Resource Groups Assist Student-Parents

If classes and homework seem overwhelming for students, imagine the added stress of raising a family while going to school. For many students at UC Berkeley, this is a reality faced every day, and "all-nighters" are reserved for sick kids rather than last-minute study sessions.

Thankfully, students with children do not have to deal with these pressures on their own, but have a number of campus resources to lean on in times of difficulty and confusion.

The UC Berkeley Parents Network is one of these resources, which offers a mailing list to other parents on campus as well as maintaining a useful Web site located at http://parents.berkeley.edu. The Web site offers advice on everything from child care and music lessons to housing issues and health insurance.

Because this site is basically a collection of stories, advice and information from students themselves, it often contains the most authoritative and up-to-date information from the people who have learned the lessons firsthand.

Parents who are new to the area can find the nearest day care center and can also find advice about every stage of their child's growth, from the terrible twos to the terrible teens.

The Parents Network also maintains an electronic mailing list with more than 1,400 subscribing parents, composed of both students and faculty. The list sends updates three to five times a week with sections reserved for suggestions or items for sale, as well as a separate list for parents of adolescents.

The mailing list was started in 1993 by Ginger Ogle, who was a graduate student in the electrical engineering and computer science department at the time. She currently works as the project manager of the Digital Library Project and continues to organize the mailing list.

According to Ogle, the biggest challenge facing student-parents is the need for child care. While the university does offer some child-care options on campus, many of them close during holidays and vacations, even though student-parents must continue to work during these times.

For this reason, many parents choose not to use campus child care but are forced to arrange for outside care that may be more costly and difficult to manage.

While the university has made many important changes in their attitude and sensitivity toward student-parents, they do not make accommodations a priority, and UC Berkeley may be worse than other UC campuses, according to Ogle.

"Support of student-parents has never been a priority," she says. "Child care in Berkeley is woefully inadequate. Most of the other UC campuses have much better systems in place."

She continues by citing several of the university's expectations that do not take the challenges of raising children into account. She says that long hours, late meetings and even overnight projects force many parents to choose between spending time with their family or competing in an academic setting.

Some of the improvements made by the university over the years have fixed only a portion of the problem. While the university has adopted a policy that allows parents to take time off while having a child, graduate student instructors do not currently receive maternity pay and must leave work without pay. They may also lose their health care benefits.

Some departments offer funding to expectant mothers, but because it is not required, students are left to the mercy of each individual department.

Student-parents do face a number of challenges, but they are often more mature and experienced than other students, and do well in classes.

"The level of maturity is higher in student-parents, because they already have experience with real-world problem-solving," says Ogle. "They have to work harder than their fellow students who do not have children, so they are often more highly motivated to do well and succeed. They have more invested, and more to lose."

It is difficult to know the actual number of student-parents on campus, but it appears to be growing. Ogle suggests that well-paying jobs require more education now than they did in the past, and this may motivate more parents to return to school later in their lives.

There is also a growing number of students, especially women, who are receiving advanced degrees and remain in school well into their 20s or later - a time when many people have children.

Ogle emphasizes the need for student-parents to network and receive support more than anything else. Along with visiting the Student Parent Project and signing up for the UC Berkeley Parents mailing list, she suggests that student-parents live in family housing, where there are other students who are also parents and who can help with advice and support.

While other resources do not offer as much personal experience as the Parents Network, they can offer help directly from the university and answer many of the questions that are specific to students with children at UC Berkeley.

The Student Parent Project was developed by the Women's Resource Center. Among other things, they offer parents what they call the "Parent's Place," a place to bring their kids while on campus to hang out, socialize with other parents and get updated information on resources and university policies. Parents here also share baby-sitting duties on an informal basis.

Child care is also available through the Child Care Services Department for children aged three months to eight years. Much of this care is based on a sliding scale and may be lower than other agencies.

In addition to the services offered by the Women's Resource Center, every fall semester the Student Parent Project sponsors "Once Upon a University: An Orientation Course for Student Parents." The class is geared both toward parents who are new to UC Berkeley and students who are new to parenting.

In the spring there is a follow-up course called "It Takes a Village: Building Support Systems for Student Parents." This class stresses the importance of community for student-parents, and offers the opportunity for student-parents to meet and create a feeling of community while receiving credits.

"It is also kind of a support group," says class facilitator Patti Rede. "We spend a lot of time working through personal issues that come up as the family goes through great changes when a baby is born or when a parent comes to Cal."

While both classes teach parents about a number of resources available both on and off campus, Rede says that "the most important resource they learn about is each other."

Rede also stresses that, although some parts of the university are not quick to offer help to student-parents, others have offered help in a number of ways.

"Departmentally, I can't say enough about the financial aid office," she says. "Looking at the financial aid packages of a few of my students literally brought tears to my eyes, they looked so good."

The classes have grown at a fast rate. While there were only 13 students enrolled in the spring of 1995, last semester's program included 35 students - five of whom were men, representing the highest-ever male turnout.

Both of these classes are two units and are offered on a pass/no pass basis through the education department.

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