When working to attract the best faculty and staff to the university, Virginia Tech must take responsibility to provide both affordable and convenient childcare for those employed by the school.
When working to attract the best faculty and staff to the university, Virginia Tech must take responsibility to provide both affordable and convenient childcare for those employed by the school. The opportunity to live in the humble hamlet of Blacksburg is not what draws so many of the most intelligent individuals from their respective fields to this town. Rather, it is the opportunity to teach at Tech. However many of the faculty and staff at this university go by names other than "Professor," or "Dr.;" those appellations include Mom and Dad.
Currently the Work/Life Resource Center helps to meet the needs of parents by finding a high-quality, convenient daycare program in which to enroll their children. Additionally, a professor in human development provides a daycare for children through the Child Development Center in Learning and Research. While the Child Development program offers 42 slots, it still faces the issue of limited space and long waiting lists. Tech is taking positive steps to help ease its employees' burdens of finding quality childcare. The Work/Life Resource Center's new partnership with Rainbow Riders Daycare requires Tech to give $100,000 annually to Rainbow Riders for five years to have access to 60 percent of the slots at the new center Rainbow Riders is building. The Tech Corporate Research Center is also a part of this partnership.
Tech provides itself on being a research institution, employing the best and the brightest. The only way to ensure these people want to continue working for Tech is to make sure their families are being taken care of. It seems that through this partnership, Tech is making an effort to do just that. Partnerships are the best way to keep tuition low -- while still providing the highest quality level of childcare. Another hurdle to overcome is finding a well-qualified staff to run the center, ensuring a high teacher-to-student ratio and, subsequently, a healthy, nurturing environment. Students who are graduating with degrees in human development and are interested in a career working with children should take advantage of available daycare jobs in the area.
UVa also has a program for backup child and elderly care in cases of an emergency 10 days out of the year. This is a program we should consider instituting at Tech, especially for parents of young children. While some professors refuse to cancel class because of unforeseeable family situations, providing professors with guaranteed childcare in certain situations can't be a bad thing. Ultimately some of us are here in Blacksburg as students, some of us as teachers, and others with their parents because they're only three years old and have no choice. Finding a system that works best for professors will only improve the level of education we receive as students.
The editorial board is composed of David Grant, David McIlroy, Laurel Colella, Jackie Peters, Sally Bull and Alexandra Kaufmann .
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