Niemi reaffirms commitment to DEI at State of the University address: “We are not backing down.”
- Sophia Oppedisano
- Oct 3
- 3 min read
President Nancy Niemi delivered the first State of the University address of AY 2025-26 on Sept. 29 and spoke about the University’s ongoing commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
She said this was her third State of the University address, and she believes the meetings serve as a platform to share information that “reflects the state of the University” as well as encourage “transparency.”
Niemi acknowledged she wanted to find the balance between announcing how well the University is doing while taking into account that “we're hurting - higher education is hurting,” she said.
“How do we hit the right spot between knowing that we're here and we're strong and we are not going anyplace, even as we also have some hard things that are hitting us?” Niemi asked.
Niemi focused on the five-year strategic plan for the University, which is in effect for its second year.
Objectives for this year include leveraging the mission of public good for impact, innovating for student success, nurturing a diverse and thriving community, creating spaces that inspire, and fortifying the University’s foundation for excellence, Niemi said.
This academic year, Niemi said first-year undergraduate enrollment is down 6% after a small increase last year. “I wish I could give you different news, but I'm giving the news we have, and we need to do better. It's really hard,” she said.
National Student Clearinghouse data on enrollment will become available in October, which Niemi said will give the University answers to account for the decrease.
This data aligns with similar decreases in first-year undergraduate enrollment across the state university system, Niemi said.
First-year graduate enrollment has increased by 12%, and total enrollment remains steady at 3,560 students, Niemi said.
Additionally, retention is up 3%, which Niemi and Lorretta Holloway, vice president of Student Success, confirmed is the highest retention increase since 2014.
“That is great news. It's got to go higher than that. … We need to have [all students] graduate so that our graduation rate goes above 50% because that remains our percentage, and it's still unacceptable,” Niemi said.
She said she wants to “empower” students to “persist” in their education in an effort to increase retention and graduation rates.
“That is one of the major markers of equity,” she said.
Niemi added, “It is a crime to have students have some college and no degree and then have debt for that college, and half our students sit in that space. We cannot let that happen.”
Fostering a diverse and thriving community and “embedding a commitment to diversity in everything we do” are goals Niemi hopes to be able to measure in an effort to promote “a continuous culture of learning and well-being for all members of our community,” she said.
This includes the objectives in the strategic plan that reference DEI, Niemi said.
Niemi reaffirmed the University’s commitment to DEI. “Our DEI work is absolutely essential to us. … We are not backing down,” she said.
She said she is working on a “Live to the Truth” campaign centered on “making social justice operational.” She also referenced the equity objectives each department and college is using to promote DEI.
Niemi said she is working on observing how faculty and staff use the equity objectives within their work and their departments. “We're developing that so we can see [the equity objectives] in real time, within our classrooms and our co-curricular work and co-curricular initiatives,” she said.
“We are assessing, as we need to, how well these goals are actually executed and how we know we're doing them,” Niemi added.
Co-curricular work and initiatives include activities such as student organizations and travel, Niemi said.
She said she wants to “help students make sure that they understand that equity is part of that work” within their student organizations.
According to data Niemi presented for AY 2025-26, Framingham State continues to be a majority-minority-serving institution for the second consecutive year. This means “students who identify as BIPOC outnumber our students who identify as white,” Niemi said.
“We are extremely proud of that. … These are the students we serve. We continue to know that and work hard to serve them well,” she added.
As efforts to “enact” being a majority-minority serving institution continue, Niemi said it is a priority to let prospective students and families know “that’s who we are.
“We had a couple of candidates on campus this fall, and they could not stop talking about the ways in which they physically saw the diversity of all kinds on our campus. They said, ‘You're not just saying it. You actually live it,’” she said.
Niemi added as the University moves forward, it is important the community knows “diversity equals excellence.
“There is no way we're changing a word of what we do. We are out there. We are proud, and we commit to the DEI work that we built into our DNA,” she said.
