Dear Tanaina Child Development Center and Tanaina board of directors,
I am sorry to hear of the bad news you received from your business partner of more than three decades, the University of Alaska Anchorage. You have maintained a high quality center serving the needs of UAA students, faculty and staff, as well as community members, since 1979. So much for loyalty. Hundreds if not thousands of students and employees have benefited from on-site quality child care. With the news that you are being evicted I see a negative impact on credit-hour productions as well as employee tardiness, absence, recruitment and retention.
The Anchorage community cannot absorb the many families that depend on the services Tainana has provided.
I encourage Chancellor Tom Case and his cabinet, the College of Education and its board of directors to put their heads together and devise a solution to keep Tanaina part of UAA. Tanaina CDC serves as both a clinical practice site for education majors, health majors and a variety of other programs around campus as it meets the child-care needs of students, faculty and staff.
Prospective faculty members visiting UAA inquire and will continue to inquire about child care. This will hurt UAA and the Anchorage community at large.
In my estimation, UAA has benefited in the long run. UAA does not charge Tanaina rent to use the space in the Wells Fargo basement; UAA also pays for the utilities. But that's practically it. Tanaina employees are not employees of UAA. That would cost the university too much money. Other nearby large employers, Providence and the Alaska Native Medical Center, subsidize their respective child-care centers significantly, as do BP and the military. Nearly every nationally accredited center in the Anchorage Bowl is highly subsidized by some entity. Highly qualified teachers demand a higher salary (still a meager salary in relation to other professional jobs); the physical environment and outdoor space for a high-quality center are detailed and specialized. This all costs money; the amount charged to utilize the services doesn't come close to what is needed to offset the costs of teacher salaries and rent. That's where an infusion of resources, funds, physical space and utilities comes in handy.
Recently, UAA's neighbor across the street, Providence Alaska Medical Center, constructed the new Providence Center for Child Development, a multimillion-dollar project. Providence also subsidizes the center at approximately $500,000 a year. I highly commend Providence Health Systems for talking the talk and walking the walk about the absolute value of early childhood education for children and the benefit of employee-sponsored on-site child care. UAA and the entire University of Alaska system can and should save face and do the same. They could show Alaskans that despite fiscal difficulties they are poised to invest in the future of Alaska and its youngest residents, as well as the future teachers of Alaska who benefit from field placements at Tainaina.
Interestingly enough, UAA and Providence nearly partnered on the new center at Providence. I was personally involved as a faculty member in the College of Education; plans were drawn up and numbers were crunched. UAA/Tanaina CDC would have shared a much larger Providence Center for Child Development. A classroom was designed and constructed for use by the Early Childhood Program at UAA. UAA was not willing to pay the construction costs or to subsidize to the extent the project required.
I have been gone from the College of Education at UAA for less than two years. At the time of my tenure in the college the faculty and the former dean were highly committed to everyone at Tanaina CDC. A spot on its board of directors was reserved for a College of Education faculty member.
Faculty, including myself, served on the board and provided regular professional development for your teachers. We in the early childhood program foresaw a lab school that would serve as a model of excellence for the state of Alaska. As the largest early childhood program in the state we envisioned Tanaina as its name means, a gathering place for children, teachers, families and faculty. Faculty would supervise and model best practices for teacher candidates and conduct interdisciplinary research with other faculty across the campus. I hesitate to guess what has happened to this vision in two years time.
I understand priorities can change with new leadership and with budgetary concerns. This new building was also in UAA's five-year plan; the new center was to be housed north of the Physical Sciences Building in the space currently being used as a parking lot. I suppose parking is important at a university, but not as important as education.
It's unfortunate that this is happening to you, Tanaina. The center has been a gracious business partner, never asking or demanding more than free rent in an inadequate space and free utilities to provide for the child care needs of the largest university in the state.
Faculty surveys, task force reports, and faculty proposals have indicated to UAA the above issues, concerns, and possibilities. In the 2010 Childcare Task Force Report the center's board of directors and UAA were both highly encouraged to revisit the decades-old contract, especially the 60-day termination provision.
Something positive can still come of this. I encourage you to call public meetings with UAA, the administration, and the faculty, staff, and student senate to figure this out.
I know your board, past boards, countless families and graduates of Tanaina, the UAA faculty and staff, and the Anchorage community all want the center to continue providing on-campus childcare. I hope UAA does the right thing.
Robert Capuozzo is a former associate professor of early childhood education at UAA, former Tanaina Child Development Center board member and former chair of the UAA Child Care Task Force. He now is an assistant clinical professor at the University of Georgia.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com