A balancing act

Who said babies don’t belong on campus?

Four-month-old Ethan Bauer spends just as much time on the University of Idaho campus — if not more — than fulltime students. That’s because his parents, Wes and Katie Bauer, are students too.

Katie, a 35-year-old graduate student in family and consumer sciences, said her class schedule is staggered with her husband’s this semester so the couple can take turns caring for their newborn.

“Our classes fortunately alternate,” she said. “So he has him when I’m in class and I take him when he’s in class. We basically just pass him over. It’s gets pretty hectic at times, but it’s been working for us so far.”

The Bauer household is just one of the many student families at UI that manage to balance the art of changing diapers with the grind of college life.

“I think that non-traditional student is becoming a lot more common on this campus,” Katie said. “Definitely when we first got here, we felt like we were fish out of water as we strolled our double stroller through campus.”

Making the choice

Two student parents and three children currently make up the Bauer household. Formerly a stay-at-home mom, Katie said just 10 years ago she never would have imagined herself back in school.

The high school sweethearts, hailing from Jerome, Idaho, moved to Moscow in 2012 to finish the bachelor’s degrees they started in the late ’90s. Wes’ concrete contracting business was struggling in the face of the economic downturn and a fading real estate market. Katie said going back to school to change their career paths was a tough choice they made for their growing family.

“It was difficult,” Katie said. “We had a business. We had a home. We had our life already. Our families lived down there and coming up here we didn’t know anybody.”

For Cary Lindsey, a 39-year-old mother of three from Mississippi, the choice to go back to school was one she had to make on her own.

“Right before I had my children, I was actually in the process of purchasing equipment to open a restaurant, like that was my goal,” Lindsey said, who is now a doctoral student in the Department of Geosciences. “But shortly after my third kid, I separated from their father. When I later tried to re-enter the workforce, I wasn’t able to get the kind of job I had before. I’d get a call back and I’d say I have all this experience but I’d get,’ well you don’t have a degree,’ so I just kind of realized I was gonna keep running into that.”

While raising her children, Lindsey finished her undergraduate degree at Mississippi State University, and then decided to search for a researcher in her area of study that would give her the resources she needed to try for her master’s degree.

UI professor Jerry Fairley was that person. Lindsey’s area of interest is in geothermal energy systems, and she said Fairley’s projects and passion for research encouraged her to come to UI and explore the West on her own.

“When I met with him, I stressed to him I’m a mom,” she said. “I have three kids. I’m not your average graduate student maybe, so I need to live in a place that’s child friendly and where I can be a part of a community — not just a part of a university.”

Chaotic schedules

While Bauers’ oldest son, Samuel, is in school, their daughter Lydia is interacting with Vandal offspring four days a week at the UI Children’s Center. Katie said the center has been a tremendous resource for the family because it’s an affordable option for students who spend most days on campus.

“We leave the house at 7:45 a.m. Most nights we’re not home until at least 6 p.m.,” Katie said. “When the kids have evening activities, it’s not until maybe 8 p.m. we come home.”

The couple said they have received support from many facets on campus. Wes, Katie’s husband who is double majoring in molecular biology and nutrition, said a professor of his offered to babysit Ethan for a few moments so he could go into the lab and get some work done.

With Katie’s TA position, Wes’ lab work, two class schedules and an infant’s schedule, the Bauers have learned to “go with the flow.”

Katie said she and Wes often study while taking care of Ethan in between classes and work. She said they’ve used the graduate office and Women’s Center a few times, but most often make camp in the Idaho Commons because it’s one of the loudest areas on campus — so Ethan can be a baby without disturbing anyone.

While Katie thinks UI has made improvements for nontraditional students in recent years, she said there’s still one thing missing.

“I would love to see a space where kids are somewhat contained, but have the ability to move around, talk and interact and not disrupt the other students,” she said. “We’re all there to learn — we all have the same goal — but some of us just have a different entourage.”

Though the Bauers have a full schedule, Katie said her family has it relatively easy compared to others.

“There are so many single parents on campus and I think they have an extremely challenging job,” she said. “We can work as a team and say ‘I have this project I really need to work on,’ and we can take turns taking a few hours of undivided time to get that taken care of — but a single parent can’t.”

Enter Lindsey. Being a single parent has forced her to create a consistent schedule for her family, because she doesn’t have as much wiggle room as the Bauers.

Instead of passing one of her children off to a partner, Lindsey aims to stick to a schedule that allows her to be a student at school and a mom at home.

“I decided early on that I have to have some sort of program, some sort of plan to make this work because normally I’m kind of chaotic, and that doesn’t work with kids,” Lindsey said.

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Lindsey is all work — going to class, studying and doing research. But after the school day is over, Lindsey leaves the work behind and gives her attention to her children.

“When I get done around 5 p.m., I can be a mom and take kids to hockey and football and dance and everything else that they do, cook dinner, spend time with them and tuck them into bed,” she said.

While most students cram for exams in the wee hours of the morning, Lindsey said she couldn’t study that way because her kids depend on her to get up early and get them to school on time.

She said although she runs a tight ship, she thinks it enables her to be both a good student and a good mother, and not compromise one for the other.

“I can’t say ‘well I’m gonna go have a beer with my friends and have dinner and then I’ll do it,'” Lindsey said. “I don’t have that option, so I think it keeps me productive in that sense.”

Financing family

The one struggle both families have is finances.

Both the Bauer and Lindsey family have supplemented their education costs with student loans to support their families.

“One of our biggest troubles I would say is budgeting out those student loans,” Katie said. “You get it in August and you try to stretch it to February because you have to split that over the year. Even though you get that next one in January, it’s not going to last you until August.”

Lindsey said she often dismisses the argument that people who pull out their maximum amount of student loans are “doomed” and only do it because they “don’t want to work.”

Lindsey said she has relied on student loans because she has no other choice. She understands student loan funds are money she eventually has to pay back, but said she would rather have to pay them off for the rest of her life than not do something she loves and establishing a future for her and her children.

“I could have increased income quicker, made more sense than taking a slower route and not having debt,” Lindsey said. “We’ll be able to recover from it, money is not something that I care a lot about, what I care about is my kids.”

Katie said completing school is rewarding, regardless of the debt incurred — because in the long run, it will be more financially stable to have debt and a well-paying job, than having no debt and working enough to break even.

Student families at UI

Establishing a kid-friendly study and lounge space for student-parents isn’t the only improvement UI can make to better fit the needs of nontraditional students — though both families believe it’s the most important one.

Lindsey, who recently became president of the Nontraditional Student Club, said the group is advocating for more nontraditional student connectivity, extended tutoring hours, extended childcare hours, family activities and the creation of the Junior Vandal Program.

Lindsey said the Junior Vandal Program would allow students’ children entry into various UI-sanctioned activities and events, such as athletic games. She said the change is essential to making student families feel comfortable and welcomed at UI.

Currently, student-parents can use their Vandal Card to get into football games for free. However, the entry does not include their children.

“We would really like to see the Athletic Department acknowledge that there’s this whole group of children on campus that could come to the games, and we could fill those seats and they’re eager to do that,” Lindsey said.

Lindsey said the children could even receive their own mini Vandal Cards for access.

In addition to the Junior Vandal Program, Lindsey said she has talked to the UI Dean of Students Office about extending the hours for childcare services and tutoring programs.

Katie said she’s on board for extending childcare hours. She said instead of establishing an entirely new program, the UI Children’s Center should consider extending service hours, because the staff are already accredited and qualified to do it.

She said it’s difficult to find childcare at night, which makes attending night classes and other evening events a struggle.

“I think one of the biggest challenges is childcare,” she said. “You can find it during the day but you can’t find it at night.”

Where the kids stand

It’s safe to say, Lindsey said, that children benefit from their parents going to school.

“They know I’m in school,” Lindsey said. “Do they realize that maybe going to school at my age isn’t the norm? I don’t think so, but I honestly think they wouldn’t care if they did know that.”

Lindsey said her attending school gives her children the impression that college is less of a choice and more of a necessity.

The same goes for the Bauer children.

Though only the eldest understands that mom and dad go to school, Wes said it’s more of an understanding that mom and dad are working.

“I think he looks at it as more of a job,” Wes said. “Like he calls me a scientist because I work in a lab.”

Lindsey said her 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. plan has worked exceptionally well — with a few bumps along the way — but should easily transition to a fulltime career in the near future.

“They are already used to me ‘working’ from 9 to 5,” Lindsey said. “So I don’t think it will be looked at much differently. But, I do know they’re proud of me … and that makes it all worth it.”