A need for care
Because of one underfunded, long pushed-aside campus issue, experts and surveys say faculty advancement at Utah State University has been limited, many students are paying the equivalent of double tuition to go to classes and some are even forced to drop out for a year or more.
All of this because child care is not accessible for student and faculty mothers on campus.
“This is an area and a university that hails itself as such a family-friendly place. I heard that all the time while I was interviewing here,” sociology Assistant Professor Susan Mannon said. “But they don’t even provide child care to faculty. I don’t know much about the policies in place other than that they are inadequate.”
Someone who is familiar with the university’s policies is Women’s Center Director Janet Osborne, who said committees since 1986 have all agreed on the need for better access to on-site child care. Numerous studies conducted in the past 20 years confirm this need, one reporting 47 percent of surveyed women faculty in the sciences and engineering cite problems with “family/work issues such as child care, maternity leave and tenure clock” in 2002, according to the ADVANCE proposal.
The 2001 university-assessed “Child Care Needs Survey” found that 70.1 percent of 410 randomly sampled respondents would prefer an on-campus location for a child care facility. Osborne said lack of funding is to blame for the slow progress on implementing a new center, but finished plans and a location are ready for work as soon as a primary donor comes through. She noted that though this is a long-researched issue, it is timely to talk about now because of a presentation that will be made to ASUSU April 4 as an appeal for funding.
Graduate student, single mother of two and USU public relations specialist Trina Paskett understood the need for a close, accessible facility.
“It is seriously hard to find anyone, especially good people at a reasonable cost,” she said of finding care for her two daughters, Jasmine, 4, and Isabelle, 2. “I work in North Logan and my girls are are in Nibley, so they are 20 minutes away. It is very frustrating. I’ve been on the list for the early childhood lab on campus for a couple of years, but I’ve never heard from them.”
In fact, Carrie Stott, co-director of Child Care Resource and Referral, said kids are often put on the list for the Child Development Lab, located in the Family Life Building, before they are born. Though getting a spot is competitive, Stott said the lab is more of a preschool and not a viable childcare source, noting the only current on-campus site is Children’s House at 862 E. 900 North, which provides full-day care for kids ages 3 and up.
With a price range of about $350-$400 per month that varies based on the parent’s relationship to USU, student parents pay as much for child care as they do for tuition, which is simply not an option for many families. Paskett’s experiences have proven this to be the case with almost any available child care.
“I can see how some people just stop working, but it’s so expensive that I have to work full time, which makes child care a huge part of my paycheck,” she said.
But even if the cost isn’t an issue, the availability is.
Children’s House Director Linda Gilgen said current enrollment is now at capacity, noting long waiting lists for infants and toddlers. “There are more families in college and younger people become parents. There is an overabundance of children. The number of slots doesn’t coincide with the need – especially for children under 3.”
Stott, who works to provide referrals and match up parents with providers in Box Elder, Cache and Rich counties, said the shortage is a real problem.
“We don’t have any centers for children under 12 months. Until they turn 2, there is a real need, especially for part-time care since parents going back to work often want to spend time with the baby during the day.”
Though there are no on-campus or local centers for babies, the Referral Center does provide a list of licensed families that parents can work with. Stott said the average cost for family care is $2-$3 per hour and there are some on-campus locations in the townhouses and Aggie Village.
Jacoba Mendelkow, a single mom and senior in English, said she used the Referral Center and has been very lucky so far.
“This year’s easy since my daughter is kindergarten-age, so she has school from 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m., then Boys and Girls Club – which I love – until 5:30 p.m. Then daycare will pick her up,” she said.
For her first two years of child care, Mendelkow said her daughter, Dallas, was able to go to USU Children’s House, but after accidentally delaying paperwork too long, she was forced to look for a private provider because of waiting lists.
Paskett said she has faced similar struggles in trying to find accessible, quality care for her daughters.
“I’ve had a neighbor lady doing it for a good cost, but now I don’t know what I’m going to do because she’s pregnant and can’t do it anymore,” she said. “I’m trying to work it out with other neighbors. I think sometimes with structured daycare centers, the kids don’t always get the attention they need and I don’t have any family close enough.”
Taking into consideration experiences like these, Gilgen said the status of childcare on campus has been thoroughly investigated as far as need, but lack of funding has stopped any action to improve the situation.
“We are so far behind any other campus – whether it is a university or junior college – in the state of Utah,” she said, noting there are several sites on the University of Utah campus alone. “At lots of universities, there is a fee allocation, just like parking or things like that. We don’t have a campus grant like we used to have to help student parents with tuition.”
She also included the fact that USU receives no money from the Legislature for recruitment of faculty, and available child care is a recruitment and retention perk.
“Even if USU can’t offer as much money, having a good place for faculty to bring their kids can help,” Gilgen said. “As a Carnegie-I institution, a research institution and with the research park, there is a real need for high-quality care.”
There was no disagreement that accessible on-campus child care is greatly needed at USU for a variety of reasons.
“I’d give anything for more time with my girls,” Paskett said of her 8 a.m.-sometimes 7.p.m. days without seeing them. “It would mean the world to me if I could just run and be with them, even eat lunch with them, for an hour or so or a few minutes every day.”
When asked if on-campus child care would help her be more successful at USU or only impact her family life, Paskett said, “Children have a way of changing your attitude. Just to be with them and hear them say ‘I love you’ – it’s kind of therapy if I could see them for a few precious moments during the day. It would definitely improve my work.”
Mendelkow said she’s surprised at the lack of available child care on campus, considering its presence in high schools and other campuses.
“In some universities, child care is free to students and faculty, but we could also just use a drop-off daycare so I could go to the library sometimes,” she said. “Even gyms have drop-off centers. They could provide internships and credit to students in FCHD and make it free to single moms or students.”
Mannon echoed the importance of improving the situation for parents on campus.
“Child care is so crucial. Without it, women’s advancement in acadmemia is limited,” she said.
Thankfully, the future of childcare at USU may be a little brighter, since a new facility is in the works, Stott said.
“As far as I know, they’ve received quite a few donations and had a meeting with the architect,” she said of efforts by Gilgen, Vice President for Student Services Juan Franco, Education Dean Carol Strong and others to build an on-campus center that could be completed by a year from this summer.
“We don’t have the funding. It is all planned, blueprints drawn, money set aside and environmental studies finished,” Gilgen said, though she and Osborne declined to comment on the site’s location on campus.
When asked whether the university has allocated enough funds to make a new facility possible, she said, “Let’s put it this way: it’s on the table, but we’re waiting to hear from a primary donor. The facility program with the architect is signed off, but the funding is not all there.”
As for the details of the potential center, Gilgen said most aspects, including costs and employees, will be similar to what they are now at Children’s House.
“We are a practicum site with interns from early childhood education, expanded as far as on-site training and opportunities for research,” she said, noting there will be some other modifications as well. “The new facility will care for children as young as six weeks old and have probably twice as many employees – around 40.”
Gilgen said the majority of the staff are student employees and she’ll be making a presentation at the April 4 ASUSU Executive Council meeting to justify fee allocation for the new center, though they currently have all of the information in writing.
For Paskett, Mendelkow and many other parents on USU’s campus, this could be a long-awaited solution to an unnecessary problem, especially when considering the resources available right on campus.
“Anytime you can bring students in with the kids, it is a great opportunity for both of them,” Paskett said. “Education students can bring a lot of energy and then the kids can get the attention they need.”
For more information on available child care, contact the Child Care Research and Referral Center at 797-1552 or visit their Web site at www.usuchild.usu.edu.
-lindsaykite@cc.usu.edu