By
The Wildcat Online Opinions Board
Once a month, since July, the UA Bookstore organizes the Wildcats Advocating Literacy for Kids program, an interactive storytelling time for chidren. The bookstore is on the right track, and other campus organizations ought to follow its lead and make such community services available on campus for faculty, staff and students.
Although under no obligation to organize this type of program, the bookstore is so far the only campus organization to even attempt some kind of educational, child care-related program for university faculty and students.
The focus of the WALK program is to "get kids used to being around higher education," a small irony considering the parents of these same kids are required to be "around higher education" five days a week with no place on campus to put their children.
True, it would be a massive undertaking, but the University of Arizona is fully capable of offering more than just a children's reading session once a month. The UA Bookstore's program represents a means by which the UA can branch out into the community and offer its resources to some of its future students. It is clearly a benefit to current UA employees, and an asset to the community at large.
