Longtime readers of this Substack might remember my office. Although I’m certainly grateful to have any office at all, it’s kind of cruddy. It has no window, the walls don’t go all the way to the ceiling, I’m not near any of my colleagues, there’s only one whiteboard, and glue where clearly a whiteboard was ripped off the wall. It doesn’t help that I almost broke my toe trying to assemble the new IKEA sofa together in there. I gave up putting it together, so I just have pieces of a couch in there, with some scavenged furniture. The only real personal touch I have in there is my CMU diploma. It’s a mess.
At our last faculty meeting, I learned there was an empty office in Newell-Simon Hall, which is both on campus proper (my current office is slightly away from the main campus, on Craig Street, which does have its advantages in that there are restaurants there, both my classrooms are there, as is my parking spot) and where the main HCII Office is. It also has real walls, whiteboards, and a window.
As soon as I learned about the open office, I tossed my hat in the ring. There was some talk of making it a PhD lounge but (and seriously not to be a dick about this) I am faculty so it feels like I should get first dibs on it, and give the PhDs my current office if they want a lounge.
A few days went by and I heard nothing. So I started a Hearts and Minds campaign. I scattered enigmatic strips of paper across all the different HCII spaces.
I snuck over to the office itself, thinking I could hang a sign on the door, but I couldn’t find any tape (???) and the door was unlocked, so I opened it and hung a sign in there.
Let’s see what happens!
This is the most CMU-core campaign ever. Good luck!