By Dylan Pichnarcik Editorial Staff It’s Tuesday at 4:20 p.m. Most students are headed to dinner, professors are concluding lectures, and FSU’s nine-to-five staff have 40 minutes left on their shift. For President Nancy Niemi, her day as an administrator has concluded, and she begins her transition into a member of the faculty, leaving her office suite in Dwight Hall and heading to room 104. Her class, Social Inequity in Community Organizations (EDUC/CFST/SOCI 324), begins at 4:30 p.m. As her 11 students enter the small ground-floor classroom, Niemi writes daily objectives on a nearby whiteboard, and then, when her class has settled, she poses a question. “Tell me something good that has happened to you this week?” One by one, the students report back on events they took part in the previous week, including travel to their hometowns, 5Ks, and time spent with loved ones. It’s practices such as this, Niemi said, that create equity and understanding in a small classroom. According to the course catalog, the course is “an examination of the pervasive effects of social inequity as it is enacted in public organizations such as schools, community centers, and human service agencies. “Students explore how their race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and sexual orientation, for example, impact the people with whom they work. The course also investigates the theoretical underpinnings of systemic social inequities, and how students might work to create greater equity in their workplaces and outside them. Students also examine the symbiotic relationship between inequality within public organizations and the communities that surround them.” Niemi said the course is cross-listed in the course catalog so students can receive credit for the course in the departments of Education, Sociology, and Child and Family Studies. Niemi said her experience teaching has “been wonderful,” and returning to the classroom is “like putting on a very comfortable role that [she] held for a long time.” She added the course gave her insight into what it feels like to teach at Framingham State “That was really important to me, because I've taught at lots of other institutions, but not here, and there are some similarities, certainly there are also some differences, and I wanted to experience that. “It is very important that any leader of an institution also walks the same or similar paths as the educators in it, and so the presidents I admire most teach at their institutions, and so I wanted to follow suit with that,” she said. Balancing her presidential duties as well as working to focus on her class was a top priority, according to Niemi. She said her time at work is mixed “between the two [roles,] but I had to figure out how I was going to carve out the time in order to do this. … I have a responsibility to my students as well as all the other responsibilities. So I do a lot of work on the weekends for the class, but I also do some here.” Niemi said during her time in class her students taught her “something she did not expect” - what it’s like to be a student at Framingham State, and some of the barriers students face. “What is it like to be a student at Framingham State? Given that our student population generally is half commuters, I teach in the evening, so I teach at 4:30 so I have students who have come from a job somewhere else, or an internship, and then they get to class at that point in the day. “We have many students who have many other competing priorities, and my students are no exceptions to that. So how is it that our students juggle all of these things? How does class and learning fit into that? “That experience has taught me a lot about what it means to be a student negotiating all those pieces of one’s life in a way that I didn’t understand before. Just different students at different universities have different perspectives and struggles and ways that they interact with their learning.” From the faculty perspective, Niemi said she learned the basic needs of the professors such as where to find technology assistance and “what small and larger barriers” faculty face. Niemi is also learning “What is CELTSS doing to help? What is CELTSS offering for faculty members? Those kinds of mechanics, which sound small, but they're not, you know, all of those things, and all of those people have to work together in order to help make a class,” she said. Niemi’s course is discussion-based, with her students leading most in-class discussions and collaborating into small groups, a practice she says promotes understanding and equity in her classroom. “Their job is to foster conversation and thought,” she said. “So it’s a meta exercise and how one learns and how one helps others learn as well. But they all did it now. They've all led the class, and I think they’re very proud of themselves, and they should be,” Niemi added. Niemi said she also enforces an “engagement policy” outlined in her syllabus, which limits the use of cell phones and technology outside of those necessary for class “contributes to a greater shared community of learning. “If some people are distracted by their devices, not only does it take away from others’ learning but it also tacitly suggests that the person being distracted is not as invested in the immediate conversation, diminishing the dialogue and learning.” She added, “The user of the device takes power away from the other learners by suggesting that what they want to do on their device is more important than what the other learners want to do, rendering them unequal.” Senior Leticia Rita Santos said, “When initially seeing the course being offered I was interested as it was a new concept to have your professor being the president of the college. I normally do not pay too much attention to who my professor is as long as the course works in my schedule, but this was a cool prospect and piqued my enthusiasm.” Senior Ainslee Caton said, “I took the course because I’m an education minor but also because I have always had an interest in discussing equity issues and the class drew me in since it is discussing them rather than lecturing about them.” Caton added the class taught her about more “reliable resources regarding educating myself on topics relating to equity.” She added she and her classmates “definitely taught [Niemi] things. In many classes, we have used memes and other current jokes, and we have educated her on them through TikToks. On a more serious note, given the nature of the class we often come up with deep questions that make her think as well, which as she would say, is part of the goal.” Caton said she “loved” the structure of the class. She added, “President Niemi’s teaching style is one of the best I have seen at FSU. We are put in situations different from the norm but it has helped us grow. She has had us lead the conversation which sounds scarier than it is because she prepares you and we all have created a connection.” Junior Jamie Davis said, “I took this class partly because I am interested in equity and how to achieve it, and partly because I saw Dr. Niemi was teaching it!” She added, “I had met her briefly before, and she seemed super nice. I thought it was unusual that the President was teaching a course, but I was excited to try it. I figured she would be very educated on our course material, which she is.” Davis said the course has taught her about how American society can work to achieve equity. “We’ve talked about numerous theories and how they work, as well as identities people have and how those contribute to equitable or inequitable conditions.” She added, “Dr. Niemi has said we remind her of how much she loves teaching. Being the President, she is certainly busy doing other important things, but I think we as students helped her slow down a bit and remember why she loves working in this field. She was also open to hearing our opinions not only directly regarding our course, but regarding FSU in general. She truly wants to enhance our experience in any way she can, and it is so admirable.” Davis said she enjoys the discussion-based structure of the course. “ I love how the bond between myself, my classmates, and Dr. Niemi has grown. I feel like they are all my friends now. We are able to have respectful and educated conversations about difficult topics. I feel like Dr. Niemi has really created a safe space in our classroom where we can discuss ideas freely.” Niemi said she hoped her students had not chosen to take the course because she was teaching it. She said, “I loved it the other day when one of my students said, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot you were the president.’ … We were paying attention to what we were talking about, not ‘Oh my god, the President is in the classroom,’ and I wasn’t sure how that was going to go. “But we have formed a community now, and our focus is on learning and on each other, and so I think it was a great sign that they just forgot that that was my other role.”