The use of modular office furniture in the new faculty office building is wrong because:
1. It will make private conversations with students difficult, if not impossible. In particular, phone conversations with students will not be private. Students who go to a professor will be discouraged from speaking freely to their professors. Even if "conference space" is made available, it will be awkward for students to request the use of this space if during the course of a conversation, they suddenly feel the need for privacy. In addition, it can not be assured that this space will always be available when students need to speak privately with their instructors.
2. Students will find it hard to focus on their conversations with instructors, or to focus on the supplimental instruction they may be getting from an instructor, with all the noise and disruption of a communal office space. Instructors and other students coming and going, having their own conversations, the use of printers and other electronic devices, the ringing of phones-- these are just some of the distractions that will make conversations with students difficult.
3. Professors trying to grade, read, prepare lectures and do research (all normal activities expected of instructors during their office hours) will find the communal setting disruptive. Other instructors' conversations, printers, electronic devices, the ringing of phones and the general coming and going of other people will make it difficult for instructors to engage in academic pursuits. In addition, professors in their offices will not have option of working there without student interruptions. Professors will not be able to "close their office door" and grade without having students (or other individuals) dropping by and intruding on their work.
4. It is disrespectful to the faculty. We have spent years earning our degrees, and are by anybody's standards, working in a field where the monetary compensation is not tied to the effort we put into our work. Giving us "cubicals" rather than offices is just one more way of saying "We don't really value what you do here. You are the academic equivelant of a telemarketing call center."
5. It sends the wrong message to students. It says "Education here is a mass production process. Your instructors are faceless cogs in a corporate machine, and you are just 'products' moving through the system." It tells students that they are getting a college education on the cheap, so they don't merit the "niceties" of a real college-- offices staffed by highly educated professionals who are respected and valued for the knowledge and skills they have.
6. Professors will have nowhere to securely store exams, exam materials, course materials and student work. Professors will no longer be able to leave graded and ungraded student work "at the office", because in an open-office environment, as long as the area is open to the public anyone will be able to access these materials. Professors will have new concerns about the security of their answer keys, exams, and their research. Without a lockable office, professors will no longer be able to keep large amounts of course materials, such as videos and books, in their office space.