Lowell’s Bobby Tugbiyele forwarded to me and asked me to post the following open letter from recent graduates of Lowell High School regarding the search process for a new Human Resources Director for the Lowell Public Schools. January 10, 2019 To Whom It May Concern: In this letter, current…
Live Poetry in Lowell by Janet Egan and Paul Marion Lowell has been long-famous for Golden Gloves boxing matches at the Memorial Auditorium, but there’s a different competition for which the city has become well known. Every first and third Tuesday of the month, writers and their audience get together…
Lowell resident Bobby Tugbiyele shared the following letter he sent to Mayor Samaras and others: Dear Mayor Samaras, Members of the LPS Personnel Subcommittee, and Acting Superintendent Durkin: I and many community members, especially those who attended the early April School Committee session, ( Read- http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_31782843/lowell-school-board-hears-calls-hiring-diversity ) respectfully and earnestly…
Jay Atkinson: Writer in Motion When I asked Jay Atkinson what he’s been up to this year, he gave me a rich summary that included a song-bite: “Take what you need and leave the rest . . .” Jay lives in Methuen, Mass., and Lowell has been one of his…
I usually don’t report on Lowell School Committee meetings, but given the financial crisis that has engulfed the school department, I thought it important to pay closer attention to how the school committee is responding. Here are my notes from tonight’s meeting. I covered the entire discussion on the recently…
Febo: Choosing Joy I met Anthony Febo or Febo, as he is known professionally, (“Yes, it’s very Bono, Madonna, Seal of me,” he said when I asked his preference for a name in this update about his work.)—well, I met Febo in Lowell, Mass., when performance poetry/slam poetry/spoken word was…
Last week I attended a presentation by UMass Lowell professor (retired) John Wooding in which he provided an update on his quest to make Lowell a UNESCO City of Learning. That designation is applied to cities around the world – there are 140 so far, but none in the U.S.…
Here’s another in my series of updates on active writers with a local/regional connection. I can see Exeter, N.H., from my house on a hill in Amesbury, so Matt W Miller is close by. Readers of this blog may know him from his Lowell days growing up and during high…
An occasional contributor to our blog, John Wooding is familiar to many people in the city for his work at UMass Lowell and in the community. He recently retired from his position as a professor of political science. He is a former provost (academic vice president) on campus. John continues…
Last evening more than 120 people gathered at the Lowell Senior Center in an ongoing effort to improve public education in Lowell. This event, named “Your Voice Matters: Community Action Forum on Issues in 21st Century Education,” was part of a year-long process to obtain ideas and opinions from the…