Halfway through her Thursday class on Chicano history, Cristina Maria Torrez got up and left, with her books in one hand and her child’s hand in the other.

Torrez was among the student parents participating in "Bring Your Child to Class Day" at UC Santa Cruz to demonstrate the impact of cuts proposed to child-care funding.

In January, Gov. Arnold Schwar-zenegger proposed a two-year limit on subsidized child care, which students say would push them out of college before they can get a degree.

Torrez, 30, a psychology major who will graduate in June, had to wait a year to get her 7-year-old into child care on campus.

One of the leaders behind the demonstration was Linda Yepiz, 40, who attends college part-time, majoring in history and community studies, and aspires to be a teacher.

She juggles homework and household chores while raising her 5-year-old daughter Lucy, one of hundreds of children living in Family Student Housing on campus.

"In the long run, it’s more practical and cheaper to have single parents get a degree and work rather than drop out and depend on social services," Yepiz said.

The 15,000-student campus has child-care spaces for 125 children, ranging in age from 3 months to 12 years, but the demand is much higher.

About 100 spaces are reserved for students; 50 to 100 names are on the waitlist for subsidized care. Almost all the students have totally subsidized child care because they go to school full time.

A mother and child, with an income of $1,820 per month, currently pays $2 a day for child care. The changes proposed by the governor mean students would be penalized financially, paying more for child care, if they earn that much.

"How are they going to buy food?" asked Wilma Gold, UCSC’s director of child-care services. "They have to pay rent and buy books."

Faculty are last on the priority list, but 50 to 100 of them are waiting and hoping.

"With a two- to three-year year waitlist for child care, it’s hard to attract younger faculty members to the community," Gold said.

A campaign to raise money to establish a new child-care center, with 100 more spaces, is under way. So far, $2 million is in hand; another $2.5 million is needed.

A legislative committee has recommended dropping the two-year limit on subsidized child care, but Gold is waiting to see what the governor will recommend in his mid-May budget revision.

In the meantime, students with children are asking fellow students to sign postcards to send to the governor on their behalf.

"I hope it makes an impact," said Yepiz.

Contact Jondi Gumz at jgumz@santacruzsentinel.com.

Academic Senate committee says child care is top issue
By JONDI GUMZ
Sentinel staff writer
Gabriela Arredondo, assistant professor of Latin American and Latino studies at UC Santa Cruz, joined Thursday’s child-care demonstration in spirit.

She had planned to bring her son to campus Thursday, but came to class without him when her caregiver couldn’t get his car seat into her car. So Arredondo held up a photo of her toddler instead.

"Aww!" said her students, most of them women.

Arredondo, who is in her late 30s, earned a doctorate from the University of Chicago. She spent six years in graduate school and postponed having children until she came to UCSC. Now she is the mother of a 13-month-old.

Arredondo’s husband, an engineer, works over the hill so she relies on former students to care for her son.

"Without them, I don’t know what I’d do," she said.

Child-care services are available off-campus, but faculty find they often are not flexible.

"Our schedules change every quarter," Arredondo said. "Meetings come up, and some faculty teach evening classes."

A committee of the Academic Senate, the faculty governing body, picked child care as its top issue for this school year.

A survey of faculty members at all levels got a 70 percent response rate and nearly everyone agreed the university had a responsibility to increase child-care options.

"This is a morale issue for our whole campus," said psychology professor Faye Crosby. "My department is trying to hire new people, and our staff members have young children."

Faculty teamed up with staff to try to identify places on the redwood-studded campus where a child-care center could be built. It’s a challenge because an outdoor play area is needed in addition to indoor facilities.

As an interim step, student Alexis Spencer surveyed the availability of child care. Interviewing 50 providers, she found no spaces for infants, 13 spaces for 2 year-olds and 19 spaces for 4-year-olds.

The information will soon be posted on UCSC’s child-care advisory board Web site.