Graduate student John Kummer straps his daughter into a baby carrier Tuesdays and Thursdays and walks from their home at Tulip Tree Apartments to the Campus View Child Care Center.
Kummer is in his second year in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs studying public affairs and environmental policy and will get his MPA in May or sometime in the summer, he said. His daughter will be turning 2 on Christmas Eve.
“I feel like people who aren’t parents don’t really realize all the time that goes into being a parent,” Kummer said. “I spend pretty much all of my free time studying because when I’m at home with her, I just want to spend time with the family.”
Kummer studied environmental geography at IU-Southeast and hopes to get a job working for the government with his master’s degree.
“As long as I’m working toward sustainability or making the world a better place, then I’ll feel like I’m doing something right,” Kummer said.
Kummer’s daughter has been enrolled in the Campus View Child Care Center since August. Before putting her into the program, Kummer and his partner were able to sit down with the classroom teachers to get a feel for the program, he said.
“They sat with us and our daughter for about two hours and got to try to see her as a person and know what she likes, what she doesn’t like and where she is developmentally,” Kummer said.
Kummer said the staff is a large part of what makes the Campus View Child Care Center great, as well as the practice of continuity of care, where a child enrolled as an infant stays in the same classroom for three years.
“I think the teachers and the people there really make it what it is because it seems like they really care,” Kummer said. “It seems like the teachers really enjoy their jobs and like what they do.”
The Campus View Child Care Center is one of three state-licensed, professionally staffed and nationally-accredited child care centers at IU. There are also two co-operatives that parents work in that are in the process of becoming state-licensed.
There are two professional teachers in every room at the centers and every teacher must have a bachelor’s degree. About half of the teachers have a master’s degree, said Tim Dunnuck, director of IU Early Childhood Education Services.
Indiana has a rating system for childcare, with centers rated from one to four. A rating of four indicates being one of the best programs in the state, and all three centers are level four, Dunnuck said.
“There’s a lot of reasons why our childcare is among the best,” Dunnuck said. “The quality of the childcare always comes down to the quality of the staff, so that’s the number one reason why, but the other reason we’re able to be so good is because of the support from the University.”
The centers receive a cash contribution from the campus each year and don’t have to pay for rent for facilities, utilities or liability insurance. The weekly fees tend to be among the highest in the community, but are the lowest out of child care centers in the Big Ten, Dunnuck said.
“It’s common for people to think the University is not doing enough in childcare, but most people don’t know what they’re already doing,” Dunnuck said. “We would always like more support, but when I look at other universities I realize our campus is very supportive.”
The support from the campus is a result of former Chancellor Ken Gros Louis being incredibly supportive of childcare on campus, and President Michael McRobbie allocating the biggest portion of the cash subsidy to IU child care services when he was a provost, Dunnuck said. Dunnuck said McRobbie realized how important childcare on campus is to families.
“Campus programs tend to be the best programs in the community,” Dunnuck said. “My expectation for our programs is that we have a responsibility to be the best.”
