Never Too Close for Comfort?: The Difference Physical Proximity Makes for Supervision and Interprofessional Collaboration
By Virgil Wiebe
A recent article in the New Yorker magazine got me to thinking more about our upcoming move into new clinic space. At the Interprofessional Center for Counseling and Legal Services, three disciplines (social work, psychology, and law) work under the same roof. For the past nine years, we have been housed in a custom designed space. As we move into new space in the coming weeks, our spatial relationships will be reconfigured in fairly dramatic ways.
I can identify at least four issues worth examining:
• Student proximity to supervisors in their own profession
• Student proximity to students of other professions
• Student proximity to administrative support staff
• Supervisory and staff proximity to one another, both in one’s own profession and others
Before going into a brief description of our old and new space, an excerpt from the New Yorker article is worth considerating. I’m grateful to Kathy Mann Arnott, our office manager, for pointing out the piece to me:
“In the spring of 1942, it became clear that the Radiation Laboratory at M.I.T.—the main radar research institute for the Allied war effort—needed more space. . . . It was designed in an afternoon by a local architecture firm, and construction was quick and cheap. The design featured a wooden frame on top of a concrete-slab foundation, with an exterior covered in gray asbestos shingles. . . . The structure violated the Cambridge fire code, but it was granted an exemption because of its temporary status. M.I.T. promised to demolish Building 20 shortly after the war.
“Immediately after the surrender of Japan, M.I.T., as it had promised, began making plans for the demolition of Building 20. . . . . But the influx of students after the G.I. Bill suddenly left M.I.T. desperately short of space. Building 20 was turned into offices for scientists who had nowhere else to go. . . .
“The first division to move into Building 20 was the Research Laboratory of Electronics, which grew directly out of the Rad Lab. Because the electrical engineers needed only a fraction of the structure, M.I.T. began shifting a wide variety of academic departments and student clubs to the so-called ‘plywood palace.’
“Building 20 became a strange, chaotic domain, full of groups who had been thrown together by chance and who knew little about one another’s work. And yet, by the time it was finally demolished, in 1998, Building 20 had become a legend of innovation, widely regarded as one of the most creative spaces in the world.”
From: Jonah Lehrer, Groupthink: The Brainstorming Myth, NEW YORKER, Jan. 30, 2012, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer
Experiences like the one at MIT have caused architects to take a closer look at how to design for creativity. According to Lehrer, “[a] new generation of laboratory architecture has tried to make chance encounters more likely to take place, and the trend has spread in the business world.”
As our clinic is moving into new space, proximity issues will be tossed up in the air as we have reconfigured the physical proximity in all four of the categories mentioned above.
OUT WITH THE OLD . . . .
When we created our current space nearly a decade ago, space, we had competing goals: (1) maintaining professional independence between the professions, but also (2) fostering interdisciplinary collaboration amongst faculty and students. Related to the first goal, we were concerned about protecting client confidentiality, and conveying that to our students in the three professions. We also wanted, to some extent, to be close to our respective students.
When the architect designing the space came to us with a plan to have fish bowl style work room that would have law, social work, and psychology students all working in the same space, ethical alarm bells started ringing. Perhaps in overreaction, we created two distinct work areas for law students on the one hand, and counseling students (both social work and psychology) at far ends of our facility. We located supervisory offices (faculty and fellows) close to their respective student work rooms. See Floor Plan 1 below.
In addition, we have another suite of offices in the main law school building for our Elder Law Practice Group. There the legal supervisors’ offices are also in very close proximity to their students. While social work students have access to the space, they generally do not work there physically side by side with the law students – usually going there to review files and have time limited meetings.
This space configuration has made for easy access by students in their respective professions to their supervisors, and vice versa. And perhaps too much access – at times my students have a tendency to be at my door rather than trying to figure out an issue or problem on their own first.
[It must also be said that we do have counter examples working already – one of our tenured law faculty has her main office in the “Annex” (i.e. how I refer to the main law school building) and comes to the clinic for student meetings. She has found that to be a good model. Another clinical faculty colleague offices right next to the law student workroom. She also maintains an office in the main law school building for other responsibilities. Besides an office right next to the student workspace, I also maintain an office in the "Annex".]
In the old configuration, the physical distance between the student workspaces of the different professions has proven quite difficult to bridge. Getting students to get up and walk down the hall has been a challenge at times. The hope was that the “community room” (a multipurpose classroom, break room) would be the place for regular interprofessional encounter, those “chance encounters” mentioned by Lehrer. In actual practice, not so much.
Floor Plan 1: Old Interprofessional Center (closing May 2012)
Key:
Dark Blue – Law Student Workrooms
Baby Blue – Law Faculty and Staff Offices and Work Areas
Dark Red – Counseling Student Workrooms
Pink – Counseling Faculty and Staff Offices and Work Areas
Floor Plan 2:Interprofessional Center (opening June 2012)
Key:
Dark Blue – Law Student Workrooms
Baby Blue – Law Faculty and Staff Offices and Work Areas
Dark Red – Counseling Student Workrooms
Pink – Counseling Faculty and Staff Offices and Work Areas
IN WITH THE NEW . . . .
In our new space, I’m looking forward to seeing how the dynamics work out.
• Student proximity to supervisors in their own profession. Most of the student workspace (with a couple of exceptions) will be quite a bit further from supervision than it is now. Will this prompt more independence by students? Cause greater anxiety amongst supervisors?
• Student proximity to students of other professions. Social work, law, and psychology students will literally bump into each other as they enter their respective workspaces. Hopefully this will prompt greater familiarity and collaboration, whilst still preserving the client confidentiality needs.
• Student proximity to administrative support staff. Currently, the administrative support staff members are some distance from the student workspaces, although students must pass by support staff on their way to their offices. In the new space, support staff will be quite a bit closer to most of the student workspaces. Will this result in greater reliance on the support staff? Will some questions once put to faculty supervisors now be put to our highly skilled administrative support staff instead?
• Supervisory and staff proximity to one another, both in one’s own profession and others. I for one am looking forward to being closer to my colleagues in the other professions. Perhaps even more collaboration on supervision and scholarship will occur.
Check back in a year to see how the new space is working out for us . . .
