Early Childhood Center records

Record Group

Identifier: UA-08-.B11

Staff Only

Content Description

This collection includes annual reports, correspondence, and other administrative records; materials related to licensure and certification of the Center; newsletters, photographs, and other publicity; and materials that reveal the children's experience (sample student work, yearbooks, photographs, etc.). A few older items document the Center's forerunners on campus, back to 1928.

Artifacts include three tee shirts, worn over the years whenever the class left the center; one large framed photograph of Sr. Ann Harvey, CSJ; two pandemic-era prints on canvas of a painting by Public Health student Grace Tienter, showing different animals demonstrating proper face mask placement (May 2022); and one book: a copy of Kathleen Fraser and Miriam F. Levy, Adam's World: San Francisco (Chicago: Albert Whitman, 1971), inscribed to Sr. Ann Harvey by Levy.

Dates

1936-2024

Creator

Harvey, Ann, CSJ, 1902-1980 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for use.

Biographical / Historical

The Early Childhood Center (ECC) was established during the 1985-1986 academic year, when the Child Care Center and Montessori Laboratory School were brought under the management of a single director (Anita S. Beaton). It provided childcare and Montessori education for children of St. Catherine students, faculty, and staff, as well as for additional children from the neighboring area.

The ECC had its roots in the laboratory preschool/nursery school established on campus in 1928 as part of a new kindergarten teacher training course. In 1930, Sister Ann Harvey, CSJ, a 1926 alumna of St. Kate's, returned to campus with her M.A. from Columbia University. Sister Ann took over the direction of the preschool, teaching thousands of children until her retirement in 1974. Sister Ann was also a musician and the author of Rhythms and Dances for Pre-School and Kindergarten (New York: G. Schirmer, 1944). After obtaining additional training in Italy and Germany, in 1956 Sister Ann implemented a unique modification of the Montessori Method at the preschool. Eventually, that grew into the Montessori School (known as Montessori Session), which began in the fall of 1973. The Child Care Center opened in the fall of 1977. Located adjacent to the Montessori School, the Child Care Center provided care primarily for children of faculty and continuing education students. Full-day childcare was first offered in September 1985, the same year that the Montessori School and Child Care Center came under the direction of the Early Childhood Center.

From 1928-1990, these programs were housed primarily in Mendel Hall, with the exception of the Montessori School during its first year (1973-1974), when it was housed at the Church of St. Luke. September 3, 1991, the Early Childhood Center opened its new facility in St. Mary Hall. The Center continued to operate until May 24, 2024, when it was closed by the university.