The Red and Black

Issue date: 9/27/07 Section: News

Media Credit: JOSH D. WEISS Sean Fife falls to the ground during a game of duck, duck, goose gone awry Wednesday at the McPhaul Center on campus. Child care on campus is limited to 115 children and is the subject of a rally going on today at Tate Plaza. [Click to enlarge]

Early on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, Lauren Hackney wakes up and drives 12 miles from her home in Flowery Branch, Ga., to take her 6-month-old daughter, Ella, to her friend Lindsey Migliori's house by 7:45.

Once Hackney drops Ella off, she drives another 38 miles to Athens for class. Her classes end around 2 p.m., but she often stays on campus to get work done, and her mother go to Migliori's house to pick up Ella and take her home.

After finishing her homework, Hackney gets in her car and drives the 50 miles back home, where her mother and daughter are waiting for her.

"I like it here (in Athens) and I'd love to be able to move here, but there's little child care here," the 22-year-old political science major said.

"It cuts into how many classes I can take and how I can contribute to the University community."

Hackney said she tried to enroll Ella in the McPhaul Child and Family Development Center at the University, but she was put on the waiting list and had to find an alternative.

Hackney pays Migliori $100 per week to watch Ella, but this will have to change soon, she said.

"Right now, (Migliori) watches Ella for me, but she's having a kid in November, and she won't be able to once she has her baby," Hackney said.

Now she's in the process of sifting through child care information she received from Gainesville State College, the school she attended before transferring to the University this fall. She said she was surprised that the McPhaul Center didn't have as much information to give her.

"Gainesville (State College) gave me a lot of information on nannies and daycares. This is information I would expect UGA to have," Hackney said.

Today's Child Care Rally at the Tate Center Plaza at 2:30 p.m. will address child care on campus and how to improve it for faculty, staff and students like Hackney.

Sponsored by the Campus Coalition for Childcare at UGA and he Women's Studies Student Organization and hosted by Chris Cuomo, head of the Institute for Women's Studies at the University, the rally will feature several faculty and staff speakers.

The groups will end by presenting University President Michael Adams with a petition of more than 2,000 signatures asking him to "commit to providing on-campus child care facilities that meet the needs of UGA's faculty, staff and students," the petition says.

"I've been on this campus for 22 years now, and we really need this," said Kristen Smith, public relations coordinator for the School of Social Work at the University and one of the speakers at today's rally. "It increases our diversity when we can accommodate staff members with families."

In response to this recent outcry, University Provost Arnett Mace wrote in an editorial in the Sept. 11 issue of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the University would address the issue by "(conducting) an independent feasibility study" to examine "the availability of quality child care in the area, the level of demand for child care, the related costs and the space requirements."

Efforts to reach Mace were unsuccessful Wednesday afternoon.

Peer universities offer child care opportunities

The University has one child care facility - the McPhaul Child and Family Development Center - that cares for 115 children at its capacity, according to the center's Web site.

Outside of state and federally funded programs, McPhaul serves 56 children with a waiting list of more than 250 children, said program coordinator Lori Maerz. Priority is given to children with siblings already enrolled and the children of University faculty and students. Tuition rates range from $180 per week for infants to $140 per week for 3-year-olds.

Some peer institutions have more options for child care than the University. The University of Washington has four child care centers and the University of Michigan has seven, two of which service its Flint and Dearborn campuses.

Sue Gall, center director of the University of Michigan Health System Child Care Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., said the five facilities servicing the main campus are working to become more interconnected.

"There's a child care initiative going on right now, and the directors of the different centers are meeting once a month," Gall said. "We're trying to do more to intertwine … and it's been nice collaborating with the directors."

Gall's center cares for 156 children on a given day, and parents can enroll their children for two, three or five-day periods, she said.

The Health System Child Care Center is the only nonprofit facility, and it serves health system employees first, followed by faculty, staff and students at the University of Michigan. The other facilities cater to different groups.

For example, the Northwood Community Child Development Center tends to serve more students than the others, Gall said.

Other universities, including Georgia Institute of Technology, rely on one child care center for their daycare needs.

The R. Kirk Landon Learning Center at Georgia Tech cares for 120 children and has a long waiting list, said Michele Cole-Jones, the center's director.

"Our waiting list is extensive - it's well over 200 families and the wait is at minimum a year," Cole-Jones said.

Georgia Tech owns the facility and provides maintenance and occupancy costs, but the center has its own budget, Cole-Jones said.

"We have a budget we go by each month, and if there's a shortage, then Georgia Tech picks up the cost," she said.

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