizot, CRA Director of Statistics

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 90^th 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
Percentiles	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