Tour of Offices

From the artistic to the zany, these are some of the coolest offices on campus.

Words by Lydia Hansen | Photos by Sophie Warrick

Allison Baker

Step inside her office in the Studio C building, behind the Drew Fine Arts Center, and notice the generous splotches of hot pink and green paint on the floor and the litter of bright blue and pink swatches of fabric. A half-finished, handmade vest is draped over a chair, there’s a giant inflatable cactus on top of a shelf in one corner, and her sagging green and red plaid couch is overstuffed with art magazines and lost pens. Although it’s technically a large office, between the paint cans and the six-foot steel and paper putty structure dominating the middle of the room, the space feels exceptionally cluttered.

But that mess is the natural product of Allison Baker’s creative process. As an assisstant professor of studio arts and sculpture, Baker’s office doubles as her studio, and when she’s not teaching, she’s there creating new work.

The studio is “weirdly clean” at the moment because Baker recently installed a large volume of work at a show in Mankato, but she said there’s usually “10,000 SuperAmerica coffee cups and just trash and garbage everywhere. My students tell me it’s a disgusting cesspit.”

Mostly, though, her office is a space for collecting the weird, which abounds on the shelves lining one wall where Baker stores materials she may some day use in sculptures. Sometimes organized in boxes and sometimes scattered higgledy-piggledy, these materials run the gambit from molds of ears and noses to fish tank gravel to an entire box of plastic snakes.

“I keep promising myself I’m going to do something with them,” Baker said. “If things sit around long enough they tend to get used up.”

There’s no telling how long it will take for Baker’s studio to cycle through a new batch of oddities, but Baker says having the space is vital to her artistic output.

I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without this space. It really makes my work and my life here possible.

***

Kate Meyer

Something about Kate Meyer’s office screams “globetrotter!”

Maybe it’s the red, blue, and gold bangles she brought back from India or the collection of little animal figurines she’s picked up while traveling in Asia. Maybe it’s the suncatcher made of glass cranes hanging from the wall or the unique painted planter for her thriving office plants. Or maybe it’s all the postcards and photos Meyer has collected from, well, everywhere.

Almost everything in Meyer’s office is a souvenir from her extensive travels. That’s only fitting since she’s the Gobal Engagment Specialist.

I like color and things that make me smile. So for the most part, everything in here has a purpose to be bright and cheery.

Meyer has traveled to so many countries she can’t quite remember the number, but she said it’s definitely over 20. She rattled off a list that included Japan, China, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, France, Iceland, India, Mexico, Guatemala, Canada, and New Zealand before she lost track.

“That’s kinda where my money goes: to pay off my student debt, to travel, or my fur children, Robin the Kitten Wonder and Eleanor Meow-sevelt,” Meyer said.

Most of Meyer’s souvenirs are from East Asia, where she traveled extensively while spending four years teaching at a Japanese high school. A screen with the name and motto of the school still hangs on her wall. She also has a wicked Godzilla display made of blocks and Beanie Babies and inspired by a childhood of watching old Godzilla movies.

It’s hard to pick the coolest thing out of her office, but one eyecatcher was the pop-up Japanese Christmas card she received from a previous student. The card unfolds to reveal iconic sights from Japan, from the Tokyo Tower and Asakusa shrine to the Kyoto and Osaka castles.

“You’ve basically got a whole mini-Japan,” Meyer said. “Whenever I get tired of one side of it, I just turn it to something new.”

Although her office is tucked away in the Global Engagement Center in the basement of Old Main, it’s one that definitely ranks among the most memorable places on campus.

***

David Schultz

David Schultz has unusual bragging rights: he’s on the Pez advance distribution notice list.

It’s an honor Pez reserves for a select, dedicated few, but Schultz has earned the privilege by being the proud owner of the entire presidential Pez collection.

All 43 Pez dispensers, displaying plastic busts of every president from George Washington to Barack Obama, are on display in his office in the Giddens Alumni Learning Center. Schultz, a professor of political science, started collecting them in 2014 when a former student bought him his first set of five.

I thought, ‘oh heck, if I’ve got five, I might as well buy the whole set.'

But Schultz’s Pez collection is just one of the many offbeat collectibles he’s accumulated over 20 years of teaching at Hamline. In addition to a truly staggering number of books, Schultz’s office decor displays a quality of randomness that connects his hobby (astronomy) with his passion (political science) and his odd sense of humor.

“There’s a lot of what I call interesting kitsch,” Schultz said. “It’s junk that I think is just fun to look at and things I like to show students or that reflect my odd sense of humor."

There’s a rubber chicken. A glass eyeball. A wienermobile whistle. A lava lamp. A gargoyle (Schultz said every office should have one). A secret decoder ring. Trump and Obama chia pets. A box of Barf (it’s actually a kind of Iranian laundry detergent, but Schultz said the name was too funny to pass up).

Schultz also has pictures hanging on almost every available stretch of wall that document his travels (he’s taught in 17 different countries) and his interest in astronomy.

“I started off college wanting to be a particle physicist,” Schultz said. “To do that you have to be a genius in math. I’m good but not a genius.”

So instead he’s a hobby astronomer (albeit one with a master’s degree), and his collage of eclipse prints provide a backdrop to his 43 Pez dispensers and other collected oddities.

***

Lisa Nordeen

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Lisa Nordeen fell in love with Star Wars.

A slightly shorter time ago in the basement of Bush Library, she let that passion explode all over her office.

I always wanted all of the toys, and my mom always said no. I blame her because I didn’t have them as a kid, so whenever I see one now I think ‘I can buy that for myself.’

And she does. From her Mr. Potato Head stormtrooper and miniature BB-8 to the stormtrooper stickers on her desk and Rebel Alliance sneakers she wears on Fridays, Nordeen has more than made up for any childhood deprivation. But when she first got to Hamline nine years ago, Nordeen said her office was pretty minimalist.

“All four walls were painted white,” Nordeen said. “I happened upon some of the painters on campus who were doing some work in one of the classrooms, and I walked up to them and said, ‘I need you to come down to my office and look at this one wall. I don’t care what you do, [but] can you paint it a different color so I don’t feel like I’m in a concrete cell?”

The resulting blue-green wall is now mostly hidden under gigantic sticky notes Nordeen has collected from the students in her FYSEM class, “Jedi Mind Tricks: Using the Power of the Force to Succeed in College.”

It’s not all Star Wars in her office, though. As Assistant Dean for Academic Success and Retention, Nordeen also stockpiles anything she finds useful in supporting students, particularly during tough conversations. She hoards folders, notebooks, and flash cards and keeps colored markers, dice, and fidget toys on hand.

“I want there to be things to look at,” Nordeen said. “I want there to be things to play with and occupy their hands. That’s intentional.”

But the accumulated Star Wars paraphernalia? Nordeen just likes to have it around. And she says what she has in her office is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg she keeps at home.