Family Presentation

1
Family Presentation

• Family Subcommittee Participants
• Shay Artzi
• Andréa Schmidt
• Pam Smalley
• Kelly Smith
• Kim Smith
• Administrative Support
• Jennifer Recklet

2
Family Needs Presentation

• An assessment of the current situation and needs
  of graduate students with families at MIT
• Family Statistics
• Cost of Living Overview
• Housing
• Child Care
• Health Care
• Administrative Support/Advocacy
• Discrimination
• Recommendations Summary

3
Family Statistics

• 38 of MIT graduate students are married/partnered

• Occupation of
• spouses/partners

4
Family Statistics (cont)

• Occupation of spouses/partners of graduate
  student parents

• 7 of MIT grad students have children, with an
  average of 1.6 children per family
• There are about 660-700 children of MIT grad
  students
• Only 14 of graduate student parents are mothers
  (28 of graduate students are women)

5
Family Statistics (cont)
6
Cost of Living Overview
7
Family Housing

• Benefits of Family Housing
• Affordable housing in proximity of work, day
  care, medical care, athletics
• Support networks betweenfamilies (e.g. shared
  babysitting)
• Balancing work and family is difficult for
  parents this is even more challenging for
  off-campus students with long commutes

8
Family Housing

• Discrepancy in the availability of housing for
  single students and families
• Available Apartments vs. Demand
• Total of family apartments on campus
• 413 (19 of on-campus total)
• 203 in Eastgate, 210 in Westgate
• Source Housing Office
• Total of married/partnered students at MIT
• 2388 (38 of all students)
• Source DSL Survey, Provosts Office
• New single students are guaranteed housing new
  family students are not

9
Housing Recommendations

• What makes building new family housing difficult?
• Building regulations for buildings occupied by
  children
• Difficult to recover cost of building through
  rents (e.g. Eastgate 2-bedroom is 1367/month,
  Edgerton 2-bedroom is 852 per person
  1704/month)
• Eastgate and Westgate level rents could not pay
  for a new building!

10
Housing Recommendations

• Solution
• Build new family housing for couples with no
  children only (entirely 1-bedrooms)
• Market as newer, nicer housing for couples who
  would prefer something more in the style of
  Edgerton but still affordable
• Edgerton 1-bedrooms are currently 1269/month and
  585 square feet a little bigger, much nicer,
  and only 123 more than Eastgate corners (the
  most popular type of family apartment)

11
Housing Recommendations

• Benefits
• Families without children are more likely to
  want/afford more expensive apartments
• This would free up space in Eastgate/Westgate,
  which may become occupied primarily by couples
  with children
• Possibility of guaranteeing housing to new family
  students
• It would also diversify the family housing market
  so that incoming families have options

12
Housing Recommendations

• Renovate part/all of Tang as Family Housing
• Resources (like the playground) can be shared
  between Tang and Westgate
• Allow Couples in Some Singles Housing
• 1-bedrooms and efficiencies in singles housing
  could accommodate couples
• Anonymous inside source says there are about 25
  illegal couples in S P and 15 in Warehouse

13
MIT Child Care Overview

• 121 full-time slots allotted for infants,
  toddlers, and preschoolers in Eastgate and the
  Stata Center
• These are shared between the children of faculty,
  staff, postdocs, and students
• A faculty committee determined in 1999 that in
  order for MIT to be competitive, we needed to 150
  additional slots Stata only added 75!
• Tuition 1274-1795/month for full time
• 15,300-21,540 per year
• Scholarship available for about 12 students
• eligible families are expected to pay 25 of
  their income per child and all scholarship money
  is taxable! Scholarships can only be used at TCC.

14
MIT Child Care - Capacity
15
Value of MIT Child Care

• Improves the happiness and productivity of
  faculty, staff, postdocs, and grad students
• Makes MIT more attractive to female grad students
  and faculty who have/want families

Family Status Tenured Women Tenured Men Non-Tenured Women Non-Tenured Men
Single 25 7 38 17
Dual-career household (spouse/partner works full-time) 65 29 62 42
Spouse/partner does not work at all or works part-time 10 64 0 45
Figures in this column based on 13 responses
Source Faculty Survey, 2001
16
Value of MIT Child Care

• Why dont parents look for off-campus child care?
• Dropping kids off at MIT saves time!
• Breast-feeding mothers can visit on-campus child
  care during the day to nurse
• Parents can have confidence that it is a well-run
  center (because of its affiliation with MIT)
• Scholarship is currently only useable at TCC

17
Child Care Recommendations

• Increase Capacity!!!!!
• Build new centers
• Buy up slots in local child care centers
  reserved for MIT parents
• Consider collaborations with local companies
  (e.g. Novartis)
• Expand scholarship program
• Some schools have scholarship programs that can
  be used to pay for any legal form of child care

18
MIT Child CareWestgate Co-op

• The Westgate co-op opened in Fall 2005!
• Pilot program is toddlers only, with capacity of
  12
• Thank you to the many people who worked on the
  co-op!
• We hope that MIT continues to support part-time
  and cooperative child care arrangements

19
Health Care

• For the last several years, family health
  insurance premiums have decreased

• We appreciate these decreases very much they
  help mitigate the financial difficulties faced by
  most families

20
Non-discrimination Policy

• Last year, we recommended that the MIT
  non-discrimination policy be amended to include
  married, partnered, or parental status.
  Although the idea was well received, the change
  was never implemented
• Discrimination continues to affect the lives of
  students with families at MIT
• We continue to urge you to implement these
  changes so that students, faculty, and staff know
  that this discrimination is against MIT policy.

21
Administrative Support/Advocacy

• Most graduate dorms have housemasters and those
  that do not had a residential life representative
  (Gabrielle Abelard) until recently
• Responsibilities include community activities
  programming, emergency management, and general
  advocacy
• Representing three graduate dorms is too
  difficult for a single person to manage
• Recommendation Hire a full-time residential life
  representative for Westgate and Eastgate, who can
  advocate for graduate student families

22
Recommendations Summary

• Housing
• Build newer/nicer couples-only housing to free up
  spots in Eastgate/Westgate
• Allow couples to live in some singles apartments
• Renovate part/all of Tang as family housing
• Child Care
• Increase Capacity!!!
• Expand scholarship beyond TCC
• Health Care
• Keep up the Good Work!
• Discrimination
• Reconsider the proposed changes to the
  non-discrimination clause
• Administrative support/advocacy
• We need stronger representation for dorms without
  housemasters