taken from the October 2003 AAUP AZ Advocate

Wildcat Kids: Perspectives on Childcare

Resources from the University of Arizona

By Michelle Bolduc, Assistant Professor, Humanities Program

The struggle to manage childcare with very little university support can be a tremendous source of stress and job dissatisfaction for faculty, staff, and students with small children. A recent White Paper on Childcare, written by the Commission on the Status of Women’s work group on childcare, explored the issue of childcare at the University of Arizona. As the current Chair of this work group, I would like to summarize here our findings and our recommendations. My remarks are specific to the University of Arizona; however, childcare resources are a universal need from institution to institution. It is my hope that this article will inspire a dialogue among faculty, staff, and students of Arizona institutions of higher learning, about the importance of affordable, high-quality childcare for all members of the university community.

Parents employed by or studying at the University of Arizona generally believe that the University discourages children on campus and offers limited support and resources for childcare. Faculty, especially women and other underrepresented groups who participated in the University of Arizona Millennium I project, identified childcare as a recruitment and retention issue in qualitative interview sessions. The Millennium II survey of staff and appointed personnel also indicates a significant level of dissatisfaction with current policies and resources. According to one respondent, "The fact that UA does not offer child care reflects on how poorly it views its employees" (M2:28). Further, the recently published Graduate Student Dependent and Childcare Survey also suggests that a significant number of graduate students are dissatisfied with current support for childcare. Overall, we believe that this situation contributes to the attrition of quality teaching, research, and support staff and a loss of top students to competing institutions.

A lack of commitment to childcare and family-friendly policies on the part of the University also adversely affects the diversity of the University community. Women suffer disproportionately when childcare is unavailable, prohibitively expensive, or insufficient. There have been numerous studies by such authors as Ann Crittenden and Joan Williams, which have explored the discriminatory effect of inadequate childcare resources on female faculty, especially in terms of tenure and promotion. Female students also suffer from insufficient childcare resources: a study published in late 2002 by the Department of Education suggests that female students who have dependents while pursuing post-secondary degrees are quite likely to leave school.

While we know that resources currently devoted to childcare at the University of Arizona are inadequate, it has been nonetheless difficult to recommend concrete strategies for addressing the issue. General ignorance is one factor in this difficulty: those who have young children are too often unaware of the resources available, and frequently those who are not directly affected are indifferent. In addition, it is difficult to find out how many people have need of childcare resources, since there are often glaring discrepancies in the little data we do have. While we lack the information to understand the full magnitude of the need, we do know, however, that only 214 faculty/ staff and students currently enjoy subsidized childcare at the University of Arizona. A further problem is the lack of a centralized authority: although the University of Arizona’s Life/Work Connections has responsibility for faculty/staff concerns about childcare, there is really no comparable authority for undergraduates, and the situation of graduate students (some of whom are employed by the university but are neither faculty nor staff) is complex and confusing.

Despite these formidable obstacles, there is hope. Our recommendations reflect our belief that childcare resources can indeed be improved at the University of Arizona, even in this climate of budgetary constraint. A Childcare Resources Coordinator could be responsible for ascertaining the dimensions of the need, developing such family-oriented personnel policies as job-sharing and tele-commuting, building constituencies between existing programs and interest groups, conduction programs of education about childcare, and seeking various outside sources of support for developing childcare resources. A federal grant from the Department of Education, the "Child Care Means Parents in School Program," which currently subsidizes the childcare fees of some students at Pima Community College and Arizona State University, could be extended to students at the University of Arizona. The new Student Union holds the most immediate promise for improving childcare on campus: a private vendor could lease space in order to provide childcare on the main campus; a child-safe playroom could be dedicated for the use of parents and their children while on campus. Additionally, inexpensive diaper changing stations could be installed in restrooms across campus. Ultimately, improving childcare resources at the University of Arizona does mean greater funding: increased childcare subsidies, enhanced voucher plans, and ideally, the eventual creation of a childcare facility.

We believe that childcare is a university-wide issue. A family-friendly environment affects all members of the university community: students, staff, and faculty, not just women, and not just those who happen to have small children. On the deepest and most comprehensive level, a commitment to childcare is thus both an expression of our common humanity and a promise for the future.