September
26, 2003
Quidnunc
Crime in the Classroom
Students in professor of sociology Richard Moran's classes were
given a firsthand look at criminal life on Monday, September 15,
when Edward Mackenzie, a.k.a. Eddie Mac, paid them a visit. Mackenzie,
who penned Street Soldier: My Life as an Enforcer for Whitey
Bulger and the Irish Mob, doesn't make any apologies for the
rape and violent assault he committed, according to Moran. The
professor met Mackenzie at a Street Soldier book signing
at the Odyssey Bookshop this summer. Over breakfast the next morning,
Moran invited Mackenzie to speak to his criminology students.
When asked what the educational benefit was of exposing students
to someone who broke legs and used brute power to ruin lives,
Moran said he wasn't exactly sure. "But I knew it was an opportunity
I shouldn't let pass," he added.
Play by Play
Visiting professor of theatre arts Holger Teschke will be busy
this fall. Besides directing Sarah Kane's Phaedra's Love
for his Staged Readings class and Brecht's Conversations in Exile
for MHC's Pontigny conference, Teschke will direct a workshop
at the International Heiner Mueller Symposium at Cornell September
26-27; prepare for a 2007 production of Brecht's Turandot
with a workshop at the Academy for Performing Arts in Hong Kong
November 12-16; and serve as the American correspondent for the
German theatre magazine Theatre of the Times.
In Memoriam
John R. Walker, head of the greenhouses from 1971 to 1986, died
August 13 in Pelham, Massachusetts. Officially he was MHC's horticulturist,
but he was better known as the College's plant doctor, plant sitter,
and decorator. In addition to overseeing the greenhouses, which
expanded during his tenure, and gardens across campus, he took
particular pleasure in getting students involved in horticulture.
He spent summers raising thousands of plants, which he then gave
away to students each fall. Ailing plants could be brought back
to his "emergency ward," where he saved some 95 percent. He also
took care of students' plants during vacations and over the summer
-- some 2,500 of them in an average year; revitalized the tradition
of spring flower shows; taught basic plant skills each January
in a Green Thumb course; regularly ate dinner in student residence
halls; and held plant clinics in residence hall living rooms.
He came to MHC at 53, after spending 20 years as a printer and
earning associate degrees in horticulture and floriculture at
the University of Massachusetts. He is survived by wife Mary,
three sons, two daughters, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
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