AMHERST — It can take years for University of Massachusetts faculty and staff to get child care coverage on campus — a longtime problem that union members are demanding the university address as waitlists for new parents currently stand at more than 200 families.

At a recent rally on campus, about 200 faculty, staff and students representing UMass’ various unions sought to highlight the issue, with the administration responding that plans are in the works to expand child care capacity at the flagship campus by 50%.

Eve Weinbaum, president of the faculty and librarians union at UMass, was among those gathered to call for more child care resources, as the faculty and librarian unions were at the bargaining table with the university administration to negotiate child care.

“People are really, really struggling,” she said. “There is literally nowhere to put your kid.”

According to Weinbaum, a professor of sociology and labor studies at UMass, the shortage is not a new development, but one she had experienced with her own child 26 years ago.

University administration recognizes the bleak assessment of child care, and noted that plans are in the works for a new child care center that will replace the current Center for Early Education and Care (CEC) and increase the number of children it could care for.

University spokesperson Melissa Rose stated that the university recognizes “the need for increased child care capacity to support our community,” and that it “plans to build a modern and expanded facility to replace the existing center” at 21 Clubhouse Drive.

“The new center will allow for a 50% increase over the current capacity of approximately 87 children,” Rose said. “We are commencing the design phase of the facility so that construction can be completed within the next three years.”

Faculty Senate report

The call by union members comes nine months after the university’s Faculty Senate published a “Special Report of the Joint Task Force for Childcare Needs Assessment,” in which the Senate detailed the lack of child care options both on campus and in the region, and projected increases in demand for child care in the coming years.

According to the report, UMass lags behind equivalent size universities in child care support, with hundreds of parents on waiting lists for years.

Weinbaum has known faculty members who have been forced to leave the university due to the lack of child care.

“There is no way to do your job full time and take care of a baby or child full time,” Weinbaum said, noting that the lack of child care can hurt efforts to recruit faculty.

At a recent negotiating session, the testimony of former professor Tara Mandaywala was read to university administration. Mandaywala left UMass for a position at Boston University.

“My partner is not an academic and has a full-time job with minimal flexibility,” her testimony read. “Without child care, the caregiving responsibilities fall on me, which has a negative impact on my ability to be a scientist and professor — the jobs that I trained for over 10 years to do.”

The faculty’s February report found a yawning capacity shortage for infants, toddlers, and to a lesser degree, preschoolers. The report also pointed out that the campus lacks lactation rooms, synchronization of UMass and K-12 snow day cancellations, summer camps, transportation to the CEC, or pediatric care.

Mandaywala’s testimony also touched on lack of child care options across the Pioneer Valley as the pandemic squeezed the child care industry.

“While in western Mass., we were unable to find any day care spots for our child,” either on campus, or in the region, she said.

In Amherst, there are currently 73 licensed infant and toddler providers who have a capacity of 2,165 children. Since UMass employs 6,000 people alone, the report recognized that not only are they providing too little for the campus community, but they also recognize they are causing a drain on child care access to the wider public.

The report provided research detailing the importance of child care for university communities. It is believed access to formal child care leads to higher enrollment in four-year colleges by improving productivity and retention, and providing a sense of belonging for faculty, staff and students.

The report also claims there are impediments that have not allowed the Center for Early Education and Care at UMass to run up to full capacity. These impediments include the aging facility and the difficulty in retaining employees due to the yearlong nature of the job (for approximately the same pay as a typical nine-month position in child care.)

Compared to similarly sized institutions, UMass Amherst lags behind its peers for child care, as hours are more restricted and it has just one facility. It is the only school on a short list of universities studied that does not offer care for infants, since care at UMass currently begins at 15 months (and up to 5 years old), which Weinbaum said does not even bridge the 12 weeks of parental leave offered by the university.

Over the past 20 years the student population has grown 30%, with no change in the capacity of UMass’ CEC; since 2018, however, staffing issues have emerged as a limiting factor for child care despite a growth of 4% in the student population, which the university sees as potentially “detrimental to growth.”

The Faculty Senate also reported that adding resources improves equity, since it is “mothers who still shoulder a disproportionate share of the child care,” and, “access to on-campus child care can help faculty members who are mothers advance in their careers on an equal footing with their male colleagues.”

Nontraditional students

Another key factor presented in the study was anticipation for increasing numbers of nontraditional students, those who do not directly transition from high school into college. The number of these students is expected to rise as older, middle-class individuals will have increased opportunities to get a college education thanks to recent statewide legislation such as free community college.

The report noted that development could very well increase the number of non-traditional students at UMass through the state’s Mass Transfer program, which helps community college graduates make the jump to four-year colleges. With those students more likely to be parents than their younger cohorts, increases in demand for child care are likely.

The Faculty Senate report also expressed a desire to see child care funded universally on a state level for children ages 0-5 years.

Samuel Gelinas can be reached at sgelinas@gazettenet.com