By: Amy Dalrymple, INFORUM

FARGO – North Dakota State University’s child care center will remain open, the university announced Tuesday.

President Dean Bresciani said he decided to keep the center open after receiving recommendations and business plans from a committee studying the child care operation, which serves children of faculty and staff.

The center will be a permanent priority for NDSU, Bresciani said.

“The child care center clearly is a part of NDSU’s success and attractiveness to faculty, staff and students and needs to remain a priority for being continued in the future,” he said.

Last March, Bresciani announced the center would close due to budget concerns at NDSU and because officials said the center was not part of the university’s core academic mission.

Bresciani then announced he’d delay the closing after he received pleas from parents and faculty groups on campus.

He asked a committee to study the center and find a permanent solution.

On Tuesday, Bresciani said he was pleased to learn about how critical the center is to NDSU’s teaching and research mission.

Faculty and students use the center for observation and research.

“What we found is there is a very substantial and in many ways irreplaceable level of academic activity going on there,” Bresciani said.

NDSU will fund 20 percent of the center’s budget, or about $100,000, because of the academic purpose of the center.

The director will be responsible for the financial health and operation of the center. The center will remain in Evelyn Morrow Lebedeff Hall.

Canan Bilen-Green, professor of industrial engineering and a member of the committee that studied the center, said she was “absolutely thrilled” that Bresciani accepted the group’s recommendations.

“It’s a very important component of enhancing the NDSU campus climate,” Bilen-Green said. “It contributes to faculty and staff recruitment, success and retention.”

The committee also recommended that NDSU consider expanding the child care center in the future to meet the demand and to become more cost-effective.

Kevin McCaul, dean of science and math and chairman of the committee, said offering child care for different ages, such as after-school programs, may improve the finances of the center, if sized appropriately.

The center, which is nationally accredited and considered a model for other centers, typically has a long waiting list.

Bilen-Green said when she was expecting her first child, she put her son on a waiting list for the center, but an opening wasn’t available until he was 3.

“There’s definitely a gap between what is available and what the demand is,” Bilen-Green said.