PSU Magazine Winter 1997

ngela and Alec McCulloch have their weekday morning routine down to a cience. As soon as they arrive at Portland State's Helen Gordon Child Development Center, Alec, who' two and a half years old, wriggle out of his mother's arms and run off to join in the morning's activity-puzzles, paint– ing, modeling clay. Angela signs Alec in, hangs up his coat, and get hi per nal belongings settled in his cubbyhole. Then she plays with him for a few minutes before heading off to classes or to her job at the Center for Academic Excellence on campu . It's a fami liar scenario for Angela. When he was three years old, he attended Helen Gordon while her mother, Laurie McCulloch, worked on campus at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's laboratory. She even had the very ame cubbyhole that her son now uses. Alec represents a milestone for the Helen Gordon center, which turned 25 la t year; he is the first chi ld of an alumna to be enrolled. What started as a social experiment in 1971 is now a PSU institution-one that provide quality day care while allowing parents to work, attend school, or, as i often the case, do both. "I have such great memories of Helen Gordon," says Angela. "We'd make spaceship designs on cardboard boxes, take them up this big hill and slide down. We played outside a lot, even when Mount St. Helen blew up and we had to wear masks and scarve ." Angela's best memories, and the reason she enrolled Alec at Helen Gordon, are of the staff. "The teacher were awesome." Angela's mother, Laurie, agree . "We both remember the openness of the staff. They seemed to really care about the kids. Having Angela at Helen Gordon was very much a positive experience." That' exactly what the real-life Helen Gordon would want to hear. During her lifetime, she was a long– time community advocate for early childhood services and played a key role in the center's establishment. Besides providing day care, the center that bears Gordon's name is also a lab site where academic departments can conduct descriptive and observational research. Two-thirds of the children come from student families. The other one-third are primarily from faculty and staff familie , with a few children from the greater Portland community. "The center can make the differ– ence between tudents staying in school full-time or having to either quit or take just one cla sat a time," says Ellie Nolan, the center' director. "The fact that they can get subsidized day care, right here on campu , really help." Angela McCulloch knows just how critical that help is. he's a single mom, and when she decided to carry a full load of classe and work part-time, she knew she had to find day care that both she and Alec would feel good about. "I checked out lot of day care centers. Some ju t didn't feel right. He wouldn't even leave my side at som of those places." Angela toured Helen Gordon several times without Alec. "It's so wonderful. They really respect chi l– dren here. Every time I dropped in, they were doing something interesting, like lifting up rocks outside so they could look at the ants underneath." Then she brought Alec in for a visit. "His reaction was o great. As soon as I put him down, he took off to go outside and play with the other kids." Knowing that Alec is having fun and being well cared for makes it much easier for Angela to concentrate on her job and her tudies toward a bachelor of art in sociology. "I would encourage anyone to tour the center and ee how wonderful it i ,"says Angela. "They really love th kids." D (Meg DesCamp is a Portland freelance writer.) WINTER 1997 P U MAGAZINE 15