UC Santa Cruz is planning to build a new child care center and expand service to employees. In addition, we are planning to expand on-campus employee housing options.
For seven years, we have been the only campus without on-campus child care for faculty and staff. This—rightfully—has been a top concern of our Academic Senate and Staff Advisory Board, and a priority for us as campus leaders. Providing this service helps recruit and retain talented faculty and staff, just one of many benefits. Expanding on-campus employee housing options is another element of enhancing our ability to recruit and retain employees. These projects are important steps forward in supporting our campus community.
The expansion of child care is being incorporated into our request for developers to deliver Student Housing West, which will bring approximately 3,000 beds to the western portion of campus. Student Housing West is being delivered through a public-private partnership, and the new housing units will allow us to restore lounge spaces and provide more housing for upper division undergraduates and graduate students in addition to serving students with families. The first new beds will be online for fall 2020. We've asked developers to incorporate a new child care facility that can serve up to 140 children, ranging from infants to school age. The exact child care program, size, and cost will be developed in the months to come. We will work with faculty, staff, and student representatives to refine the program and work through the financial analysis. The child care facility will be open to faculty, staff, and students.
Like some other UC child care facilities, ours will be managed and run by an independent, licensed child care provider. Once the newly constructed facility is ready to open, the existing program, which only serves children of our student parents, will discontinue. The program will transition to one that serves children of our students, staff, and faculty. We are striving to ensure that the transition between operations will be as smooth as possible for the families of the children being served as well as for the Early Education Services team. Towards such end, we will work with staff members who may wish to leave campus or who may wish to work elsewhere on campus.
The expansion of employee housing on campus will also be undertaken through a developer. We will form a committee that incorporates faculty and staff who will be charged with developing a request for proposal (RFP). The goal is to have an RFP ready by the end of fall quarter.
We will share more information on both of these projects in the months to come.
