English Prof Testifies In Court Case

English professor and director of the Creative Writing Program Askold Melnyczuk recently testified in a court case involving a former high school teacher who gave sexually explicit poems to one of his 16-year old students, the MetroWest Daily News reported this week.

Melnyczuk was called to the witness stand by the defense lawyer representing Richard Melpignano, who resigned from Holliston High earlier this year after he was arrested. The girl alleged that after handing her the poems, Melpignano said he loved her and wanted “to make love to her with his hands.”

“They are very mild. They are very gentle poems overall,” Melnyczuk testified of the six poems penned, saying that they showed the characteristics of “serious literary value.” “The poems are written with evident skill and artistic deliberation.”

The Daily News reports he read from the poem “First Time,” “Fingers hesitate, fumble; Clothes cascading gently down, and form; Remnants of newly discarded modesty; Flesh longs to be touched, caressed, while limbs tremble, burn.”

“These poems are speaking to a specific person,” argued prosecutor Deb Bercovitch. “These poems are being used as a vehicle to make a statement.”

According to Daily News, the judge, who called Melpignano’s actions “bizarre,” said he could only consider the words of the poem and not the reader. “This is not lewd. More often than not, (the poems are) leaving to the imagination the sex act,” Framingham District Court Judge Robert Greco said, siding with the defense and declaring the actions not illegal.

Commencement Back on Campus

Commencement ceremonies will be brought back to the campus, Interim Chancellor Keith Motley announced this week in a memo to the university community.

“It was clear, after the DNC Pops on the Bay Concert this summer that we have the capacity and capability to bring Commencement Day activities back to UMass Boston,” Motley wrote, having received a favorable response from the community after floating the possibility at his convocation address. “Therefore, on Friday, June 3 the graduating class and the university community will celebrate Commencement ’05 on the lawn outside the Campus Center.”

Motley noted that the Commencement Committee has begun plans for the space, and called for support and ideas. Over the last several years, commencement has been held at the Bayside Exposition Center, down the street from the Boston campus.

The Campus Center officially opened in April.

UMass Lowell ‘Awfully Important,’ Says Wilson

UMass Lowell is “awfully important” to its local, regional, and state communities and economies, said UMass President Jack Wilson in a meeting with Lowell Sun editors.

“Many (university) systems have many flags,” the Sun reported him as saying. “We’re in the position where the path to economic and social development runs through UMass.”

Wilson also said he was “not a top down type of person.”

“I’d like to see the campuses define their missions and local opportunities,” Wilson told the Sun. “I see the president’s role as helping them do that.”