On Aug. 25, Cornell's long-awaited child-care center opened its doors to university parents and children, marking a milestone in Cornell's efforts to help students, faculty and staff with a wide range of personal and family responsibilities.

The 16,240-square-foot facility on Pleasant Grove Road in Cayuga Heights, located near graduate housing in the Hasbrouck apartments, serves children six weeks to five years old and has space for 48 infants, 50 toddlers and 60 preschoolers. The center has six infant classrooms (eight children per room), five toddler classrooms (10 children per room), four preschool classrooms (15 children per room), as well as staff offices, common play and meeting areas, play areas and a garden space. Directed by Erin O. Doyle, who supervises 45 employees, the center is operated by Bright Horizons Family Solutions, which runs more than 600 employer-sponsored centers in the United States, Europe and Canada and was founded by Linda Mason '76.

"We are very pleased to offer this program to the Cornell community," said Lynette Chappell-Williams, director of the Office of Workforce Diversity, Equity and Life Quality, "especially at the infant level, where the need is so great throughout the local region." It enhances, she said, Cornell's ability to recruit, retain and support a talented and diverse workforce and student population.

The center was built to serve children of current Cornell-affiliated faculty, academic and nonacademic staff and students. It is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. It also offers part-time care as well as limited back-up care when parents are unable to use their regular child-care provider.

The center is a direct response to faculty and staff requests for university-provided child care, first voiced through the university's Task Force for Working Families in 1991. On-campus parents also requested financial assistance with child-care expenses, which has been met through the Child Care Grant Subsidy Program. Last year the program helped defray child-care expenses for nearly 700 faculty and staff families, or more than 1,000 Cornell children.

In 2004, Provost Biddy Martin charged an Advisory Committee on Faculty Work Life "to examine the tenured and tenure-track faculty work life and working climate, with a special emphasis on the experiences of women faculty." The resulting Faculty Work Life Survey, completed in November 2006, indicated that 12 percent of faculty respondents were using or in need of childcare, with five percent indicating that they anticipated needing child care in the next year or so, most likely for an infant. Anecdotal evidence from staff indicated a similar need.

Chappell-Williams noted that Cornell's new center is not positioned to fulfill all the child-care needs of staff and faculty. Because space is limited, the families were selected through a lottery. "We have a wait pool of interested parents and parents-to-be," she said. "We hope to supplement care offered by local providers and will continue to work closely with them to provide safe and high-quality care to Cornell employees.

Pointing out that Cornell has 4,302 employees with 7,176 children age 18 or younger, Chappell-Williams said that while parenting issues are major concerns in the Cornell community, the Office of Workforce Diversity, Equity and Life Quality, as part of the Division of Human Resources, is also working to address other concerns that Cornell staff, faculty and student employees have about balancing their work and personal responsibilities. She noted that the recent message from President David Skorton, Provost Martin and Vice President for Human Resources Mary Opperman addressing options for flexibility in work hours to help employees manage their commuter needs is one more example of Cornell's broad commitment to these issues.

For more information on the center or to be added to the wait pool, Cornell employees should contact the center at cornell@brighthorizons.com or 607-255-1010.