Where little Hokies hang out

Karen DePauw, when she was the Dean of the Graduate School, had sort of a vision for a more inclusive program. She felt very strongly that not providing childcare meant that more women shied away from pursuing their graduate education, whereas more men were not making that same choice. So having a program like Little Hokie Hangout helps people to come to school, pursue their education, have a flexible way to take care of their children while they're here that's affordable, accessible, so our program allows families to register for full-time, which is all day every day, or as little as three hours a week. It's really convenient for me. I work at the Goodwin Hall, so I can travel here and be at Goodwin. My oldest, his speech was delayed, and his early intervention speech therapist recommended some kind of program just to kind of get around more kids instead of just the adults. So all of us that work here are undergrads and a lot of daycares don't want to hire people that are in school, they want people that are full time and that's something I really appreciate about them is that they took a chance on all of us and are running such a great program and you know taking the trust in undergrad students because I love working with kids, especially at this young age where every little moment and interaction that you have will benefit them in some way. That's what made me really want to do it because you know I'll make a big impact on their life. One of the beautiful parts of our program is that because we're primarily made up of graduate students, we have families from all over the world. So a lot of the children who come into our program are very young and don't speak any or much English when they arrive and it's our job to accommodate them and to help them and to help them feel comfortable and confident despite possibly a lack of understanding at the beginning. So I feel like one of the unique aspects of our program is just that real, melting pot, beautiful mixture of people that we have here.