Yesterday, Lexmark opened its new Center for Children, a brand new state-of-the-art facility located at our headquarters here in Lexington, Ky. The 25,500 square foot facility, which has a capacity to hold 186 children ages, six weeks to pre-kindergarten, will be run by Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a leading provider of employer-sponsored child care.
One of the key teaching initiatives of the center is to provide a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) based education into the curriculum. This will not be your average daycare.
To gain insight into why Lexmark chose a STEAM curriculum for the center’s students and their futures, we talked to Jeri Isbell, vice president of human resources for Lexmark.
Lexmark: Why did Lexmark choose to incorporate STEAM initiatives into the Center for Children’s curriculum?
Isbell: Lexmark is a technology company. Many of our employees have backgrounds in STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. For our curriculum in the Center for Children, we have chosen STEAM, which adds the ‘Art’ component to the original STEM program. All of the subjects are fundamental to children excelling in school. We want to expose them as early as possible to these subjects.
Lexmark: What are the advantages of children having an early introduction to STEAM education?
Isbell: Connecting the STEAM subjects provides a more meaningful curriculum for children. Studies show that children immersed and exposed to a STEAM curriculum at a very early age perform better in science and math than those who are not. We want our children to have the advantage of early exposure to begin to build their interest in these areas.
Lexmark: What is the correlation between STEAM and innovation?
Isbell: Problem-solving and critical thinking, which are the tenets of STEAM curriculum, are the keys to innovation. The Center for Children’s curriculum will be hands-on, inquiry-based, with a lot of projects and activity-based learning. We believe it will be a more engaging, and fun, learning environment.
Lexmark: What has been the response from employees?
Isbell: We’ve had great response from employees. They are thrilled with the care that was put into the design and build of the center. The Center for Children is truly state-of-the-art and top-notch.
Lexmark: With both a new childcare center and a wellness center, how will these types of employee services help Lexmark in recruiting?
Isbell: Lexmark is committed to helping our employees balance the pressures of raising their families in our 24/7 global environment. The Center for Children will help our employees with work/life balance, which is key to employee retention and recruitment. We see the center as another added benefit of working at Lexmark.
For more information on employment at Lexmark, go to our“Careers at Lexmark” page.
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