The Broadside

 Serving Central Oregon Community College and OSU Cascades

Childcare program

pursued by OSU-

Cascades students

By Michelle Gates

For some students at Oregon State University – Cascades, the issue of childcare is a hot topic.

 Over the past several months, the Associated Students of Cascades Campus began developing the “Childcare Initiative” for students at OSU-Cascades. Based on student input, ASCC President, Jennifer Johnson, has received a tentative $7,000 in student fee income for the project for the 2008-09 school year.

The program is designed to assist with student childcare issues. Details of the program are still in the works, and are mostly left open for next year’s ASCC members to decide on next fall. Administrators are skeptical about how successful it will be.

“My guess is that they started looking into it and realized just how complicated (campus childcare) is,” said Diana Sloane, CEO of OSU-Cascades.

Why us?

Talk of hardship from student parents is easy to find.

Last term, a group of communications students conducted a research project on the need for university subsidized childcare, with the intent to present their findings to OSU-Cascades administrators. According to their final report, the idea came from a recognizable ‘buzz’ around campus, and from the need of one of their members, Heidi Sausser, a liberal arts major and single mom.

It also included a real-life demonstration of why students need childcare—in the form of Sausser’s daughter, who was present on her mother’s hip at the time of the presentation—and was predictably causing a distraction.

“I really wanted to give them the first-hand experience what it’s like,” said Sausser.

While several administrators, including Diana Sloane, were invited to the presentation, only Jennifer Johnson, the ASCC president, was able to attend.

At the same time, Johnson had organized a student survey at OSU-Cascades to determine student childcare needs. The four question survey was passed out in several classes and placed in Cascades Hall. Of the 76 responses, 51 said that they or someone they knew would be interested in a childcare subsidy, 14 responded that they needed childcare for their children, and 62 said they did not.

We’re not the first

But this challenge is not new for parents who attend OSU-Cascades. In fact, over the last decade, several groups have recognized the need for childcare, and they need it for different reasons. Some need it to get a degree.

According to Dr. Deborah Coehlo, the assistant professor and program lead of OSU-Cascades’ Human Development and Family Sciences program, it’s getting harder to find places for certain students to get practical experience.

 “We’re one of the few institutions that have an Early Childhood Development program that doesn’t also have a child development center where students can practice their skills,” said Coehlo. “We need a model … center that we can send our students to—where they can learn evidence-based practices and then go out into the community.”

The problem, she said, is that students must be supervised by someone who has obtained at least a bachelor’s degree in that area—something that many local childcare providers do not have.

Coehlo has seen several attempts at initiating a center, which range from a community-wide partnership in 2002 to grant writing efforts by students over the past three years. Each time, their efforts have ended in administrative denial based on lack of funding.

We’re not ready

Some wonder why this service is so hard to get going, like Michelle Sweat, a mother of two who attends OSU-Cascades.

“I think it’s weird that the high schools have it, but the colleges don’t,” said Sweat.

According to Diana Sloane, whether or not this campus will develop a childcare program is largely based on its population. In addition to a small campus community, the average age of enrolled students is dropping, said Sloane, an indication that she believes means less need for childcare.

“If there was an enormous need for it, then we would start to look at what should happen,” said Sloane. “I don’t think this institution is ready for it.”

Sloane also cites lack of appropriate funding and little solid evidence of student needs.

In addition, there are some complex logistics issues that would need to be answered. Questions about where it would be located and who would staff it are just some of them. Bigger problems include liability issues, such as who would be responsible if someone was hurt.

“I’m a big supporter of campus childcare programs,” said Sloane. “(But) it’s an immensely complex issue with so many legal ramifications. No childcare center is set up under the umbrella of a university without a lot of work.”

It takes a mountain

Dr. Deborah Coehlo agrees that this would be no easy task. “In my experience, it takes about five years from initiation (of a program) to opening.”

In addition, Coehlo estimates it would cost around 2 million dollars to build a quality child development center. That’s a far cry from the $7,000 that the student fee committee listed on their 2008-09 budget.

It’s also a far cry from being set in stone. Members of the SFC pointed out that the amount is tentative, and that it really depends on what ASCC is doing with the childcare initiative.

“The budget is really there for us to use,” said a member of the SFC, who has yet to hear an actual budget proposal from ASCC. “It could be that we give them $7,000, or it could be that we give them $2,000.”

But some students wonder why their student fees, or incidental fees, should be used for that purpose in the first place. Keenan Tyner, an outdoor recreation student, said he’s already paying high out-of-state tuition. He agrees that financial-aid should take care of childcare costs, not student fees.

“It’s money that’s coming out of our pockets,” said Tyner. “There’s too many fees already ... the people who have kids should pay for it.”

The power of one

“This is a growing problem,” said Coehlo. “It affects non-traditional students who are already low-income. They’re already struggling, then when you add childcare costs, it becomes a huge barrier to completing a degree. That affects their kids, making it a multi-generational problem.”

Whether or not Jennifer Johnson has thought of this is unclear, but what she has seen has led to a growing passion to try to help the students of OSU-Cascades solve a recognizable need.

“I’m really impressed with her ability to keep going,” said Randi Alexander, the activities coordinator for ASCC. “When one thing stopped her, she tried to find another way.”