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Tuesday, September 19, 2017 — 3

breadth of its impact is similar.

For those 5,000, the benefits are 

life-changing. Quisha and Byron 
Cooper have been working toward 
degrees at Ferris State University 
in Big Rapids, Mich., for four years, 
while raising children since their 
sophomore 
year. 
Without 
the 

program, the Coopers say, they 
wouldn’t have been able to go to 
college at all.

“To us, the grant is humongous, 

because it’s literally how we live our 
lives and how we’re able to function 
and go to school and work and still 
have affordable, reliable daycare,” 
Quisha said. “Before I had children, 
I was always goal-oriented and 
wanted to obtain a degree and go 
to school for social work. So yeah, 
there was a time when we didn’t 
participate in the grant, but it wasn’t 
a time that I want to go back to.”

However, 
that 
could 
all 

disappear with the passage of the 
next federal appropriations bill, 
likely to be passed by both chambers 
of Congress in late September. 
According to documents obtained 
by The Washington Post, the 
budgets proposed by the Trump 
administration and the House of 
Representatives for the upcoming 
fiscal year cancel funding for 
CCAMPIS, as well as several other 
higher education programs.

Colin 
Seeberger, 
strategic 

campaigns 
director 
at 
Young 

Invincibles –– a policy and advocacy 
nonprofit for young adults that 
works with students in CCAMPIS 
–– 
said 
he 
was 
particularly 

disappointed by the news given the 
history of bipartisan support for the 
program.

“Senator Susan Collins and 

her 
former 
colleague 
Senator 

Olympia Snowe, both of whom 
are 
Republicans, 
formerly 

were co-sponsors of CCAMPIS 
reauthorization bills,” Seeberger 
said. “That’s something that hasn’t 
really been questioned before, 
whether it was something that had 
the support of Republicans and 
Democrats. We would hope that 
it would not and this would not 
become as partisan of a program.”

In its budget proposal, the 

Trump administration justified the 
elimination of the program, saying 
“subsidizing expenses associated 
with child care is not consistent 
with 
the 
Department’s 
core 

mission.”

But Seeberger disagrees.
“Helping students get in, access 

and complete school has always 
been part of the mission at the 
Department of Education, so that 
was kind of alarming,” he said.

Far from cutting the program, 

Seeberger thinks it should be 
expanded 
to 
a 
$500 
million 

program 
via 
grant 
matching, 

with $250 million coming from 
the federal government and the 
other $250 million coming from 
matching funds from states and 
higher 
education 
institutions. 

Doing that, he argues, would allow 
the program to serve 250,000 
student-parents living in poverty. 
As it is now, he said, the program 
meets the needs of the students it 
serves, “but doesn’t actually meet 
the scale of the challenges we’re 
seeing.”

And while there are plenty 

of other government programs 
in need of funding, Seeberger 
points out each dollar going 
toward CCAMPIS has additional 
effect because of the program’s 
“multigenerational 
impact.” 
He 

said he’s had students who say 
the grant brings what would be a 
thousand-dollar monthly child care 
bill down to $150 per semester.

“You can imagine, when you’re a 

student-parent and you’re focused 
on your studies, maybe you’re 
working a full-time or part-time 
job but still raising a child — that 
extra $900 a month can be all the 
difference in the world of being 
able to buy your textbooks, being 
able to feed your family, being able 
to — for that matter — stay in school 
and take on less student debt,” he 
said. “You’re getting that much 
more bang for your buck, ensuring 
that kids are growing up in more 
economically stable family units as 
well.”

The Coopers attest to this 

emphatically, saying they now feel 
confident in the environment in 
which their children are growing 
up. And more than just being 
safe and affordable, they say 
CCAMPIS creates an atmosphere 
that is uniquely enriching for their 
children.

“If this grant was cut, we would 

probably have to go back to working 
full-time and maybe cut education 
out for a while. So our kids probably 
wouldn’t grow up in the same 
atmosphere that they are in right 
now, because right now we do this 
on campus in student housing, they 
have a very rich cultural setting 
around, just as far as the diversity,” 
Quisha Cooper said. “Literally, our 
children grow up on the campus 
of Ferris State University and get 
a huge experience and a different 
outlook that kids their age don’t 
often get just going to a regular 
daycare or just staying at home.”

According to Byron, they never 

had any difficulty enrolling in the 
program and it never caused them 
any confusion. If they keep their 
GPAs above 2.5, he explained, then 
Ferris State covers half the cost 
of their child care. Above a 3.0, it 
covers 75 percent, and above a 3.5 
all expenses are covered.

“Our daycare facility pretty 

much helped us out with that a 
lot,” he said. “So it wasn’t a difficult 
process to sign up for at all. We 
just filled out a form or so, and our 
daycare provider did the rest.”
Child care at the University

And while the grant is not big 

enough for everyone who would 
like to use it, some institutions have 
taken the CCAMPIS model and 
made it their own. The University’s 
Ann Arbor campus was a CCAMPIS 
grant recipient until 2005, but 
stopped pursuing federal funding 
because the program was targeted 
mainly toward undergraduates, 
rather than graduate students.

Since 
2005, 
though, 
the 

University has been funding its 
own program, now known as 
the Campus Child Care Homes 
Network. 
Functioning 
as 
a 

complement to the University’s 
three 
main 
children’s 
centers 

serving 
faculty, 
students 
and 

staff, Campus Child Care Homes 
is now a collection of 11 homes in 
Northwood Family Housing that 
provide daycare for about 150 
children. Recruited and trained by 
the University and licensed by the 
state, students’ spouses often care 
for other children alongside their 
own.

Jennie McAlpine, director for 

the Work-Life Resources Program 
at the University, said the shift from 
federal to University funding was a 
natural transition.

“Around the time the grant was 

about to run out, we looked at things 
differently and we thought that 
capping it to experienced and long-
running child care providers in the 
community would be a good way to 
go; it would be very stable and work 
for a very long time,” she said. “And 
at that time, we just began, once 
we secured funding here from the 
University, we just began to make 
that our focus, and now we have 11 
campus child care homes which are 

state-licensed, home-based child 
care centers for University families, 
and we count those child care 
spaces for any affiliates: Students, 
or staff or faculty.”

And, 
according 
to 
Amy 

Szczepanski, 
the 
homes 
are 

preferable over the larger children’s 
centers for a variety of reasons.

“They, in their agreement with 

us, we help them by providing 
support for training and equipping 
and improving their homes, so it 
provides another more than 150 
spaces 
available 
to 
University 

families that often accommodate 
more flexible hours, that are a 
little bit less expensive than our 
children’s centers, they have more 
room for infants than our children’s 
centers,” she said.

Veronica Varela, a Rackham 

student currently working toward 
her Ph.D. in neuroscience, has two 
daughters aged 9 and 12. She said 
the University’s child care stipend 
and flexible child care program 
options were one of the main 
factors in her decision to come here.

While child care is still a major 

concern for her, it is less so than it 
used to be, as her children are of age 
to enroll in public school. It wasn’t 
always that way, though. Varela 
started her undergraduate degree 
at California State University at 
San Bernardino almost a decade 
ago, when her youngest was only 6 
months old. The only reason college 
was a possibility for her –– then a 
single mom, though she got married 
two years ago –– was the college’s 
CCAMPIS program.

“Because 
of 
the 
CCAMPIS 

program I was able to have the girls 
in preschool and daycare from 8 
to 5. And I could utilize that time 
in between classes to actually 
study, because as soon as I got 
home, there was no time to study. 
I never would’ve been able to pass 
my classes, I never would’ve even 

been able to go to college if I didn’t 
have that funding,” she said. “Only 
because I had that funding and 
because I had a safe place for my 
girls to be was I able to be successful 
enough to come to the University of 
Michigan.”

Being a student-parent, Varela 

said, she still feels guilty about 
having to split time between her 
education and her children –– and 
occasionally having to take them 
to lectures with her when they get 
too sick to go to school or daycare. 
However, CCAMPIS has made it 
worthwhile for both Varela and her 
children.

“I can say that it made a really 

huge difference in my life,” she said. 
“It made a huge difference in the 
life of my children, because they 
were able to be in programs that 
they had fun, they learned, while I 
was also getting my education. But 
at the end of the day, I could spend 
time with them.”

And 
while 
safe, 
affordable, 

reliable child care is invaluable 
and life-changing to the students 
and students’ children CCAMPIS 
serves, Quisha said often what 
makes it worth it is the community 
of people who understand the 
unique challenges she faces.

“I know students who use this 

grant at Western, I know students 
who use this grant at the University 
of Michigan, we might see each 
other on Facebook and say, ‘Oh hi, 
you use this grant, I use this grant, 
how are you, how are your kids 
doing?’” she said. “So just to say 
it’s a small grant, when you don’t 
have kids and you’re not in that 
lifestyle, yeah, it’s a small grant, but 
when you’re a student and you’re a 
mother or a father and you’re trying 
to raise children and go to school, 
you definitely link up with those 
people very easily because they 
understand your circumstances 
and what you’re going through.”

PARENTS
From Page 1

Midterm election cycle.

Two 
awards 
will 
be 

given, one to the institution 
that 
yields 
the 
highest 

percentage 
of 
eligible 

voter turnout for the fall 
2018 
midterm 
elections 

and another to the one 
that has the best overall 
improvement 
in 
voter 

turnout in comparison to 
the 2014 elections.

In order to track how 

many 
students 
each 

university 
is 
registering, 

the Big Ten Voter Challenge 
has paired with the online 
voter 
registering 
system 

TurboVote to show how 
many students from each 
university have registered 
by selecting their respective 
university when signing up 
online.

The 
system, 
which 

streamlines the process of 
registering to vote, allows 
students 
to 
register 
in 

their 
respective 
districts 

and states in which they 
normally reside when not at 
college.

At 
the 
latest 
Central 

Student 
Government 

meeting, 
CSG 
President 

Anushka Sarkar, an LSA 
senior, 
clarified 
some 

concerns about the system.

“We 
will 
not 
be 

encouraging 
people 
to 

be registered to vote in 
Michigan or Ann Arbor 
if this is not their regular 
residence because there are 
ethical concerns,” Sarkar 
said.

In 
collaboration 
with 

CSG, the Ginsberg Center 
for 
Community 
Service 

and Learning has taken 
initiative 
in 
assisting 

students with the online 
process of registering to 
vote 
in 
their 
respective 

states and districts where 
they reside.

With 
National 
Voter 

Registration 
Day 

approaching Sept. 26, CSG 
will be canvassing on the 
Diag throughout the day 
urging students to register 
to vote.

Last year, after a voter 

registration 
campaign 

led on the Northwestern 
University campus called 
“NU 
Votes,” 
a 
record 

96 
percent 
of 
freshman 

students were registered to 
vote, whereas beforehand 
less than half of freshmen 
were 
registered 
to 
vote 

according to an NU Votes 
volunteer.

COMPETITION
From Page 1

found 
around 
campus 
with 

Roof’s face.

Diane Brown, spokeswoman 

for the Division of Public Safety 
and Security, said DPSS was 
investigating the incident in 
West Quad Residence Hall. 
Brown 
could 
not, 
however, 

provide an update on the case as 
of Monday afternoon.

Following the discovery of 

the most recent writings, MCSP 
hosted an event Sunday night 
to provide an opportunity for 
solidarity with Black students 
and other students of color. 
Those who were victims of the 
writing spoke out, noting a lack 
of tolerance for this on campus.

One 
of 
the 
individuals 

whose door was targeted, LSA 
sophomore 
Travon 
Stearns, 

spoke to the Daily prior to the 
event 
about 
his 
experience 

seeing the writing on his door.

“Everybody was, of course, 

especially 
in 
the 
Black 

community and even my friends 
who are not part of the Black 
community, was pretty outraged 
and really concerned,” Stearns 
said. “But they really were there 
for me and let me know that if I 
needed any help with support, 
they’re there was me. They 
were really upset with what had 

occurred. Very outraged.”

On Monday night, an ad-hoc 

group of students and members 
of 
the 
Muslim 
Students’ 

Association 
placed 
posters 

around campus posting walls 
saying “Black Lives Matter.” 
Other students posted posters 
saying “F--- White Supremacy.”

Business 
senior 
Chelsea 

Racelis, also a member of the 
Black-Asian 
Coalition, 
said 

the action was as much about 
solidarity 
as 
it 
was 
about 

informing non-Black students 
about the incidents.

“We expect hate from hateful 

people,” she said. “But we expect 
more from the rest, or those 
who say they’re non-political. 
In some classrooms, people act 
like nothing happened. And you 
can’t brush this under a mass 
email or tweet … saying racism 
doesn’t belong here. Clearly 
there has been made space here 
for these people.” 

MCSP 
Director 
David 

Schoem, an adjunct associate 
professor, helped lead Sunday’s 
event, noted a sense of unity 
among the community.

“We feel terrible that in 

our community they had to 
experience 
those 
disgusting 

things that were put on their 
doors, and we want to show our 
support and love,” he said. “We 
hope you will feel that we are all 
here to express that to you.”

Members of the University’s 

Muslim Students’ Association 
flyered the pillars surrounding 
the Diag. MSA Outreach Chair 
Arwa Gayar, an LSA sophomore, 
said that when the incident 
occurred in MCSP the MSA 
began thinking of ways to 
immediately act.

“Because we are MSA we are 

posting it from our perspective, 
we have a quote from the Quran, 
it’s basically saying a white has 
no superiority over a Black and 
a Black has no superiority over 
a white and the only superiority 
people have over each other is 
piety and no one knows how 
pious someone is,” Gayer said. 
“It is ingrained within our 
religion this idea of equality so 
it is a part of our mission to that 
we are doing are part to make 
sure equality is seen on this 
campus.”

Racelis 
noted 
flyering 

constitutes just one component 
of students’ organizing.

“An action like this can’t 

do anything wrong,” she said. 
“But it has to be flyering 
and 
demanding 
more 
of 

administration 
and 
calling 

out racism and standing in 
solidarity. It’s all of that.” 

The block ‘M’ in the Diag 

was also tagged with positive 
messages following the incident, 
similarly, with the phrase Black 
Lives Matter.

POSTERS
From Page 1

to cross the road. She’s been hit 
by a car almost twice. We need 
alternate routes (because) we 
have to figure out ways to get kids 
across safely.”

Council 
eventually 
went 

into a discussion of a resolution 
that 
would 
direct 
the 
city 

administrator to review the Ann 
Arbor 
crosswalk 
ordinance. 

The resolution received mixed 
reviews from the group. While 
some felt strongly a review of the 
process could only be beneficial, 
others argued it would unfairly 
and inevitably lead to the removal 
of the policy.

Councilman 
Jack 
Eaton, 

D-Ward 4, is a sponsor of the 
resolution. He spoke of the need 
for a review of the process and 
advocated for a push toward 
a unified state-wide policy for 
crosswalk protocol.

“I’m just pointing out that 

this resolution does not seek to 
overturn our current policy,” 
Eaton said. “We need to have 
this 
ordinance 
evaluated 
by 

professionals. … People who drive 
in Ann Arbor are unaware of 
our policies and how they drive 
around pedestrians.”

CITY
From Page 1

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

