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Professor's empathy moves student to tears: Please bring your baby to class

The sweet response from University of Tennessee professor Sally Hunter to student Morgan King, who missed class, has gone viral.
/ Source: TODAY

A college professor has offered the most heartwarming solution to a student the next time she can’t find last-minute child care: Just bring the baby to class.

It happened when 21-year-old single mom Morgan King emailed her professor earlier this month after missing class because she couldn’t find anyone to care for her 3-month-old daughter, Korbyn.

Morgan King's professor told her to bring her baby to class
"I started crying," Morgan King said of her professor's kind response to why she missed class earlier this month. NBC

The baby’s paternal grandparents normally watch the baby, but they had other obligations that morning and King couldn’t find anyone else to sub for them. So she stayed home and missed her human development class.

The therapeutic recreation major then emailed her professor to explain her absence. The response she got left her in tears.

“I’m so sorry that childcare issues are what caused you to miss class today,” wrote Sally Hunter, a professor at Tennessee’s Department of Child and Family Studies.

“In the future, if you are having trouble finding someone to watch Korbyn, please feel free to BRING HER with you to class,” she said. “I would be absolutely delighted to hold her while I teach, so that you can still pay attention to the class and take notes.”

King posted a photo of her professor’s email in a tweet that quickly went viral.

“So blessed/thankful,” she noted at the end of her post, which has been liked more than 25,000 times and generated hundreds of comments and praise for the professor since it went up June 15.

One of those responding to the tweet was the university’s own chancellor, Beverly Davenport.

“Morgan, thanks for showing us challenges college students face. Prof Hunter, thanks for being part of the solution,” she wrote.

King, who said her professor has the “kindest, most helpful heart,” still gets emotional when she thinks about Hunter’s response to her predicament.

“It gives me chills just talking about it,” she told NBC affiliate WBIR. "She really wants me to succeed in her class. That just really spoke majorly to me."

King said Hunter’s response to her predicament, as well as to her viral post, speaks volumes about her professor’s character.

“She doesn’t even have a Twitter. She doesn’t know how it works,” she said. “She just doesn’t think that she did anything special."

As if to prove her point, King updated her original post several days later with another email from her professor, who was surprised by all the fuss her original note had generated.

“It seems you have made us ‘Twitter famous’ — ha!” Hunter wrote in the follow-up email, expressing surprise at the reaction to her original note.

“Seems to me that inviting Korbyn to class was just the decent thing to do,” she said.

King said she hasn't had to bring her daughter to class because of child care dilemmas since Hunter made her standing offer. However, she and her professor planned to have Korbyn visit class Monday.

Hunter declined a TODAY request to be interviewed, but she did reveal that the baby fell asleep in her arms while she was teaching.

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