----------------------------------------- Student Parents Room in Soda Hall By: Ginger Ogle While I was a CS graduate student, I had two children in grade school. I was usually able to arrange my classes so that I was in school when they were in school. But sometimes they were sick, or they had a school holiday, and I had the choice of bringing them with me to class, or not going to class at all. I knew three other EECS students who had this dilemma. One was a dad, his wife was also a student, and sometimes their childcare arrangements fell through and he needed to bring the baby in with him. Another woman I knew was a foreign student, and her children were staying with her parents in China while she finished grad school. Sometimes her older child would come to visit her for short periods; she wasn't taking classes anymore but she needed a place to work and read email where her child could also come. Another woman I knew was a single mother, an undergrad, and she had no other choice but to bring her children in with her during all-nighters in the lab, putting them on the floor beside her in sleeping bags. This is why we needed an office for parents. When Computer Science moved from Evans Hall to the new Soda Hall in 1993, I knew there was some flexibility about room assignments. I had a grad student friend who was the only occupant of an 8-student office; he didn't have an advisor yet. I knew about a 5-student office nearby for students with no advisors that had only 2 occupants. I asked them if they'd mind sharing one office, and they agreed. Next I went to Professor Sequin, who was in charge of room allocation, and asked him if the student parents could temporarily use the 8-student office since my friend was willing to move. I told him about the students like me who needed a place to work where their children could come too and not disturb other students. He agreed that we'd try it for one semester. Sheila Humphreys procured a small grant on behalf of WICSE which allowed me to buy a small fridge, a few toys, and a TV/VCR. Huma Dar, a CS undergrad, donated a futon sofa. Ken Stanley, a CS grad and father, got his research group (Prof. Demmel) to donate a computer. I got a computer from my group (Prof. Stonebraker) too. Other parents donated toys and books. The CS division donated computer support, network access, and a phone. -------------------------------------------- UCB Parents mailing list By: Ginger Ogle The UCB Parents mailing list was started during this period. It was called "eecs-parents". I used it to let other student parents know about the new office, and to ask for donations of toys and books. Once we had the mailing list, other suggestions were made, such as changing tables for the restrooms (parent Ken Stanley is the one who insisted on having them in the men's restroom too!) We added EECS staff people and faculty who had kids and were interested in what we'd done, and pretty soon more people wanted to join who were not in EECS. The list that started with 14 graduate students in 1993 reached 250 members in March 1996 and doubled to 500 members in March 1997. It doubled again to reach 1000 members by late 1998. In that year, we opened the list to community members as the result of a collaboration with the Neighborhood Moms organization. In 1999, the digest was split into four parts to make it more manageable, and a separate list was started for parents of teens. It currently has nearly 1700 subscribers. ucb-parents@parents.berkeley.edu http://parents.berkeley.edu/