GPSF Questions Campus About Child Care

Starting today, the Graduate and Professional Student Federation will begin collecting data for the University's first comprehensive study of child-care needs on campus.

GPSF's child-care advisory committee will release a survey to all students, staff and faculty regarding an array of child-care issues, said GPSF President Branson Page.

The survey, which Page said is the first of its kind, will include questions about the variety of child-care options available, problems with those options and potential interest in a drop-off day-care center on campus.

"(The University) has never done anything like this before," Page said. "We want to assess the depth of child-care needs on campus, and part of that is just getting survey materials and numbers to think about."

The survey will be sent via e-mail to all students, staff and faculty at the University.

The e-mail will contain a link to an online version of the survey.

Page said the information collected from the survey will help the group estimate the number of parents at UNC and analyze what kinds of child-care options would be necessary to serve them.

"We want to help the University make more competent decisions on the needs of student parents," he said.

The survey also will give participants a chance to request more information on child-care issues, which Page said he hopes will be the start of a database of parents at UNC that will be updated annually.

"We want to create a network of parents on campus," he said. "We can't do much (work) until we know how many parents we have, but we're happy to help out."

The survey also will poll participants about whether or not they would be interested in a drop-off child-care center on campus.

The child-care advisory committee has been working on a proposal for a drop-off child-care center that would be located where Chase Hall now stands. But Page said the center likely will not come to fruition for another five or six years.

The survey is the latest step taken by GPSF to improve the state of child care on campus since a referendum passed last February.

The referendum called for a 75-cent per semester increase in student fees to raise $36,000 for child care assistance to UNC students.

University officials agreed in April to match the funds raised by the referendum, providing funds for child care assistance to a total of 42 UNC students.

Myra Struckmeyer, child-care coordinator for GPSF, said it is important to include a diverse population in the survey because the committee needs to be able to accurately assess the level of child care needed by members of the University community.

"This (survey) is something for everybody, not just people with children now," she said.

"We need a good sample group, and we want to get everybody involved. Especially for people with no kids, it won't take long at all."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.