Chapman’s Children Center hosted its last annual Mother’s Day Tea Party on Friday.

The room was packed with more than 60 parents and children. The tables were set with teapots, scones and sandwiches. However, the parents’ impending search for a new day care center dampened the holiday spirit.

The teachers and parents of children who attend the center didn’t see the Sept. 30 closure coming. Chapman’s recent announcement of the center’s $500,000 deficit also came as a surprise. The University is subsidizing Chapman families’ costs at new day care centers, executive vice president Harold Hewitt said in his e-mail memo to University employees.

“I’m just in shock, because we teachers didn’t have any idea,” said one of the center’s teachers who asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing her job.

For 37 years, Chapman University faculty, staff, students and members of the Orange community sent their children to the center. The center, originally located in the Residence Life area, was moved to the First United Methodist Church on South Orange Street to make way for Glass Hall.

Hewitt and Alyssa O’Hara, director of the Children’s Center, declined to comment.

While the administrators involved in the decision to close the center are keeping quiet, parents have been open to discussing the change.

Chancellor Daniele Struppa enrolled his two-year-old daughter Arianna upon moving to Orange in January 2006. Having the option of the center was one less decision to make upon starting his new job and helped him meet other staff and faculty who used the center.

“It was a way for me to get to know my colleagues,” Struppa said. “In a sense, they were not seeing the chancellor. They were seeing a dad.”

He also said he enjoyed seeing Chapman students observe and play with the children at the center. Psychology students were required to observe the center’s children for child development classes.

He particularly remembers the center’s teachers taking the children to various department offices on Halloween to trick-or-treat.

“It was really nice for me because I was working all day long,” Struppa said. “[Arianna] was excited that she was going to get to see her dad at work.”

He understands that Hewitt’s decision to close the Children’s Center was difficult, but he emphasized that everyone isn’t going to be happy when an institutional change is made.

“We can’t paralyze ourselves by saying ‘we will only do something when everybody is happy,’” Struppa said.

The teacher, who has worked at the center for 19 years, is frustrated by Hewitt’s memo, which said that the administration will not re-open the Children’s Center.

“They say they value education, but I guess they’re not valuing early childhood education,” she said.

The teacher felt bad for the children who must transition to a new day care center.

Char Williams, senior administrative assistant for the office of publications, recently adopted her two-year-old son Kwali from Ethiopia and enrolled him at the center.

“To have him be there for two months and be told the University is closing, it is devastating,” Williams said. “He has lost a lot in his life as it is.”

Williams, a single mother, will accept the subsidy that Chapman is offering to transition to a new day care center, but doesn’t think it will be very helpful. Williams doesn’t know how much the Chapman subsidy is because she hasn’t spoken with the Human Resources department yet.

Adan Mendoza, father of three-year-old Rocky, has been bringing his son to the center since February.

“We’re really disappointed and heartbroken,” Mendoza said. “This is [Rocky’s] first day care, and he really loves it. He loves the school, the teachers, the kids, everything. We were just really happy with him learning how to socialize and the basics for kindergarten.”

Carol Jue, women’s basketball coach and mother of Carson, who has attended the center for two years, felt like she had taken the Mother’s Day celebrations for granted because the center has been around for so long, she said.

“It was sad because everyone was thinking in the back of their minds, ‘no more of these,’” Jue said.


Contact these reporters:breana.fischer@thepantheronline.com and daniel.langhorne@thepantheronline.com