Featured

UVA Wise and YWCA Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia Partner To Open Innovative Early Learning Center

Senta Scarborough
Alphabet blocks spell out "CAVS"

UVA Wise and YWCA of Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia (YWCA NETN and SWVA) are excited to announce the arrival of an innovative childcare center on the campus of UVA Wise. The Little Cavaliers Early Learning Center will be managed and staffed by the YWCA and provide early childhood education licensed by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). The Center is slated to open in February.

The new Center will support the young families of faculty, staff and students while providing children with a great educational start. “We are excited about this wonderful new addition to our campus. Having a top-notch new facility will help us recruit and retain the best and brightest faculty and staff,” said UVA Wise Chancellor Donna P. Henry.

After a competitive bidding process, the YWCA of NETN and SWVA was selected to operate the facility under a management agreement with the College. The YWCA NETN and SWVA also operates a 30,000-square-foot facility located near downtown Bristol, and in partnership with Ballad Health, a Child Development Center on the campus of Bristol Regional Medical Center.

Through a framework developed by the VDOE, the YWCA will help students ages six weeks to five years explore the diverse world around them through reading and literacy enrichment, music and creative arts, math and engineering, and experiments with science and nature. Geared toward a child’s social, emotional, physical, and intellectual growth, programs will also reflect a research-based understanding that play is essential to children's well-being.

“We are excited at the opportunities inherent in this unique partnership between higher education and our core expertise in early childhood learning,” said Kathy Waugh, CEO of YWCA NETN and SWVA.

The new childcare facility will be housed near the Center for Teaching Excellence and include a spacious playground.

YWCA NETN and SWVA has begun posting available staff positions for the Center. For more information, contact the YWCA at 423-968-9444 or careers@ywcatnva.org.

Expanding Childcare and Early Childhood Educators in SWVA

The Center is part of UVA Wise’s larger plan to educate a new pipeline of early childhood educators in the region with the establishment of an early childhood endorsement within its existing teacher education program.

That program will be housed within the College’s Department of Education, and the Center will serve as a hands-on practicum lab for undergraduate students training to become certified teachers in early childhood education.

UVA Wise is currently hiring a new faculty member to teach courses in the early childhood endorsement program.

The opening of the new Center is one of many anticipated projects funded by last year’s investment of more than $12 million approved by the Virginia General Assembly, expanding UVA Wise’s role in the region.

“The Early Childhood Center was a dream for everyone at the College for many years,” UVA Wise Education Department Chair Andy Cox said. “Thankfully, the Virginia General Assembly approved funding an Early Childhood Center for the College and our surrounding community.”