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Nancy Nickerson has been Helping Students for 35 Years<\/strong><\/p>\n Nancy Nickerson never intended to become a math maven, but some might say that is just what happened to this itinerant minister\u2019s daughter who, more than 30 years after walking on to the Northern Essex campus, now refers to it as her second home.<\/p>\n It is here she created a niche \u2013 turning math phobics into math fans.<\/p>\n Teaching elementary school, not math, was on Nancy\u2019s mind when she graduated with degrees in education and psychology from Barrington College. But facing a soft job market, she was inspired to earn a master\u2019s in education research and statistics.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wanted to teach. I didn\u2019t care what I taught. I knew if I understood the information I could teach it,\u201d says Nancy, who struggled as a student because of difficulty with language processing.<\/p>\n In 1976, while teaching adult education classes, she was offered a staff assistant position at NECC charged with creating an informal math lab where students could walk in and receive math help.<\/p>\n Since then, both Nancy and the math lab have evolved \u2013 she into a math professor whose students praise her sincere and gentle teaching style \u2013 the lab into a full-service math resource center that addresses the math needs of students taking both developmental and college-level courses.<\/p>\n Since 1990 she has taught math full time. Never one to hole up in her office, she can be found tutoring math students. Today, even though she teaches three classes and is pursuing an Ed.D., she still volunteers 20 to 25 hours each week in the math lab where students are quick to seek her out. \u201cIf it isn\u2019t meaningful and useful, they won\u2019t bother to learn it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n A champion of the underdog, Nancy says it is important to learn all the students\u2019 needs, especially the hungry ones. She often serves up oranges with algebraic equations.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is important to feed their spirit, mind, and body,\u201d she says. \u201cI find it very fulfilling. I\u2019m no one special. I\u2019m just someone who loves her job and that is really all I need.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nancy Nickerson has been Helping Students for 35 Years Nancy Nickerson never intended to become a math maven, but some might say that is just what happened to this itinerant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\u201cI always chose to spend time with the students,\u201d she says, and more often than not in the math lab. \u201cI believe strongly in an overlap between math classes and the math lab,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI believe everyone can be good at math and with it comes confidence,\u201d she says. Nancy customizes math problems. For the basketball player it might be a discussion of the arc of the ball on its way to the net.<\/p>\n