Leticia Hill and her 15-month-old child sat in the back of the classroom. The child became restless and began to cry softly. The professor stopped her lecture and asked if everything was all right. Leticia apologized and said she was on a waiting list for the campus Child Care Center (CCC).
Hill has been on the waiting list for the CCC, located in the small building next to the P.E. Complex, since September. The waiting list has 309 people on it, and some have been waiting for as long as three years.
“My life would be a lot easier [with campus childcare]” Hill said.
Hill talked about juggling her roles as mother and student. “Some teachers don’t mind [my child in class], but some teachers do. I couldn’t bring my son to certain classes, so I missed class,” she explained.
The number of current students who have their children in the program is 20; the number of alumni and community members with children in the program is almost three times that at 58.
Faculty have five and staff have six children in the CCC, according to an enrolment document provided by Director of Auxiliary Services Mark Kipp.
As of June 2006, there were 309 children waiting to get in: 124 children of students, 140 children of community members, and 45 children of alumni, faculty and staff, according to an e-mail from Elfriede Weber, coordinator of the CCC. Kipp provided the e-mail, which was originally sent to him, as the CCC reports to Auxiliary Services.
Classes in the CCC are divided by age, ranging from infants to kindergarten. Weber said that the classes for toddlers between the ages of 15 months and 2 and a half years are most in demand and had the longest waiting time of up to three years. There are only 15 filled spots in that division.
There are four categories of people who use the center for their children: students, faculty and staff, alumni, and members of the general community. Weber said that when a slot in any of the categories becomes open, it is filled by someone in that same category.
Kipp said that the community, staff and alumni categories pay about a third more in CCC tuition than students.
The reason for the waiting list, explained Weber, is due to the space and limitations of 35 square feet per child in any given room. She advises people to get on the waiting list when they become pregnant.
Both Kipp and Weber said it is not possible to expand the current building. “We’re not going to meet all the needs. … If we expand, we would have to up fees,” said Kipp.
Furthermore, Kipp said that a ratio of one teacher to every five children imposed by the Department of Children and Family Services prevents more children from being admitted.
As an auxiliary service, the CCC also must be financially self-sufficient, except for rent, according both Weber and Kipp.
Weber expressed her frustration with the financial situation, saying “What’s really difficult is that we have to pay an administrative overhead of $25,000 per year.” Kip said that this money is issued for administrative expenses, such as processing payroll for the employees of the center.
Additionally, Weber said that she had to pay for physical repairs, like the recent replacement of the furnace, out of the CCC’s budget. She added that some operating costs are covered by grants from the Department of Education.
The CCC was set up as an auxiliary service when it opened in 1972. Were it not an auxiliary service, explained Kip, it would need to be part of the College of Education, making it a magnet school and thus complicating matters even more.
The CCC has had several spaces since 1972, which were all off campus until this most recent space.
Kipp offered one possible solution to the limited enrollment in the CCC: “[Governor Rod] Blagojevich talked about childcare expansion. Maybe the state grants us money.”
Even if the CCC were not an auxiliary service, explained Kip, the only way to expand enrolment in the CCC is to build a new building. Weber said that a study should be available on the feasibility of a new building in the coming weeks.
But the prospect of a new building is doubtful, according to Kipp. He said that such buildings were typically funded through bonds, and the university has three bonds one for the parking garage and two for the Student Union that it is still paying off.
Kipp also said that for an expansion to be financially viable, enrollment at the CCC would need to reach the capacity of the new space.