-Anna Markowitz, Associate Professor, Department of Education, Co-Director of the Study of Early Education through Partnerships

-Andrea S. Goldman, Associate Professor, Department of History & Director, UCLA Asia Pacific Center

The UCLA Faculty Association is open to all ladder faculty, clinical faculty, lecturers, and emerit faculty. Please join at uclafa.org/join! If you have any questions about this web page, please email Michael Chwe at michael@chwe.net.

I first stepped foot in the classroom as an undergraduate work-study student in 2012. After graduating, I spent seven years teaching across all three ECE centers (and was one of the first to return to campus during the COVID-19 pandemic to support UCLA’s essential workforce). My experiences in the classroom shaped my love for early childhood development and ultimately my path to graduate school.

Yesterday, I received news that my first publication was accepted in one of the premier journals in early childhood research. I owe so much of the student, educator, and researcher I am today to UCLA ECE. These centers have an impact that extends far beyond the classroom, and losing ECE is a loss for the entire UCLA community.

— Flora S. Ziprin | Infant-Toddler Teacher | PhD Student, Department of Education | First-Generation College Graduate | Triple Bruin

- Auyon Siddiq, Associate Professor, UCLA Anderson School of Management

My child thrived at ECE, which gave me the peace of mind I needed to focus on studying and internship. I trusted the teachers I left him with and knew he would be loved and cared for by world class early childhood education professionals. I graduated this year and my child moved on to kindergarten, exceptionally well prepared and excited, knowing that school is a place of joy and opportunity.

Future Bruins deserve the same opportunity to attend, contribute, develop, and thrive as I have as part of the UCLA community, in thanks to the ECE program. Closing it would be a catastrophic loss to UCLA.

I am very grateful for the quality of care that my two children receive. The ECE Kreiger campus is beautiful, with grassy green hills and verdant trees. The teachers emphasize socio-emotional learning and cultural diversity in addition to academic preparation. My kiddos love going to school and even ask about their friends and teachers when we are on vacation!

UCLA ECE has also been an incredible resource to undergraduate student interns, who get hands-on experience working with young children so that they can go on to become the next generation of leaders in childhood development research and practice. My children have developed great relationships with the student interns that work in their classrooms.

LA is struggling with an increasing childcare shortage. I am worried about the ability to find comparable high-quality childcare in Westwood if ECE were to close, especially for my baby who is not yet eligible for preschool.

Investing in UCLA ECE means investing in working families, in the students and patients that we serve, and in our youngest Bruins. I call upon UCLA leadership to reverse this short-sighted decision.

-Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi, Associate Professor, UCLA Department of Asian American Studies, Winner of the 2025 ACLS Open Access Book Prize in History

--Prof. Gregory Leazer

UCLA Department of Information Studies

+Foster a supportive workplace culture for UCLA parents.

+Expand UCLA’s network of early child care providers.

+Increase availability of on-campus care for children 0-3

+Subsidize child care costs for UCLA faculty, staff and students.

Closing ECE is in exact opposition to UCLA's own recommendations for itself.

You might object: that's just childcare, so why can't our family go elsewhere? Simply put, there is no equivalent option anywhere close to campus. Bright Horizons may offer some spaces in Westwood (subsidized by UCLA!), but their preschool rooms do not have outside windows, and their playground is a parking lot. They also have a waitlist. I know; I got on it when I was pregnant.

Like many faculty members, I am not from California, making the statewide childcare shortage incredibly difficult to navigate. As it stands, for every space in LA, 8 children need care, and Krieger currently provides the majority of licensed infant care in Westwood. I rely on ECE to enable my continued work on campus.

If UCLA proceeds with the closure, it will be an incredible loss, even a betrayal, following the devastating loss of Fernald last fall, which we were told would ensure the longterm stability of the program.

Beyond logistics, ECE offers more than the essentials; it has given our children a start to their educations, something we want to be every bit as world-class as the education offered at other levels at UCLA. ECE has offered our boys wonderful, nurturing teachers and a space that often feels like a sanctuary in the urban landscape. It is essential for making Los Angeles work for our family.

- Erica Weaver, Associate Professor of English

Faculty life has become less and less doable in recent years, for myriad reasons, but this shouldn't become another one. Let's not ignore years of faculty efforts to protect ECE, nor disregard the gender equity consequences of removing this lifeline. Please reverse course now.

Jessica Cattelino

Professor of Anthropology and American Indian Studies

Director, Center for the Study of Women/Barbra Streisand Center

I am a UCLA faculty member, and one of my children was a student in the ECE classroom where a teacher who worked in UCLA preschools for 25 years was convicted of sexually abusing three-year-old children. This teacher was placed on leave in 2023, arrested in 2024, convicted in 2025, and remains at large. 

UCLA has never investigated how this child abuse occurred or how it handled the aftermath. Affected families were not notified humanely of what happened, and continue to be denied information and resources. Now, amid budget concerns and potentially significant liability, UCLA is closing the centers without publicly confronting what went wrong.

The United States remains an outlier among wealthy nations in failing to provide families with accessible, affordable, high-quality child care. If UCLA is truly committed to being the connective, impactful, and exemplary public institution Chancellor Frenk says it aspires to be, eliminating its child-care centers does precisely the opposite.

Closing the centers cannot substitute for transparency, accountability, and meaningful change. UCLA must address its failures—for the sake of its employees, parenting students, and the thousands of minors it serves across campus. UCLA must do better!

However- I'm aware that there were some major failures of leadership and accountability that are part of the reason for this disastrous closure plan. Closing down the program is not the solution . This is perhaps a 'way out' , that utterly fails UCLA families. The consequences of shuttering these programs will be disastrous. UCLA must do better.

-Carrie Bearden, PhD, UCLA Semel Institute/Departments of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Psychology

David Sklansky

Professor, UCLA School of Law, 1994-2005

UCLA ECE is essential to UCLA families and to our community. We are not simply providing child care, we are helping build the foundation for the next generation. We take our profession seriously and bring care, compassion, knowledge, and intention into everything we do in our classrooms.

The children in our care are developing into critical thinkers, little engineers, problem-solvers, and compassionate human beings. Through meaningful relationships, play, exploration, and learning, we help children develop the skills and confidence they will carry with them throughout their lives. We are so much more than child care; we are educators who teach, nurture, and inspire.

UCLA ECE has also had a deeply personal impact on my family. My son attended both Krieger and Fernald, and knowing that he was in a safe, nurturing, and high-quality environment allowed me to focus on my work while having peace of mind. For two years, he was just a short walk away from me. As a working parent, having my child so close and knowing he was receiving exceptional care made an enormous difference in our lives.

ECE made it possible for me to be both a dedicated teacher and a present mother. This program supports not only children, but entire UCLA families. Protecting and investing in UCLA ECE means investing in our children, our families, our educators, and the future of our community.

Edith Aguirre

UCLA Early Care and Education

Krieger Center

Los Angeles is an expensive and expansive city, and this is not lost on people who are considering whether to move here as they ponder having kids. Without UCLA childcare, I think that the university's efforts to recruit new faculty will be harmed. It is also not a good look to appear family-unfriendly, in particular toward new mothers.

Our second son started there right at that time at 4 months old in one of the infant classes. I cannot say enough about that classroom. The teachers were phenomenal. Not only did our baby get such tender loving care, but he grew into a self-sufficient and confident toddler. His bubbly, goofy and vivacious personality was not stifled. He was taught to be who he is. He transitioned to a toddler room and has now been in an early preschool room. He is about to turn 3 years old. He is thriving, to say the least. He comes home telling us all he learned. He never wants to leave when we come pick it up. It is a joy to see and I couldn't be happier.

We were supposed to have our third kid, currently still in utero, start at Krieger in April 2027 at 4 months old. We were so excited. We didn't look at any other child care centers - why would we!?

Now we are stuck figuring out what we will do this spring for infant care.

Not only is infant care so hard to find, but good childcare and education is very hard to find near UCLA. Bright Horizons is the only convenient place near UCLA. If I have to drive my baby to Santa Monica or some place else (and anything than Westwood is far in LA world) it will require me to see less patients as I will have to arrive to work later and leave earlier. My revenue will go down, which means the money I bring into UCLA will go down and the money I take home. As a single income family, this will be devastating.

Additionally, we don't just want a daycare. We want a childhood education center. Our children deserve to be educated, to have curriculum that is age appropriate, not to just be babysat all day. ECE does this. These are not glorified babysitters, they are educators and teachers and they are excellent at what they do. Plus the love they provide is unparalleled. Both Krieger and UV have excellent outdoor spaces, which also are hard to rival anywhere on the west side of LA. Being outside is crucial to childhood development.

UCLA NEEDS TO REVERSE COURSE HERE. Not only is it essential for the children, but it is essential for the faculty, staff and student who use these services and often came to UCLA because this institution exists. Recruitment will suffer, productivity will suffer, children will suffer.

-Dr. Kelsey Rose, Assistant Clinical Professor, UCLA OBGYN

UCLA ECE provides so much to the UCLA community, including:

-Connectedness to other UCLA parents

-Learning from expert early childhood teachers

-Nurturing, reliable, educational, and fun schools for our kids

-Opportunities to work hard on campus and still be involved in kids' school activities

I wish for university leadership that prioritizes our actual needs. We need childcare. We need community. We need support. We need these things more than ever.

I'm honestly still shocked and devastated by this news. I can't believe university leaders could fail to recognize what an incredibly special, cutting edge program they have in ECE. I also simply, naively, cannot believe university leaders could care so little about us folks who dedicate entire careers to the university, or about their students and staff who work even harder with far fewer privileges.

ECE has been remarkable for my family. Like others, I joined waitlists years before having an actual child. My baby started at Fernald at 4 months old. Working a few blocks away as a new, insecure parent and getting so much love and support from her teachers was priceless. I am forever grateful to the incredible teachers and staff.

I wish for this type of support for all of my colleagues and UCLA community members.

Natalia Ramos, MD

Associate Professor, DGSOM

I was immensely grateful for ECE’s tireless efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. For all faculty, and particularly those of us in medicine, the pandemic brought extraordinary challenges. With robust surveillance procedures, we felt confident that ECE’s policies and practices were the best possible efforts to protect the safety of children and staff. Our son was able to flourish socially and developmentally during an unprecedented time, and we remain very thankful for that opportunity – one that very few parents had during the height of the pandemic.

In contrast, I was very disappointed with leadership’s communication after the child abuse incident, and expected far more from UCLA in terms of communication and crisis response. I remain concerned that the communication failures were not adequately addressed, years later. However, closing ECE, and depriving the campus community of highly-quality child care, is an inappropriate response. UCLA needs to invest in improving infrastructure that makes faculty careers possible, instead of dismantling it.

Sonya Gabrielian, Associate Professor, UCLA DGSOM Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences

Time use surveys reveal that women continue to shoulder a majority of child care in the US. So in practice, we know where the burden falls. It's on our professors and their work. This university's considerable infrastructure should be built to make excellence possible. It's why every other top university offers on campus childcare.

As part of the Senate committee on employee welfare, we have asked for years to help fundraise to financially support on campus child care and educational opportunities. We have received no information or openness to the offer of assistance.

Why can't we help solve your problems?

Naomi Zewde, Assistant Professor, Fielding School of Public Health

When I became pregnant with my first child in 2021, I immediately started searching for childcare options, assuming (as did all my peers) that UCLA would have an affordable option for early-career faculty and staff. I was shocked to find out that my only options through UCLA were about double what I could afford on my salary. It was baffling-- how was someone who took home $4,800 a month expected to pay $3,000 of that for childcare in order to work? How could the university reasonably set the cost of childcare so high, when they know what they pay us?

In order to pursue an academic career, most people have to move far from their families and support networks. At a university like UCLA, which is located in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Los Angeles and the country, there is an added strain for faculty and staff trying to access affordable childcare in a neighborhood where it is nonexistent.

Nearly five years after the birth of my first child I am just as stuck with my second with no affordable options that provide the peace of mind needed to perform my work at a high level, which is why I came to UCLA in the first place. The wager is becoming increasingly desperate. This closure sends a signal that UCLA is not concerned about its workers who have or desire to have children. The message is-- if you want to work here, don't have kids.

This is not a conundrum that is unique to me or to UCLA, but it is a particularly egregious missed opportunity and short-sighted abandonment of faculty needs at this juncture. UCLA has the facilities, the staff, the knowledge and the resources to sustain something truly state-of-the-art and special in regard to early childcare, but it is choosing to abandon this opportunity and lower its own status as a University and desirability as a workplace in the process. It is an embarrassing divestment in the literal future of the campus, and it is a divestment that has been going on for too long. Decreases in funding and respect for the ECE programs on campus have had catastrophic effects for families in the fallout of the mismanaged and terribly sad events of 2023-4. Such events can only transpire when morale and good management are low, which they have been for years due to the lack of funding and lack of recognized importance the ECE's receive.

I join the chorus of people calling for a reevaluation of how we treat and fund early childcare education at UCLA, and plead for those who make these decisions to recognize that they are only in their positions because, somewhere along the line, they had or had access to quality childcare. Everyone--our faculty, staff, and students--deserves that opportunity. There is a better way forward, and to squander this opportunity would not only be shameful but harmful to the mission of the University.

If parents are constantly asked to work on razor thin margins and still, repeatedly, get the job done, we trust the University, with its many, many resources, can do the same.

Catherine Provenzano

Assistant Professor, Musicology

We showed up at UCLA in the middle of the pandemic.  The skilled, experienced, and caring teachers at Fernald are literally the way we were able to go to work each day and actually write our books and articles and teach hundreds of UCLA students.  At the time the university called the ECE teachers “essential workers.”  Certainly they were essential to me.  They are just as essential today: Without their help, the work of faculty and staff parents at the university would grind to a halt. 

—Joey Fishkin, Professor of Law, and author/coauthor of the books Bottlenecks and The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution, the latter of which I completed while my son was in the care of the amazing teachers at Fernald.

A couple of years later, one of my graduate students also needed daycare for her baby, and was able to get a spot at the UV daycare, which let her resume her studies, ultimately writing a thesis that rewrote the textbooks. It felt like such progress that UCLA had the resources to allow new mothers, like my student and me, to return to our studies - while also letting us bond with our babies just a short walk across campus. The best of all worlds.

It is simply heartbreaking that UCLA has so abruptly decided to end those resources for the next generation of Bruin families. Junior faculty will choose to go elsewhere, and UCLA will be significantly diminished as a result.

Samantha Butler

Professor,

Department of Neurobiology, DGSOM

Helen Deutsch

Professor of English and Disability Studies

Founder, Disability Studies Minor

Former Director, Center for 17th- & 18th- Century Studies/William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

Inaugural Winner, College Deans’ Lecture Award (Humanities)

To build a strong and dedicated faculty and staff, certain essential needs must be fulfilled. ECE exactly fits that roll. To cut it out, makes clear that the administration is both shortsighted and mis-attuned to the needs of those who make up this great university.

- Jon Aurnou, Chair and Professor of the Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences

Safiya Noble

David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair of Social Sciences and Professor of Gender Studies

The extraordinary work of the teachers at ECE is one of the most important supports, if not the most important, for UCLA faculty members who are also parents of young children to be effective and productive academic members who contribute to the UCLA community as much as possible.

These early-career years are so critical to the development and production of scholarly work and the effective teaching of our undergraduate and graduate learners, and successes in these spheres are those that institutions such as UCLA purport to value and support so that our stated core missions of research, education, and community service can be furthered.

The decision to shutter ECE highlights the question of what UCLA's core missions actually are today.

Academic institutions often like to talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk, a university's core values are reflected and exposed in decisions like this one.

I deeply hope for current and future UCLA faculty, staff, and student families that this decision is reversed.

Our family will always be grateful to our beloved ECE teachers.

“Who are you doing this for?”

The answer has always been simple: the children.

Every decision, every lesson, and every action should put children first. They deserve the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive.

That is why UCLA’s decision to close this program is so painful. ECE matters. Children matter. Families matter. Educators matter.

Today, we stand together because our children are worth fighting for. We use our voices because they deserve to be heard. We advocate because they deserve a future where they can thrive.

And no matter the outcome, we want them to know:

We stood up for you.
We fought for you.
We chose you.

Donald B. Kohn, M.D.

Distinguished Professor

Depts. of MIMG, Pediatrics and MMP

Marcus A. Horwitz, M.D.

Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics

Nandita Garud, PhD

Associate Professor

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Gregory Donaldson, PhD

Assistant Professor

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics

None of that happened in a vacuum. In today's shifting funding environment, UCLA leadership has specifically urged faculty to increase the number of grants we submit. Many of us did, despite already submitting every grant we could while still doing the research that generates the preliminary data those grants depend on. That means even longer days, and many, many hours for my kids at Krieger. I can only do what the university is asking of me because I know my children are safe, loved, and part of a real community. Now the same leadership that demands more from us is dismantling the very thing that makes it possible.

For my family, closing Krieger means scrambling for a spot at an unknown daycare, losing our community, and adding commute time to already impossible days. And we are among the lucky ones. Our students and postdocs cannot possibly afford private childcare near UCLA, and UCLA's own Faculty Welfare Committee recently heard junior faculty testify that virtually none can afford childcare on their salary alone.

UCLA has an entire Office of Inclusive Excellence reporting directly to the Chancellor, and its commitment to supporting women in academia appears in statement after statement. UC's own research shows that work-family pressures drive faculty, and women disproportionately, out of the academic pipeline. Leadership knows this, and made this decision anyway, knowing exactly who will bear much of this cost: women at the most vulnerable stage of their scientific careers, the very people those statements claim to champion. Inclusion is not a slogan. It is a childcare spot, a manageable commute, a community that lets a mother run a lab. As a woman and early-career scientist, this closure tells me what those commitments are actually worth.

Brunilda Balliu, PhD

Assistant Professor

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, DGSOM

This isn't the only place I’ve seen ECE's influence extend beyond its own classrooms. Over the past five years, I have served as a subject matter expert on several committees for the California Department of Education as we worked to implement UPK and improve standards, assessments, and curricula for young children. Throughout my service on these committees, I used UCLA ECE as a benchmark for many of my suggestions. I described innovative practices that I'd observed the teachers using in their classrooms. I showed photos of children’s work from the classroom walls. I was proud to describe what UCLA ECE was doing. That is the kind of statewide impact UCLA should be having on early childhood education.

Given all of this, I was shocked to see UCLA justify the closure by citing the “need to focus its resources on the university’s core mission of teaching, research and public service.” As a scholar of early childhood development and pedagogy, I can say plainly: ECE is a direct site for all three of those missions. Shutting it down doesn’t protect UCLA's mission; it abandons a program that has been fulfilling that mission for decades.

That mistake is even harder to justify given the moment we’re in. California, along with the rest of the United States, is in a child care crisis, and we need bold solutions and public investment to ensure that working families have the support they need. Shutting down ECE is a devastating loss for the children, families, and educators who are directly affected, and a loss to the UCLA community at large. What message are we sending if we abandon the youngest, most vulnerable Bruins? Instead, imagine the transformation we could have if UCLA became a champion of early childhood, offering the kind of leadership the whole state needs at exactly this moment.

-Anne Blackstock-Bernstein, PhD

Lecturer, UCLA Department of Education

Melody Li, PhD

Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Undergraduate Education

Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics

The teachers both at Krieger and UVU have been incredibly supportive since the day my son started school around 18 months. They are skilled professional in early care and education. I feel so fortunate to have such dedicated and passionate teachers who’ve taught my son over these years. They’ve helped him flourish. As a staff member it’s also given me the peace of mind I need to be able to perform my duties at UCLA.

I’m devastated that our leadership at UCLA has taken such a staunch position without consulting its UCLA community. As a former student and now staff I don’t feel that this embodies the true bruin values. There’s a saying that goes “where there’s a will there’s a way.” UCLA leadership gave up on families that depend on ECE.

I hope if UCLA leadership is reading this that they consider these testimonials. What if it was you? Your family? Your education or livelihood on the line? I’m certain the outcome would be far different. I can only hope for a different outcome.

Childcare gives UCLA working parents the space to teach, lead, think, and create.

Childcare builds community.

Childcare is fundamental.

Childcare keeps UCLA strong.

Childcare realizes Bruin values.

The ECE allowed me to join UCLA as a working parent, to shape a career dedicated to teaching, service, and research.

UCLA employees teach, mentor, and protect California’s children. Don’t neglect ours.

Sarah Abrevaya Stein

Distinguished Professor of History

Viterbi Family Endowed Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies

My now 11-year-old son attended Krieger. Having an early childhood program on campus was an absolute godsend when I moved to Los Angeles seven years ago. I really don't know how I would have managed otherwise. I was starting a new job where, because I was already a mid-career scholar, I was fully expected to hit the ground running in research, teaching, mentoring, and service. Having my son at Krieger, right there on campus, made it possible for me to do that.

But Krieger was much more than childcare for us. I am an immigrant and transnational scholar without immediate family in the US, much less in Los Angeles. Through Krieger, I was welcomed into this tight-knit community of faculty, staff, children, and families that became (and continues to be!) one of my primary networks of support in Los Angeles. And the same is true for my son. Jack still has not one, not two, but three of his closest friends from his days at Krieger. They all went on to different elementary schools and they still get together regularly seven years later.

That kind of community is not easily replaced. I find it very hard to understand how a university that talks so much about equity, belonging, and supporting its faculty, staff, and students can decide that childcare is something it no longer needs to provide. This is a real loss, not only for the families who are there now, but for all the young scholars and families UCLA hopes to recruit in the future.

- Inmaculada M. García Sánchez, Professor of Education and of Anthropology

We were able to work knowing that our children were safe, nurtured, learning, and surrounded by people who loved them. That peace of mind allowed us to do our jobs and build our careers, without having to choose between being committed parents and committed physicians.

Our daughters didn't simply receive childcare at Krieger. They thrived and we thrived, as parents. Krieger gave us a whole community of families and teachers who have since become lifelong friends. 

I am heartbroken and deeply disappointed to hear that UCLA is closing this jewel of a program. I urge UCLA leadership to reconsider this decision and to recognize the ECE program for what it truly is: not an expense to be eliminated, but an investment in UCLA's children, families, faculty, staff, and future.

When you are cutting vital services to faculty like essential childcare services and have cut down faculty hires, you are hiring two new Vice Chancellors? The financial decisions your office makes are so divorced from the every day experiences of faculty, students, and staff in academic units that it is laughable. 

We are angry, we are not "one." No one is falling for your rhetoric. 

You keep saying that you're making these decisions based on your listening sessions. But I went to two of those, and you spoke the vast majority of the time! There were maybe three questions at the end that you gave mostly non-answers to. We aren't buying that you are making decisions based on what we've said because we've hardly had the chance to speak! I can't see how this "One UCLA" plan is actually reflective of you listening, as I never did, in fact, see you listening.  

You continue to make decisions that completely ignore faculty governance. Our voices are being actively suppressed by your office. Our needs are being actively ignored by your office. Enough! You will start losing faculty over your decisions. But I am not sure that matters to you. What I am sure of is that you live in a distinctly different reality than the majority of faculty, students, and staff.

Sincerely,

Fed up faculty member and parent of children who will be negative impacted by the childcare closures