The Little CC
Life-long Learning Begins at "Little CC"
By MOLLY WINGATE and JUDY LEWALLENThe Writing Center
he youngest students at Colorado College are just learning how to eat solid food.
Surrounded by shapes, colors, sounds, toys and lots of loving attention, the infants in the Colorado College Children's Center start their education early. New research on brain development shows that what these babes in arms experience at daycare and at home will help shape the way they'll learn, think and behave for the rest of their lives.
Hollywood director Rob Reiner helped bring the importance of early education to national attention when he and other celebrities, including President and Mrs. Clinton, launched a national campaign called "I Am Your Child." Announced during the Week of the Young Child in April 1997, the campaign strives to provide information and resources to parents and educators of children up to age 3.
The campaign teaches appropriate and safe activities to stimulate the minds and bodies of the littlest of children. Because the Children's Center uses such activities and has high standards of developmentally appropriate practices, it has gained accreditation from the National Association of Educators of Young Children for the past four years.
Accreditation also means that its teachers have experience and specialized training. At CCCC, six of the 10 full time teachers have bachelor's degrees, two have advanced degrees, and one, Chris Clovicko, is a CC alumna, class of '74. Unlike most day care centers, the CCCC teaching staff is stable. Of the 10 full-time teachers, eight have worked at the center for more than five years, as have two of the four part-time teachers.
Part of the reason teachers stay is that the center has student-to-teacher ratios consistently lower than state regulations. This year, 48 to 50 children were enrolled at the center- some as full-time students, some as part-time students and some as children of visiting instructors.
What sets the Children's Center apart from most accredited daycare centers is the high level of parental involvement. Parents serve on the center oversight committee with Director Gayle Dougherty; Jeanne Wellman, the assistant director and pre-school teacher; and Brenda Balzer, the director of Human Resources. Parents also volunteer for field trips, attend classes offered by the teachers and help with yard sales and other projects.
"At other places, parents have the attitude that they are paying for a service," Dougherty says. "Here, parents are paying for a service but we also have a sense of raising the children together as part of a community."
Big kids learn at the Children's Center, too. Every year, Cathy Weir, professor of psychology, brings her Human Development class to the center. With parental permission, the students observe the children before and after their parents pick them up. The psychology students record facial expressions, verbal behavior and with whom the children interact.
According to Professor Weir, this project helps the students learn "the good things and the limitations of experiments in the field. They learn the value of real subjects, and the shortcomings of trying to be an observer when the subjects want to talk to them."
Doug Hinkle, '91, was one of the first students to have a work/study job at the Children's Center. He worked with the children for 3-1/2 years. Now a fifth grade teacher in Colorado Springs, he claims, "The Children's Center staff helped me grow into the teacher I have become."
Having the Children's Center near at hand allows working parents to be the kind of parent and the kind of professional they want to be. Professor Tomi-Ann Roberts, who teaches psychology, says the Children's Center at Colorado College was a key factor in her own decision to come to Colorado Springs.
"I had previously worked at BYU, a school that is run by a family-focused religion," Roberts said of the Mormon Church-owned Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. "Yet, I found it very difficult to find good child care for my toddler. I found myself running all around campus - just getting her to and from places that cared for her while I taught was a nightmare."
Roberts and her husband, Bill Davis, assistant professor of comparative literature, love the atmosphere of the CC center and its proximity to the campus. "I put my name on the list to reserve a space [for our daughter] before I was even offered the position," Roberts says. The couple have since had another daughter, who is busy learning and playing in the toddler room.
Alan Davis '86, CC's network engineer for Information Services, and his wife, Susan, hold the record for the most children at the center at one time ñ three. Evan is in the infant room, Brendan is with the 2- to 3-year-olds, and Ryan is part- time with the 4- to 5-year-olds. "It is another house payment, but an investment well worth it," he says.
The children at the center forge long lasting friendships. Andy Roth, one of the first children enrolled in the center, has fond memories of his five years at the CCCC and can quickly rattle off where his pals are today. "Ryan [Henderson] is still here but Danny [Wilson] is in Pennsylvania and Jeffrey [Grassmeyer] is in Kansas," laments the now 10-year-old Andy, son of Karla Roth, executive secretary for Student Life. The four "founding fathers," as the original group was called, celebrated their birthdays with one large party in June.
Many of the little CC alums attend FunQuest, the summer camp run by the center. "They get to catch up with each other and play together again, like a family reunion," says Dougherty. The summer camp works with 80 children a week, one-quarter of whom are the children of CC employees.
Dave Lord, the college's business manager, is an ardent supporter of the Children's Center. "We were one of the first small colleges to take a gamble on onsite daycare, and we are still one of the few accredited centers in the city."
As a single man with no children, Lord found himself at CC as the administrator in charge of the children's center. He quickly learned the importance of quality daycare. "We found that just as the heart of CC is its fine faculty, the heart of the Children's Center is its teachers." He also learned that there is nothing more important to parents than their children. "Early one morning Penny Rains, accounts payable clerk, came into my office and told me that the heat was off in the Children's Center. I said that I'd get to it in a little while. She responded, 'My son is over there. You'll get on it right now.' "
The only consistent complaint about the center is that not all employees can afford it. Even though the college subsidizes the Children's Center, "it costs about as much as other accredited centers in town. We have a tuition discount program based on family income, but still not all families can afford it," reports Dougherty.
"Normally in the child care business, teachers are hired part time with no fringe benefits. Our teachers are hired full time and they get all of the benefits other college employees get," Lord explains. "Good programs cost a lot of money."
When asked, however, if the CCCC pays for itself in the long run, Lord emphatically answers, "Yes. Faculty members with children come here in part because of the center and it reduces the stress on working parents."
In its 10-year history, the Children's Center has become part of the fabric of the college. "The Children's Center is another one of CC's gems; like Baca and the Cabin, it is one of those elements that sets us apart," says Lord.
Molly Wingate, the director of the CC Writing Center , has two children at the CCCC. Judy Lewallen, a '91 graduate of CC, is the secretary at the Writing Center.