EXCHANGE: UI lab has watched children grow for 75 years

URBANA, Ill. (AP) - It’s tough to beat Patrick and Susan Fitzgerald in the “How did you two meet?” small-talk category at parties.

The couple, married for 31 years, met in preschool.

Specifically, they were in the same classroom for two years at the University of Illinois Child Development Lab. He claims to remember stealing peas off of her plate.

“At least I was told by her mother that’s what I did,” he said.

Like other alumni, the Fitzgeralds also sent their children to CDL, a combined preschool, teaching facility and research lab where students and faculty study how children develop.

The popular lab school is celebrating its 75th anniversary.

More than 4,000 students have attended CDL since it opened in 1942 in the English Building on the UI Quad.

The first director, Nellie Perkins, was recruited to campus to set up the program. She was a chemist by training but wanted to apply the scientific method to the study of children’s growth and development.

The idea was that students could learn more about development by observing children firsthand, CDL Director Brent McBride said.

The English Building was not ideal for that purpose, so, in 1955, the lab school moved to a new building. The new facility - built to keep the highly recruited Perkins at the UI, McBride said - has classrooms sized for young children, observation booths where faculty and college students can study them, and pullout rooms for research studies.

“She really wanted an environment that was dedicated to the study of children’s development,” McBride said.

In 2003, CDL opened up a second building, doubling its capacity and providing much-needed child care slots, especially for infants and toddlers. It now enrolls 160 children in 12 full-day classrooms across the two buildings.

The school prides itself on providing high-quality education, accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, a rigorous process that goes beyond typical licensing standards, McBride said. But its primary purpose is to support teaching and research, he said.

The facility proved immediately popular with families on campus, offering half-day classes several mornings a week. Over time, half-day programs have given way to full-day classes as families’ needs changed, McBride said.

It has also diversified its enrollment since McBride took over in 1990. Once a “faculty club,” he said, the school now splits its enrollment equally among children of UI faculty, support staff, college students and community members with no other relationship to the UI.

Of the 160 slots, a quarter to a third go to families from low-income backgrounds, and the school also participates in a child care assistance program.

“It’s a really diverse population,” which is necessary for good research, McBride said.

It remains highly sought-after. Once families are accepted, their children can stay until they go to kindergarten, and few leave. Only 17 openings were available this fall, McBride said.

The Fitzgeralds - who got together for good during high school - used a novel strategy when filling out the CDL application for their oldest child, Maggie, in 1994.

“We made sure to note that Susan and I were both alumni of CDL,” Pat Fitzgerald said. “We thought it would be very interesting to study the offspring of CDL alums.”

Ian Hobson, music director of Sinfonia de Camera and emeritus UI music professor, sent all seven of his children to CDL, including Jeremy Hobson, host of Boston public radio’s nationally syndicated program “Here and Now.”

“It was a unique kind of place. It seemed a perfect place for preschool and preparation for further education later. And it was of course extremely convenient,” said Ian Hobson, who lived nearby in Urbana.

“It did seem tailor-made for our lifestyle and the children growing up. It was a wonderful, wonderful resource,” he said.

Jeremy Hobson said his mom, Claude, liked and trusted the CDL teachers so much that she hired them as baby sitters.

“I had nothing but happy memories about CDL. Maybe that’s because I was playing with toys,” he said. “I think it’s great to have a school like that connected to a university.”

Deborah Katz-Downie and her husband, Professor Stephen Downie, sent their three children to CDL in the 1990s. They live nearby, and both work in the UI Department of Plant Biology at Morrill Hall, a few blocks away at the corner of Goodwin Avenue and Illinois Street. They would pack up the kids in strollers, drop them off at CDL and walk to work.

But most important to them, particularly because they were from out of town, was the quality of the environment for children, she said.

“When I observed the teachers, I never felt I had to be concerned about how they were talking to the kids. They are just absolutely fabulous,” she said. “And their focus is on learning and how to play and get along. They develop very nicely.”

Katz-Downie and her husband created an ongoing scholarship fund at CDL, named in memory of her sister, Lauren Beth Katz, who loved children but died before she was able to have any of her own. It’s intended to help families who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford CDL, she said.

“We thought this was a great way to honor her memory,” Katz-Downie said. “It’s such a fabulous environment for children and families.”

Fitzgerald remembers watching New Year’s celebrations around the world with his kids on Dec. 31, 1999.

“The kids would say, ’Oh, that’s where Tahar is from, Niger,’” he said. “They had classmates from almost every continent. What a fabulous opportunity for the kids to be exposed to so many different cultures.”

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Source: The (Champaign) News-Gazette, http://bit.ly/2ArsCsu

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Information from: The News-Gazette, http://www.news-gazette.com