EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION: Pro-family programs are a welcome sign in academia where pro-abortion, anti-family messaging abounds
A new pre-orientation program for students with young children at Wichita State University is a campus “inclusivity” effort that conservatives can wholeheartedly support.
Along with supporting a foundational element of our society: the family, the program and others like it also counteract the anti-family and pro-abortion messages commonly heard on college campuses.
This week, the Kansas public university launched its new program with 15 students, Inside Higher Ed reports.
The “Parents and Caregivers Community Program” connects students with young children to each other, introduces them to “family-friendly spaces” on campus, and emphasizes “Wichita State’s commitment to supporting their success as student caregivers,” according to the description.
“We really thought intentionally about ‘How do we onboard student parents in family-friendly ways?’” Associate Provost Brett Petersen-Bruner told Inside Higher Ed. “That has served over the last couple years as our motivation to really think about reimagining our support for students who are parents or caregivers.”
The program is online, but the university also welcomes students to bring their children with them on campus visits. While there, the Office of Online and Adult Learning has “busy bins” for children that include age-appropriate “educational pieces, reading books, coloring pages and various activities,” Petersen-Bruner said.
The university leaders believe another important way to support these families is through connecting them with peers in similar situations.
“We know that when individuals can find their people—whether they’re students who are parents or caregivers or first-gen students or any students, for that matter—then they’ve got this. They’ve got some connections. They’ve got people they can turn to,” Petersen-Bruner told Inside Higher Ed.
The number of college students who are already parents is significant – nearly one in five, according to statistics that Trellis Strategies recently shared with The College Fix.
And although parenting students “often have limited time and may be balancing work, caregiving responsibilities, and coursework simultaneously,” they “are also highly motivated,” Allyson Cornett, the director of research at the higher education research group, told The Fix recently.
That’s one of the reasons why it is encouraging to see campuses like Wichita State step up to match their enthusiasm with support.
But there are other examples, too, as The Fix reported earlier this month:
Another instance is San Francisco State University, which opened a study room last spring specifically for parenting families on campus. It has toys, stuffed animals, children’s books, crayons and coloring pages, a white board and markers, and games, along with adult and children-sized chairs and tables.
Spokesperson David Knutson gave The Fix an update via email recently, saying, “During the semester the room gets used daily, over the summer it’s only a few times per week.”
As another example, last year, Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio opened a new maternity house near campus to provide a safe, supportive environment for students who are expecting and new mothers, The Fix previously reported.
This is what campus “inclusivity” should be focusing on, building up a core foundational element to any thriving society: the family.
MORE: 78 New York colleges provide abortions, only 9 advertise prenatal care
