Correction appended: The headline and some details in the article have been updated to more accurately reflect the topic.
The Ohio University Faculty Senate passed a resolution to help develop strategies and aid professors in accommodating students with caregiving responsibilities due to a lack of childcare on campus.
The resolution was put forward by the Faculty Senate's Educational Policy and Student Affairs Committee, or EPSA, and passed during the Senate’s meeting May 6, 2024.
The current chair, Jennie Klein, a professor in the school of art, said she had seen the resolution before she took a sabbatical last year.
“I've thought a lot about it, and we kind of started this,” Klein said. “I think Dr. Hallman-Thrasher, who was the chair, is quite a bit young, and this was really important for her.”
The resolution states a task force would be designed to help develop recommendations to support faculty in creating course policies related to bringing minors into class and mitigating inequities associated with childcare for all members of the OU community.
The task force will include representatives from academic colleges and regional campuses, Faculty Senate, Legal Services, Human Resources, Office of Accessibility Services, Student Affairs, and Graduate Student Senate.
Klein said the task force would allow for more discussion, and would consider the nature of the class and if it would be appropriate for children to attend. For example, some cases where it may not be safe for young children to be in a class could be in laboratories around dangerous chemicals or near heavy equipment.
“You can't have someone bringing a child to a lab where there's dangerous substances and the child could be injured," Klein said. “But, that person can still attend the lab remotely, so they can be in the home with their child, giving child care, and I would absolutely recommend that.”
Klein said some specific examples come from nursing professors about children attending class with their parents because they were sick, potentially putting other students in the class at risk. Another concern was the topics discussed in some nursing courses.
“There are times when they are discussing sensitive subjects, and it's not that you should shield children, per se, but the subjects are really sensitive, and they just don't think it's appropriate to be discussing them in front of very young children,” Klein said.
Olivia Kaiser, a junior studying business and former Student Senate University Life Commissioner, said she had similar concerns about the lack of childcare on all OU campuses.
“I did not realize that it was to create a task force to find reasonable accommodations for minors in the classroom, which was actually something I was happy to see,” Kaiser said, after reading the resolution.
Kaiser said she believed there are not enough resources available to students who are also parents. Some barriers surrounding childcare for OU students are the university’s location and community income disparities associated with living in Appalachia.
“Daycare is very, very expensive, and what can (parents) do?” Kaiser said. "What are some of the options so that they don't have to drop a class, so that they fall behind in the progress of their education?”
OU’s daycare system, the Child Development Center, is a resource available to faculty, students and community members alike. Its prices are based on a family's household income, Kristin Barron, director of the CDC, said.
An annual income verification is required for parents to enroll a child in the CDC, and prices vary, with infants’ tuition being more expensive than preschool tuition, according to the CDC tuition scale for the 2024 academic year.
Prices can change if siblings are enrolled simultaneously; parents receive a 10% discount and pay for the youngest child’s tuition fee in full.
Klein said it is difficult to enroll a child into the CDC; she had to be put on a year-long waitlist until she could enroll her own child, even with employee status.
“It is very hard to get into Ohio University's daycare program,” Klein said. “There was a year's waiting list. A year later, after I put her name on the waitlist, she was going into kindergarten … and at that point, we didn't need (a daycare).”
To enroll a child in the CDC, parents first must apply and pay a $20 fee to be on a waiting list, Barron said. Once a spot is opened, the CDC contacts families on the list. Siblings of children enrolled get first priority.
Barron said the length of the waiting list for the daycare varies throughout the year, and there are currently open spots in the center’s preschool for children ages 3 to 5.
“The longest waiting list is always for infants,” Barron wrote in an email. “We have 16 infant spots, 24 toddler spots and over 50 preschool spots, so it makes sense that the longest list is where we have the fewest openings.”
Klein says some students have to not take certain classes because the professor told them they couldn’t have a baby in class.
“I do think we need to have something in place where (professors) have to make all possible accommodations for those students,” Klein said.
