Jean Tyson Child Development Study Center Celebrated

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Jean Tyson Child Development Study Center at the University of Arkansas will equip child development educators with the skills to succeed and provide high-quality childcare to the Northwest Arkansas community. A lead gift of $2.5 million by the Tyson Family Foundation and the Tyson Foods Foundation has made the idea of this dream facility a reality, and a construction celebration was held Aug. 23 with members of the Tyson family and the university community.

The Jean Tyson Child Development Study Center will provide educational and research opportunities for more than 300 University of Arkansas students, faculty and children each year and will meet the childcare needs of more than 140 families from the campus and community.

“Our mother, and my children’s grandmother, believed strongly in providing young children the very best environment humanly possible to be raised in and educated. She certainly did that for our family,” said John Tyson. “We are pleased to be able to support this great project that will enable the same thing to be done for many other Northwest Arkansas families, and for students to be educated and enabled to do this in ever widening circles across the state of Arkansas. Our family and our company are honored to lend her name to the effort.”

Currently, the campus offers an Infant Development Center and a Nursery School through the School of Human Environmental Sciences in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. Both the Infant Development Center and the Nursery School are vital to students and faculty who need childcare, and important to students who study child development, nursing and early childhood education and obtain valuable experience in these learning labs. Both facilities, while able to attain national accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children, are currently inadequate. The Nursery School faces severe space limitations. The Infant Development Center, constructed for a completely different purpose in the early 1970s, has been maintained solely as a temporary facility and has space issues and cannot continue to meet health and safety regulations without extensive renovation. The reality that these two centers are on opposite sides of campus presents further logistical and practical challenges for students, faculty and clients as well.

In the new, state-of-the-art learning facility, with classrooms, indoor and outdoor play spaces and an adequate observation room, university students will gain valuable insight into the behavioral and developmental patterns in children. The new center will provide an outstanding facility to meet the educational and research needs for an increasing number of students majoring in human development, family sciences and rural sociology, while expanding childcare options for the campus and community.

“This project provides multiple benefits that will enhance the university’s academic quality and its ability to support our students and employees,” said Chancellor G. David Gearhart. “Once completed, the Jean Tyson Center will be a great learning resource for faculty and students studying child development. At the same time, the center will address our campus community’s need for high-quality childcare options. 

“This addition to the university would not be possible without the generous support of Jean Tyson’s family,’ Gearhart continued. “The Tysons’ commitment to this particular educational endeavor has inspired others to step forward in significant and meaningful ways. We are extremely grateful to the Tyson family and our other supporters for making this center possible.”

Additional funding continues to support this project, including a $500,000 gift from Mark Rumsey, president and chief executive officer of cold storage warehousing company Zero Mountain Inc. At the time of the gift announcement, Rumsey explained that John Tyson’s grandfather inspired Rumsey’s father to not give up on “the Zero Mountain dream. It is our corporate belief that the private sector, by donations such as these, can make huge differences to the communities we invest in. Investing money in our institutions of higher learning and addressing quality of life issues such as the arts enhance our quality of place as well as creating a setting to retain those whom we educate here in Arkansas.”