Advocacy and Policy Issues for Students

CEW has a long history of advocacy on behalf of women students. We have made important progress on such issues as sexual harassment, campus safety, faculty-student relationships, climate issues for student parents, childcare concerns, part-time opportunities in graduate and professional programs, and representation of women in the professoriate and the administration.

The President's Advisory Commission on Women's Issues

PACWI, the President's Advisory Commission on Women's Issues, is chaired by CEW's director, Carol Hollenshead, and is staffed by CEW's Policy Manager, Beth Sullivan. This advisory commission includes faculty, staff and both undergraduate and graduate student representatives, and serves the University by providing the president and other senior leaders with advice on planning, policies and procedures affecting UM women.

Committee on Student Parent Issues

The Committee on Student Parent Issues (COSPI) has overseen implementation of a number of recommendations made in the Student Parent Task Force Report. The report and the Executive Summary are available to be downloaded.

COSPI recommended that the University quickly develop simple, low-cost lactation areas in buildings frequented by large numbers of women. Because of COSPI’s influence, University architects now include evaluation of space for lactation accommodations as part of their standard practice when designing or renovating buildings. As of winter term 2004, renovations are underway to add lactation areas in the Michigan League and Pierpont Commons, and a request has been made to the Provost to fund creation of a space in the new Palmer Commons building. The Committee also requested that diaper changing stations be installed in all renovated and newly constructed buildings on campus and that existing buildings be retrofitted with these accommodations within the next three to four years

COSPI is comprised of students with children, members of the Graduate Employees Organization, faculty, and staff from units that serve students with children. To contact COSPI, email Beth Sullivan at bsulliva@umich.edu

The Students With Children website, developed by COSPI, provides additional information for student parents.

Faculty-Student Relationship Policy

Along with PACWI, CEW was instrumental in developing the Faculty-Student Relationship Policy (SPG 601.22) which strongly discourages romantic and/or sexual relationships between faculty members and students, due to the inherent conflict of interest.

Child Care Concerns

CEW’s advocacy efforts, along with those of PACWI and other units on campus, have continued to address concerns about child care availability on UM’s campus. CEW has worked to raise funds for child care scholarships to be awarded to students who have children. These scholarships are managed through the Work-Life Resource Center.

Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS)

In 2001, a four-year grant from the Department of Education funded CEW, the Work/Life Resource Center and the Division of Student Affairs in a collaborative Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program. The project is designed to increase the University’s capacity to offer child care services to students with children, primarily through development of new home-based child care providers in the community. To date, the CCAMPIS program has contracted with nine child care providers and increased the number of child care spaces available to students by 78. All of these providers are located either within or near North Campus Family Housing and are willing to care for infants and toddlers, as well as provide evening care, per requests for such services by the Graduate Employees Organization.

As recommended by COSPI in 2003, the Provost approved supplemental funding for the CCAMPIS program so that it could serve the children of graduate students in addition to those of undergraduates, as originally required by the federal grant. CCAMPIS contractors now provide child care to one-third of all children served through University-sponsored child care programs.

Access to Education for Low Income Students

CFITE, the Coalition for Independence Through Education, is an organization of Michigan educators, researchers, advocates, student parents, college administrators and others who advocate for welfare recipients' access to college. The Coalition supports opportunities for low-income parents to complete college because extensive research has shown that completion of post-secondary education increases welfare recipients’ wages much more rapidly than does work. CFITE released a report in 2002 cfite.htm examining educational opportunities and barriers to access for Michigan's welfare recipients.