Some professors go the extra mile to help their students learn, but one Lincoln University instructor is personifying going above and beyond for his students. Health sciences professor Dr. Aqeel Dix is warming people's hearts with the now-viral video of him holding a baby belonging to one of his students as he proceeds to teach his regular lecture.

"I've always wanted to go to an HBCU. So, I decided what's better than the first, so I chose Lincoln," Imani Lamarr, the 21-year-old student and mother, told WPVI. 

Lamarr is now a senior at the university. She had just returned to her academic studies after taking a semester off following the birth of her son, who was premature and spent months in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

"It was really hard. Every day going to the hospital, seeing him and not being able to help him, it was hard," Lamarr told the outlet. 

But upon leaving the hospital with her new bundle of joy, named Christopher Murphy after her father, Lamarr was confronted with another challenge. She had to figure out how to juggle her class schedule and being a new mom. Dix was originally not going to show up to class when she couldn't find a babysitter. Though, when she broke the news to her professor, he wouldn't hear it.

"'No.' He told me, 'No.' And I was just looking at him like, 'No, I can't miss class? I don't have nobody to watch my baby,'" she recalled.

Dix instructed her to come to class with her baby in tow. 

"I'm not going to have one of my students miss my class because they have no one to watch their child. That's just not an option for me," Dix said. "That's my character. I don't mind helping my students wherever they need me." 

Lamarr was unsure about the idea out of fear that her young child might be a distraction for the class, but went along with the plan. She shares that her worries weren't an issue once Dix picked up her son and held him throughout the discussion. 

"I never thought that it would come to that, and to have somebody who's there for me … who really cares and genuinely wants me to finish and finish strong, it meant a lot," she shared.

Thanks to some assistance from a thoughtful professor, Lamarr is now only a few months away from her graduation date. 

"You really don't understand how much this meant to me," she shared.

Back in 2020, Dix was featured by the university for helping Black men overcome stigmas and access physical and mental health. In his research, the professor explored why Black men fail to seek medical help, crediting health care disparities. 

“Some of the factors include mistrust, affordability questions and lack of connections with the health care system, in part because so few physicians and other health care practitioners look like them," he said.

“It’s also a manhood macho thing that results from men of color from adolescents on up always being told to ‘suck it up, don’t cry, don’t have emotion,’" he added.