Campus News
UC Santa Cruz celebrates new Early Education Center
Ribbon-cutting marks a milestone for the campus’s youngest learners: a purpose-built home with nine classrooms and a new infant program.
UC Santa Cruz celebrated the opening of its new Early Education Center with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Aug. 31, recognizing years of work to expand child care and support families across the campus community.
The new center, located alongside the new Family Student Housing community near Hagar and Coolidge drives, welcomed children and families beginning June 25. Designed to serve up to 140 children, the center will grow enrollment in phases over its first two years. The facility greatly expands on-campus child care and broadens the program to serve the children of student families and employees.
“Access to high-quality early education child care can make the difference in whether someone is able to pursue an education, build a career or remain part of our campus community,” said Chancellor Cynthia Larive. “This new center is an investment not only in children, but in our students and employees, who make UC Santa Cruz such a remarkable place.”
For children, families and educators, the new facility represents a significant expansion in both space and services. The center has grown from four classrooms to nine intentionally designed learning spaces, including a new infant classroom serving children as young as 4 months old, compared with the previous minimum age of 11 months. The center also serves school-age children through second grade, with a “walking bus” that brings children from nearby Westlake Elementary to the center for after-school care.
Associate Vice Chancellor for Colleges, Housing and Educational Services Laura Arroyo highlighted the center’s role in supporting children, families, and the broader UC Santa Cruz community during the ribbon-cutting ceremony:
“Through this new center, we are creating a space where some of the youngest members of our UC Santa Cruz community will thrive, and where their families can know that their children are surrounded by people who care deeply about them. It’s a space for curiosity and discovery. A space for children to play, learn, explore, build relationships, and to feel truly safe and cared for. It’s creating an extension of community and of home.”
The purpose-built facility includes indoor and outdoor learning spaces designed to encourage exploration and connection. Observation rooms also create opportunities for UC Santa Cruz students and researchers to study child development and psychology, connecting the center’s work in early education with the university’s teaching and research mission.
For families, practical features including dedicated parking, enhanced security and a single drop-off location make daily routines easier, particularly for parents with more than one child at the center. An on-site food program provides children with fresh, scratch-made meals prepared by the center’s chef.
“I dreamed for years of what it would be like to have a center where children thrive, families come together, and early educators have a professional space that reflects the true importance of their work,” said Early Education Center Director Emili Willet. “This building gives our youngest learners an enriched, engaging place to explore, while offering our staff the resources they need to deliver exceptional care. The real beauty of this facility is how it connects us—bringing together staff, faculty, and student families from every department into one shared, supportive community.”
The Catherine Cooper Play Yard
One of the center’s outdoor spaces is named for Catherine R. Cooper, emerita professor of psychology and founding director of UC Santa Cruz’s developmental psychology Ph.D. program.
Cooper has been a longtime advocate for a new early education center serving families across the university and for creating spaces where early education, university teaching and child-development research can intersect. The Catherine Cooper Play Yard recognizes that commitment and reflects her career-long focus on how children and young people learn and develop within their families, schools and communities.
The center’s outdoor play yards invite children to be little scientists, investigating concepts like gravity, volume and texture. They can explore their creativity on a custom wooden stage, engage in dramatic play in a life-size playhouse, operate manual water pumps to test cause and effect, or mix natural materials in mud kitchens.
The Early Education Center is part of a broader campus investment in supporting families. Its location alongside the new Family Student Housing community brings child care and family housing together near the main campus entrance and across from existing employee housing.
Together, the Early Education Center and adjacent Family Student Housing community are creating a new hub for campus families and expanding the resources that help students and employees balance learning, work and family life at UC Santa Cruz.
Learn more about programs and enrollment on the Early Education Center website.