Kali DeBey is a nursing student at Fort Hays State University. Like many non-traditional students, she must balance the immense demands of full-time work, a challenging academic program, and her responsibilities as a wife and mother of three boys, ages 4 to 11. Kali works as a surgical scrub technician in the operating rooms of Hays Medical Center. This year, she decided to pursue her dream of becoming a registered nurse. Her goal is to work in a nursing home. She believes the elderly deserve the best care possible, and she wants to be part of giving them the best quality of life possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This fall, Kali will begin a\ndemanding and time-intensive course of study in the classrooms and nursing\nlaboratories of Stroup Hall. Her middle son, Abel, will join her for part of\nher morning and afternoon routines on campus. Kali and Abel will start and end\ntheir day on campus in Rarick Hall, the home of the Tiger Tots Preschool\nCenter. The premiere program of its kind in our region, Tiger Tots, offers a\npositive and safe environment that promotes each child\u2019s social, physical,\nintellectual, and emotional growth. Tiger Tots opened its doors in the fall of\n1981 with the primary purpose of serving FHSU students. Now more than 40 years\nlater, this focus remains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kali appreciates the tremendous\nresource the Tiger Tots Preschool Center is for the campus community. \u201cIt\u2019s a\nfun and interactive place for the children and a super helpful asset for any\nstudent-parent looking to go to or back to school. Like my mother, I trust the\nfaculty and staff. For me, the best feature may be that I can visit Abel\nbetween classes,\u201d said Kali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kali DeBey has a special\nconnection to Tiger Tots. She is herself an alumna of the program. As she\nprepares to drop Abel off at preschool, she remembers her mother, then a social\nwork major, dropping her off at Tiger Tots each morning. And when she and Abel\narrive, a familiar face will be there to greet them. It is the same face Kali\nused to see every morning when she was a Tiger Tot herself-the face and the\nwelcoming smile of veteran Sara Stroup. She was one of Kali\u2019s teachers when she\nwas a Tiger Tot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sara is also an alumna of FHSU.\nWhile earning her master\u2019s degree, Sara was teaching at Tiger Tots, where she\nhad the opportunity to enjoy Kali and her family. She then taught at Hays, USD\n#489 Head Start program until 2009, when she returned to FHSU as an instructor\nin the Teacher Education Department. In early 2014, Natalie Unruh and Sara\nwrote a proposal to make the Tiger Tots Nurtury Center part of the Teacher\nEducation Department. In 2015, Natalie and Sara began their leadership roles at\nTiger Tots while continuing to teach courses in the early childhood unified\nprogram. They shifted the focus from a daycare setting with preschool\nactivities to a preschool setting with daycare available in the afternoon. In\n2015, they hired lead teacher Penny McGinnis. Sara and lead teacher Penny\nMcGinnis wanted the facility\u2019s name to reflect the center\u2019s focus on learning\nmore accurately, so in 2019, the Tiger Tots Nurtury Center officially became\nthe FHSU Tiger Tots Preschool Center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The recent renovation of Rarick\nHall that I discussed in a previous Heart of a Tiger Column included a total\nmakeover of the Tiger Tots spaces. The renovation added space for the children\nto spread out and explore in the classroom and the outside play area, office\nspace for the director and lead teacher, better lighting, and a sound-dampening\nsystem built around a big artificial tree in the middle of the room. The\nrenovation also provided an observation room for parents and FHSU students in\neducation, social services, and allied health majors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new academic year begins next\nweek, and Tiger Tots is at full enrollment. On hand to greet the students and\nparents will be Sharon Tallman, the program\u2019s new lead teacher. Sharon brings\nmore than 27 years of teaching experience to the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Priority enrollment in the Tiger\nTots Preschool Center is given to FHSU students and students enrolled in the\nNorth Central Kansas Technical College (NCKTC) or the Hays Academy of Hair\npartnership programs. The \u201cNCKTC Gateway Program<\/a>\u201d provides students enrolled in a\ntwo-year associate\u2019s degree program to live and take classes on the FHSU\ncampus. Enrollment is also open to the children of FHSU staff and faculty.\nLearn more about the Tiger Tots Preschool program at fhsu.edu\/tigertots<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tisa Mason is president of Fort Hays State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kali DeBey is a nursing student at Fort Hays State University. Like many non-traditional students, she must balance the immense demands of full-time work, a… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12323,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Mason-Tisa-040A6662.jpg?fit=750%2C1050&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66647"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66700,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66647\/revisions\/66700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}