A graduating Tufts student on his journey from prison to commencement

WBUR podcast, Boston. This is Up Next. I'm Sharon Brody. Students across the Commonwealth will celebrate their graduations this month. Among those marking the milestone is 32 year old David DiValli. He started studying almost a decade ago when he was in prison. DiValli spent almost eight years behind bars for armed assault with intent to murder. This weekend he will graduate with his bachelor's degree from Tufts. David, hello and congratulations. Hello, thank you for having me. Arriving at this moment, how does it feel? It feels surreal that my college journey started inside a prison classroom at MCI Concord and now I will be walking the stage. I think growing up in the projects of lower Massachusetts, I never saw myself in college, never mind a place like Tufts that is like an institution and it took me a while to feel like I belonged here but now that I'm graduating I feel like I finally blossomed into that scholar. Take us to the day that you heard about the Tufts program and why you signed up. So when I first saw the posting at MCI Concord, I was living in J6 which was one of the worst housing units and I was initially nervous and scared. I was like there's no way a poor Puerto Rican high school dropout teenage dad can go to a place like Tufts and my friend Kevin saw something in me and God bless him. He was like you're not dumb, just go sign up. So I went and I signed up. I put my little application in and I came up face to face with the executive director and founder Dr. Hilary Binda of the Tufts University Prison Initiative and she sat across me reading my application and asked me why I wanted to be a college student and I told her that I wanted to make my daughter Annalise proud. You got out of prison in 2023. You were 29 years old and at the time you were living two hours away from the Tufts campus but you continued going to school. What made you want to continue? I was living in Baldwinville, Massachusetts. I had four hundred and thirty four dollars to my name. I was on parole and probation with an ankle monitor and something was just telling me to go to school. I felt like I didn't have a sense of purpose and I went and received the welcoming of a lifetime and so many people poured into me and allowed me to have this journey where I'm actually going to walk this stage but it started off with just a whim of taking a chance. I'd never jumped on a train, never jumped on a commuter rail before. I drove my family crazy with Ubers so shout out to everybody who went out of their way to pay for my train ride or to drive me home late at night so I wouldn't get arrested or I wouldn't violate probation or parole so yeah it was honestly a team effort. Now you were one of the first formerly incarcerated people to matriculate on the Tufts campus. You speak of the warm welcome that you received but also was it a lot of pressure? I'm not one of the first formerly incarcerated people to walk the campus. I am the first formerly incarcerated person to ever sit in a traditional Tufts classroom myself and 50 traditional Medford students and I had to hold my own. There were so many moments where I felt like I didn't measure up, where I felt like I needed to do the readings twice and three times to make sure when I get to class I'm raising my hand and people actually understand that I know what I'm talking about. As somebody who's a dad I had a different lived experience where I would often reference my parenting in class. I have tattoos so I'd stand out but I think I earned my way and I think I earned people's respect on campus through merit, through sitting on the front row, through being friendly and I showed people that I belonged here. What's next for you? After I graduate on May 17th I'll be taking my LSAT in June and I'll be applying to law school. I want to be a lawyer specifically in criminal defense. I want to be in a courtroom screwing my head off helping somebody who can't afford a good lawyer and I just strive to make the world a better place and use my education for positive means and I think that's the best route where I can utilize my education but also continue to do the work of changing the legal system. David DiValli, Tufts graduate and director of reentry services for Tufts University Prison Initiative and one of 14 students to win the 2026 Presidential Award for Civic Life. Thank you.