By Jeanne W. Lepper, Director
"Bing Nursery School is a national treasure," described Eleanor E. Maccoby, Professor Emerita of Psychology at a recent event in the Psychology Department. The School was constructed as a laboratory school in 1966 with a grant from the National Science Foundation and a gift from Dr. Peter S. Bing, a recent undergraduate at the time, and his mother, Mrs. Anna Bing Arnold. The purpose of the school is to provide a laboratory where undergraduates at Stanford can learn first-hand about child development and where faculty members and graduate students can conduct research in child development. "In order to do this, we need to provide an exemplary nursery school," stated Robert S. Sears, Professor of Psychology, who was Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences at the time the school was founded.
In fact, Bing continues a long Stanford tradition. Since l949, the Department of Psychology had maintained a laboratory nursery school in "temporary quarters" in the Stanford Village housing complex where SRI International is now located. In the early l960's the department added the Escondido Village Nursery School in a cottage across the street from Bing. My first role here was as a Head Teacher when our beautiful Bing building opened in January, l966, just four months behind the construction schedule. The children from these two smaller schools gleefully entered their spacious new school after the winter holiday break. Each child selected one of the newly planted trees to observe and watch it grow and change throughout the year.
Thus, the nursery school has enjoyed a long history of service to children, families, students, and faculty researchers. Hundreds of studies have taken place at the school that have made the research and reputation of the school known world-wide. Thousands of children have graduated from the school, and currently there are several children enrolled in the school whose parents are Bing graduates. Two years ago the school began an alumni group that has been enthusiastically received. In l991, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the school, more than five hundred people attended a morning research symposium and an afternoon garden party celebrating the school.