MALLORY LORING / Arizona Daily Wildcat Saunie Taylor, senior VP for campus life and Darci Thompson, AWF Family Issues Committee chair discuss the meeting on child and eldercare at the university.

Members of the Association for Women Faculty said at a panel discussion last night that they are tired of how far behind the UA is in childcare programming, and they plan to take steps this year to change that.

About 20 women and one man showed up at a panel discussion put on by AWF yesterday that focused on the problems of and the solutions for childcare programming at the UA.

"Arizona is not a bell-ringer state when it comes to childcare programs," said Saundra Taylor, a panelist and Senior Vice President of Campus Life. "[However], we are going to need a couple million dollars to compensate for everyone's needs."

Student parents at Northern Arizona University receive $3,000 in subsidies as opposed to UA's $1,000. The UA is behind Arizona State University, NAU and UA South as far as in-state schools go, despite the $85,000 that the childcare subsidies recently received.

It is important to begin improving childcare programs because they could be good recruitment and retention tools for the university, members of the panel said.

In conjunction with UA Life and Work Connections and the Committee on the Status of Women, the AWF hopes to figure out what faculty and students need when it comes to childcare.

Jennifer Runquist, a doctoral student in philosophy who has one child, recommended last night that the AWF put together a Web site that provides resource information about childcare in the community and subsidies that are available to help out students with children. She said she would also like to work more with the administration to implement an on-site childcare program and increase the amount of subsidies.

Runquist and members of the Graduate and Professional Student Council are trying to increase awareness on campus about childcare issues.

Runquist conducted a survey of approximately 915 graduate students. She found that about one-fourth of all graduate students had children.

Darci Thompson, a panelist and director of UA Life and Work Connections, said she wants to push for emergency care that would provide childcare for faculty and students on an emergency need basis.

She added that there should also be prenatal support with help from the University Medical Center.

A lactation, or breast feeding, consultant has offered her services for free, Thompson said.

Despite the discrepancies in funds, the UA is better off than some colleges in the U.S. At the University of Minnesota, there is a waiting list two years long to get into their childcare program. There are even women who will put their names down during their pregnancies to make sure that they will be able to receive childcare.

Programs that currently exist at the UA are the Childcare Voucher Program for faculty and staff, the Student Childcare Subsidy Program and the Sick Child Program.

Eldercare has also become an issue that AWF is focusing on. The average age of a faculty and staff member is 42, and at that age people generally support both a child and an aging loved one.

Program assistance is provided through financial aid, and parents must qualify for financial aid to benefit from the childcare programs.

You can receive more information about these programs at http://www.lifework.arizona.edu/ or by calling 621-4365. More information on the AWF can be found on their Web site at http://w3.arizona.edu/~awf.