The University of Chicago, which announced plans last year for a child care center near the Medical Center, will build a second child care center on Stony Island Avenue, Provost Thomas F. Rosenbaum announced.
Child Care East, as the new center has been informally dubbed, will provide care for 124 children, ages six weeks to five years old. It is scheduled to open in September 2013, on University-owned land immediately south of the Laboratory Schools’ Earl Shapiro Hall on the Early Childhood Campus, which is now under construction.
“The University is committed to supporting the parents who work and study on our campus,” said Rosenbaum. “We recognize that having high-quality child care on campus is essential to our community, and that creating an inviting building that respects the aesthetics of its neighbors and our campus matters to all.”
The University has selected Wheeler Kearns Architects to design the building.
The center will charge market rates and allocate slots on a first-come basis. A child care provider to operate the new center has not yet been named. More information will become available for parents and others interested in the center in 2013.
Since its inception, the Women's Leadership Council has strongly advocated for on-site child care, and many faculty members, department chairs and deans have long identified on-site child care as a major need.
In addition to the two new centers, faculty, other academic appointees, staff, postdoctoral researchers and students seeking child care will continue to benefit from the University's partnerships with two local child care providers — the Baby Ph.D. Childcare Network and the Chicago Child Care Society. In 2005, the University funded grant proposals, creating more than 70 new infant and toddler slots in the neighborhood for children of University and Medical Center parents.
—Prof. Jacqueline Stewart
