When a student at Atlanta’s Morehouse College couldn’t find a sitter for his baby daughter last week, his professor stepped in to hold the little girl for the duration of the lesson.
It all happened on March 1 in a class run by mathematics professor Nathan Alexander.
“As one of my peers walked into the classroom with his child in arms he quickly explained to my professor that he couldn’t find a babysitter and had nobody else that could watch her,” Nick Vaughn wrote on Facebook that day. “My professor… said, ‘No problem, in fact I will even hold her so you can take better notes in class.’ And he did.”
Alexander went on to teach the entire class with five-month-old Assata Hayer strapped to his chest.
“It was this encounter that truly showed me the power and impact (historically black colleges and universities) can have for the black community, for this professor to understand that life happens and sometimes there are just no ways around it,” Vaughn wrote.
Images of the two have since gone viral and the story has been shared by news outlets around the world.
Wayne Hayer, Assata’s father, told CTVNews.ca he believes the images have been shared widely because so many people can relate to the struggle of balancing life as a young family.
“I brought her with me to campus before, but I’m shocked that this resonated with so many people,” he said. “When students tend to bring their kids to school with them, it’s normally younger women that do this, and we don’t see too many instances of men taking their babies to school.”
On top of not being able to find a sitter in time, Hayer said he decided to take his daughter to school that day because as a full-time student with two jobs, he doesn’t get much time with the baby.
“I’m always away, whether it’s for work or academics, so (my wife Firda is) with the baby all day, every day,” he said.
Hayer says Alexander had previously encouraged him to bring his daughter to class, but was worried it might not have been a genuine offer. That was, until he walked in.
“I think the kid in him came out, because he was like: ‘Oh my God, I can’t wait to tell my mom,’” Hayer said.
In a public Facebook post, Firda thanked the professor for his willingness to help their family.
“Thank you to black educators like Dr. Nathan Alexander for your compassion and understanding,” she wrote in the post. “This came at the right time.”
Morehouse College president David Thomas also took to social media to praise the father and educator.
“This is about #love and #commitment,” Thomas wrote on Twitter. “Loving our students and being committed to removing any barrier to their pursuit of excellence.”
