Stuart Hope Van Dyke, Jr. – 50th Reunion Essay

Stuart Hope Van Dyke, Jr.

3243 Klingle Rd. NW

Washington, DC 20008

tvandyke@rcn.com

202-997-3876

Spouse(s): Frances Van Dyke (1970)

Child(ren): Chris(1980); Hugo (1984); Mary (1991)

Education: Yale, BA 1969; Boston University, MA 1973; University of Chicago, PhD 1980

Career: New Haven Housing Authority, 1983–1994; Norwich Housing Authority, 1995–1999, Executive Director; Public Housing Authority Directors’ Association, 2000–2014 Director of Government Affairs

Avocations: Bridge, Golf

College: Jonathan Edwards

Going to Yale certainly played an important role in my life, although perhaps diminishing as time has elapsed. I still have many friends, and in fact nine of us, including spouses, spent a week together last summer celebrating our 70th birthdays. Yale was a unique place in its concentration of bright, witty, and charismatic people. Association with this group has made me more sophisticated as I know what being with exceptionally talented people is like.

Yale’s educational insistence on accuracy and verity followed by a PhD from the University of Chicago helped instill an intellectual rigor that has made my work product satisfying to me and, I hope, valuable to others. The beauty of the Yale campus and its buildings set a high aesthetic standard that has enriched my life by affecting where and how I live.

My years at Yale were not always easy, though. At first, I felt out of place and resented the legacy of wealth and entitlement it evoked. Academically, it was more rigorous than I was used to. And then, the ’60s were difficult times. We were confronted with civil rights and poverty issues, a war that killed millions of people, and a draft that threatened us directly. Personally, I was in a state of pseudo-rebellion by the end. I do not think I would have ever broken the law, but I strongly opposed the country’s institutions. As a result, I was conflicted about what to do career-wise. Instead of joining the Foreign Service or going to law school, as I might have expected, after teaching English in Algeria for two years, I entered a PhD program in history as a sort of holding position.

I married early, at 22, and my wife of 48 years, Franny, and I waited 10 years before we had children. Chicago was a daunting sink-or-swim environment, and the academic job market was glutted. Ultimately, at 32, with PhD in hand, I had to find another kind of job. Curiously, I found one at the New Haven Housing Authority, where I rose to assistant to the director after a decade. Both the institutional and human problems there were difficult, but it was also fulfilling, in its mission and in its daily challenges and accomplishments.

We have three wonderful children, Chris, Hugo, and Mary (now 39, 35 and 28) and enjoyed living in New Haven with its big-city attributes but small-city convenience. Franny got tenure in the math department at Central Connecticut State University, and I became the executive director of the Norwich, Connecticut Housing Authority in 1995. In 2000, we moved to Washington, DC, where I took a job as the director of government affairs for the Public Housing Authority Directors’ Association, retiring in 2014. I found I preferred thinking about and advocating for public housing more than actually running a housing authority. I would not say, though, that life’s conundrums seem over yet.