Framingham State board signs off on Niemi appointment

Photo | Courtesy of Framingham State University Nancy Niemi, who will be Framingham State University's eighth president

Write a Comment

By State House News Service

A provost at a historically Black university in Maryland is poised to become the next president of Framingham State University after a unanimous vote Tuesday by the state Board of Higher Education.

The board signed off on the appointment of Nancy Niemi, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, to succeed retiring Framingham State President F. Javier Cevallos.

Cevallos earns an annual salary of $276,047.

Niemi, scheduled to step into the role on July 1, earned the unanimous backing of the Framingham State Board of Trustees in December.

One of nine state universities in Massachusetts, Framingham State has more than 4,800 undergraduate and graduate students and offers 62 degree programs.

"What intrigued me about Framingham is what it has done -- the nation's oldest public university founded for the education of teachers -- and what it can do now," Niemi told the board during a virtual meeting. "I think we in education are at a radical moment. It's not radical right or left, but radical because our country needs educational institutions to support, uphold and deepen its democracy, and to help us as citizens find new ways of working together."

The trustees picked Niemi from a finalist pool that also included Allia Carter, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Virginia Union University, and Roxanne Gonzales-Walker, provost and vice president of academic affairs at New Mexico Highlands University.

Trustees chairman Kevin Foley said each finalist visited the campus in December, and all three were "well-qualified" with "excellent experience."

Niemi, he said, offered a "strategic viewpoint" and "strong commitment to social equity in higher education."

"Her overall presence was very positively commented on and would resonate -- the trustees thought -- would resonate with regional leaders, donors and legislative partners," Foley said. "The overall feedback from various campus groups was also the highest among all candidates and was a high consideration for the Board of Trustees as far as their thought process."

Niemi holds both a bachelor's in English literature and a doctorate in education from the University of Rochester, as well as a master's degree in education from Elmira College, according to her resume.

She has worked since 2019 at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, which has 2,500 full-time students, a full-time faculty of 220 people, and a total budget of $123 million. Before that, she was the inaugural director of faculty teaching initiatives at Yale University's Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, and Niemi has also been an education professor at the University of New Haven in Connecticut and Nazareth College in New York.

The profile the school prepared for its presidential candidates said that FSU "remains in a strong financial position," with "healthy" reserves, despite a drop in overall enrollment that "has coincided with a decline in Massachusetts' high school population and has been exacerbated by COVID-19."

Formerly the state's largest town, Framingham is now the newest city in Massachusetts after a 2017 vote to change its municipal government structure. Framingham this year inaugurated Charlie Sisitsky as its new mayor, making him the second person to hold that office after he unseated Yvonne Spicer last fall.

Niemi said she views the city as "poised to develop and have greater impact on the region in ways that I think it's ready to identify."

"There's a thriving industry," she said. "Universities are some of the largest employers in the region and in the commonwealth, and the city of Framingham needs the university just as the university needs the city."