CFR Coordinator Updates
14 March 2013
Wellness Week (WW) and Bring Your Kids to Campus (BYKTC) Day
Wellness Week – last held on campus in 2009 (I believe) is back in full swing this year the week of April 22nd. This is
hosted/organized by Rec Sports in collaboration/support by Healthy Campus Initiative (HCI). CFR is hosting five
events during the first four days of WW. The last day of WW is our 2 nd annual BYKTC Day which is Friday, 4/26, and
CFR is hosting/offering seven activities for parents and their children. One of our goals has been that all activities
offered are FREE and we’ve almost met that goal. There will be a $1 shoe rental for bowling  Again, we are
applying for a HCI mini grant which we anticipate will be funded. We are in the process of creating marketing
materials in collaboration with Rec Sports and other partners as well as creating our on-line registration. We plan
to have posters and flyers out on campus the first week of April and our on-line registration “live” on the 2nd of
April. We’ll have a list of WW and BYKTC Day activities for you to look at tomorrow at the board meeting.
National Coalition for Campus Children’s Centers: Kristi left today for Williamsburg, VA to attend the annual
NCCCC national conference and will be back on campus this coming Monday. Along with many other workshops
and seminars she’ll be attending, Kristi will be devoting some time to learning more about CCAMPIS (Child Care
Access Means Parents in School) federal grants and bringing that information back to our office. (Thank you,
Kristi!)
CCAMPIS grants: We are focused on submitting this federal grant and it will be a serious push to do so. The online application isn’t available until the end of the month and there’s an approximate 30 day window in which to
apply. CCAMPIS grants are a four year funding cycle with annual stats due prior to each year’s disbursement. If we
don’t submit in 2013 our next opportunity will be in 2017. I haven’t been able to locate very much usable
information on the grant, i.e. a template, typical projects funded, etc. However, I did have an informative
conversation with a colleague at Portland State. PSU is in their 2nd funding cycle and although there was nothing
template/format wise that could be offered, we were advised to make our funding requests directly related to an
increase in child care slots, an increase in child care subsidy dollars and the number of student parents who would
be assisted by such an increase, etc. CCAMPIS grants fund Pell Grant eligible student parents of which there are
many at OSU. In 2011-2012 approx. 70% of student parents who filed FAFSA applications were also Pell Grant
students and OSU disbursed more than $4.5M to those students. One of the points of discussion during
tomorrow’s board meeting is the idea around increasing the number of student parent slots at Beaver Beginnings.
As it stands, it’s nearly a 50/50 split between students and employees however, we have many students who are
still in need of child care. One of the ways we could address this would be to increase those student slots and have
a portion of our CCAMPIS grant make up for the lost revenue generated by those further subsidized slots. We
should spend a bit of time talking about this tomorrow as a discussion in April will not be in sync time-wise with
the grant.
Child Care Center: To follow-up on the January board meeting discussion and the February Coordinator Report,
the Child Care Center will be officially student building inventory (as the MU and Dixon are) as of July 1, 2013. The
quote for an independent building assessment is in and the estimated cost is $20,600. Programs with buildings
(again, the MU and Dixon) first fund building assessments out of their building reserves (which we don’t really have
right now and the assessment will help determine an amount to have in reserve) and then, if they cannot fund out
of a building reserve than they fund out of their working capital (which we do have). If they cannot fund out of
their working capital than a request for Contingency Funds can be made. At tomorrow’s board meeting we’ll need
to discuss and determine a source of funding for the Child Care Center building assessment. Again, this is a time
sensitive decision. We’ll need the information generated by the assessment in order to put in a Contingency Fund
request for building maintenance and reserve dollars prior to the start of FY14. Other news related to Beaver
Beginnings is the landscape project which is in the final stages of paperwork and due to begin the weekend before
Spring break. It’s going to be a busy week out there with hopefully the bulk of the project being completed during
the decreased Spring break enrollment.
Priority Registration: I’ve been in touch with Rebecca Mathern, Registrar, via e-mail and they’re in one of their
busiest times right now…and, although she’s interested in the conversation around priority registration, she is
unable to meet until early summer – post graduation.
SR3: Clare, Gus and I will be presenting at NASPA this next week on the process of coming together for the SR3
project. Our presentation, “Overlapping Identities: Teamwork to Meet Convergent Student Needs” outlines the
process of bringing three student affairs programs together for the purpose of not only co-locating but also the
evolution of becoming a team and ultimately providing a greater level of service to students who are accessing one
or all of our programs. A couple of weeks ago Clare, Gus, Lisa and I met with the architects who are working on the
feasibility study – basically an opportunity to take much of the info generated by the focus groups as well as our
initial building matrix and explore the actual feasibility of co-locating with Dixon (and CaPS who will eventually colocate with Dixon). We await the next set of updated drawings and building info.
OLV Drop-Off Care: We have received the written documentation from the state CCD enabling us to shift to a
different Exempt status which will free student parents to leave their child(ren) at our drop-off sites and move
about campus. I met with Patrick Hughes, our Chief Risk Officer, to discuss “risk management” issues around
parents leaving the OLV site/building. Several determinations were that parents had to stay on campus i.e. they
could not meet for a grad. study group off of campus and students would need to indicate their exact location and
update if leaving that location – OLV staff would need to know where they are at all times. The discussion around
the use of pagers came up and, after following up with Kristi, we decided that pagers would not be usable and that
parents would need to have cellphones and be reachable by cellphone. Patrick will run our OLV scenario further
through OSU Legal channels and we’ll continue the conversation here in our office. The thinking is that we’ll target
Dixon as the “pilot” site for this change in service and have everything we need in place by Fall 2013.
Additional Child Care: as was mentioned in last month’s update Robynn Pease, Work/Life Balance Coordinator and
I are working on an RFP for an independent assessment/analysis of University and community demographics, both
current and expected growth, as well as child care availability. In addition, we’ve had several meetings with folks
from CCLC around the potential for additional child care at Orchard Court. CCLC will be generating some
information for us in terms of other Universities’ approaches to creating more child care amidst the reality of
decreased sources of funding. We continue exploring this possibility…and we’ll keep you posted!
CFR Data Collection: In efforts to further our data collection abilities, a list serve was created for those students
and employees using the lactation rooms. An initial survey has gone out regarding lactation rooms used and
frequency of use. Thank you, Erika, for taking this on. In addition, I’ve been working with Enrollment as well as
Institutional Research around our ability to track student parent retention and graduation rates as well as average
GPAs. I have a meeting in early April with Sal Castillo, Director of Institutional Research, around developing a way
of capturing that data for us.