To the editor:
The article “In tenure gap, location’s the catch,” (1/31) implied that I characterized the quality of available on-campus child care as “poor.” However, that could not be further from the truth. In fact, last spring the Women Faculty Forum surveyed Yale faculty and conducted a focus group on issues pertaining to child care. In the subsequent report, “Report on Childcare: Challenges for Parenting Professors,” the authors noted that “the quality of childcare in existing Yale-affiliated centers is uniformly described as excellent.”
The six existing centers deserve much praise for the comprehensive, high-quality care that they provide. Unfortunately, they do not have the space to provide care for all the children who apply to those programs: according to the WFF report, the current centers can accommodate only half of the faculty whose children likely need care. The responsibility rests with the University to make more high-quality care available to faculty parents.
Josie Rodberg ’03
February 1, 2003
The writer is the undergraduate liaison and research assistant for the Women Faculty Forum.