’21 Honoree Shauna Adams

“Sometimes, decisions are made for us. I was on sabbatical working on my research for Catholic school preschool teachers to develop STREAM curriculum – science, technology, religion, engineering, arts, and math – and then the pandemic hit and Catholic schools closed. My sabbatical was interrupted and I had to come back and help my directors move the staff to remote work, which they did for a month or six weeks before we had to furlough them. Then my directors were furloughed. And then I had to write the protocols to be able to bring everybody back. It was kind of comical because traditionally I don’t deal with the day-to-day operations, but I found myself working with Facilities to plan big changes, like dividing up classrooms. I mean, we had to do physical remodeling and I had to learn things like how many sinks we need and – working with Katherine Cleaver, I can’t say enough about Katherine Cleaver and her team – how to order sleep mats! I had no idea how to decide that, but it had to be done well in advance or we weren’t going to get them because everybody else would have had to order them, too. They might have a Zoom meeting to show me water bottles and lunchboxes and help me decide which ones I wanted. I learned a lot, and I learned that this University has teams of people who have grace, who allowed me to make mistakes.”

“So 100% of my time was shifted to reopening the Bombeck Center during a pandemic. I had to develop those health and safety protocols, present them to the Path Forward team for approval, and then work with my directors to reopen the center safely. Of course, then it was important for us to be as transparent as possible with families who had to make difficult decisions about whether to send their child back to the Bombeck Center in the midst of the pandemic.”

“All of these responsibilities were new to me, and I really relied on my directors. Normally, my work is as the executive director of the Center for Early Learning, which means I support the director of the Bombeck Center, but I also chair the Miami Valley Family Engagement Collaborative, oversee the Bombeck Institute and Speakers Bureau, and oversee the Early Childhood Leadership and Advocacy Program. Our early childhood majors benefit from practicum experiences at the Bombeck Center and internships with the Family Engagement Collaborative. They work with our partners in the field and they also work with children and our teachers in the classroom.”

“This past year has been eye opening. It really has helped us realize the importance of the Bombeck Center as an early childhood education provider for children and their families, as well as a high-quality practicum experience for our majors. This pandemic brought the need for programs for young children to the forefront as parents struggled with working and caring for young children at home. When I would go to the UD Town Halls, I heard the Bombeck Center brought up at every single meeting. I listened to families, predominantly moms, talk about how their life had been turned upside down. Little kids do not have very good self-regulation, so it’s nearly impossible to work at home if you’re also watching children between the ages of 6 months to kindergarten. The stress that it put on women at the University, and our society, was enormous – and the strife and anxiety that they faced! I had one dad contact me and he asked, ‘Let me know how to help my wife, because this is especially hard on her.’ ”

“That was incredibly touching, but it also clearly articulated that this isn’t what people used to call ‘babysitting.’ This is supporting mental health in families, growing brains in children, and providing experiences for our students. At the exact time that we were going into the pandemic, the Profession of Early Childhood Education released some pivotal documents that drive our profession, and one of them is called The Power to the Profession. Even before the pandemic, it reported that early childhood education is too expensive for parents and does not pay enough for teachers to be able to live. That is a dichotomy that needs to be addressed.”

“As we’ve gone through the past year, we have learned how vitally important these services are to children, to families, and particularly to moms. Women workers are essential to our workforce, to our economy, and to our University. Something is going to have to give. We cannot provide quality care to children and expect parents to be able to foot that bill – many of them would have to pay more than a year’s worth of tuition at a state college or university for one year of childcare, for one child. I think that we have to look at what our priorities are as a society. If our priority is to have moms be able to work and contribute the talents that they have – they do make up half of the workforce – then we have to provide quality care and find a way to fund it, especially for children between about 6 months and 5 years of age. Affordability is one issue, but paying teachers enough is another. Look at the resilience of my teaching staff! Imagine that each and every time a child touches a toy now, it has to go in the ‘dirty toy basket’ to be washed by a ‘cleaner’ – a person who goes around the building to clean high-touch surfaces and the toys that rotate in and out of each classroom.”

“I have to tell you that I am so amazed with our two directors, Michelle Donley and Jenilyn Bell, who put in 60, 70 hours a week to make sure that health and safety protocols to keep staff and children safe were being followed, to keep parents happy, to look at budgets, and to make sure that bills were being paid. It was pure endurance and dedication to the Center. My staff should be getting this award. For example, we have one teacher, Liz Abbott, who figured out that parents who needed support might be too embarrassed to come out and ask questions. She created a blog where parents could ask questions anonymously, and Bombeck teachers would answer them based on their areas of expertise. It was very well received. I was amazed at their creativity in figuring out how to stay connected with families while also implementing safety protocols and maintaining the safety ‘bubble’ for children.”

“The Chinese use two sets of strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ The first set is ‘danger,’ and the second set is ‘opportunity.’ I would have to say the teachers and staff at the Bombeck Center certainly model how this pandemic was represented by that symbol. They embraced it when they realized that COVID brought a certain element of danger. Most of them now have to work with a completely different educational team, but they used it as an opportunity. They created some very good practices that we will keep as we move forward.”