William John Stanisich – 50th Reunion Essay

William John Stanisich

714 Broderick Street

San Francisco, CA 94117

wjstanisich@comcast.net

415-613-0486

Spouse(s): Jim Meyer (37 years)

Education: Yale BA ’69

Career: Educator, English and Art, Urban School of San Francisco (28 years); artist and author

Avocations: Music, Opera, Dance, Films

College: Ezra Stiles

I came to Yale from a small boys’ day school in San Francisco that was as homophobic and competitive as Yale. I was an only child of driven parents, particularly my father who was climbing the executive ladder at United Airlines. He attended college at night and also ran the division of inspection for aircraft maintenance. Its task was to take a plane apart and reassemble it in four days.

Meanwhile I graduated with honors, second in my class, but when I first arrived in New Haven, I was as “tight as a fiddlestick,” according to Dean Thompson of Ezra Stiles College. Freedom from my parents enabled a plummet in grades freshman year but I pulled myself out of the tailspin as soon as I dropped my pre-med illusions. I discovered Vincent Scully, a poet scholar who opened my eyes to the vastness of art and the delight in learning about artists and their influences and origins.

I knew I wanted to pursue my own talent as an artist from the moment I heard his first lecture.

I was accepted at the Yale School of Architecture but a family emergency diverted me into teaching. All that I had learned from Henri Peyre, Victor Brombert, Scully, Harold Bloom, Charles Talbot, and others, I passed onto my students. Yale gave me such a personal, direct relationship with serious scholars that I am still grateful, because they helped me gain confidence in my own vision.

As to my “tight as a fiddlestick” interior, my fellow students brought me out of it slowly. We had vigorous arguments about everything. I never felt inferior to anybody and being gay may have allowed me to become even more independent. Yale is a generous place and I miss the outrageous personalities that bloomed in Ezra Stiles College. I had a friend who fashioned a baldachino out of some curtains and a wire. He once invited a townie to spend the night; the man asked, “Do all the guys at Yale get rooms like this?” Brideshead Revisited was hardly a bridge too far.

More than any other gift, Yale gave me my individuality and freedom. Despite some health setbacks later in life (four spinal surgeries and wheelchairs) I have become a genuine painter, exhibiting my work in galleries and museums as well as private collections.

Dean Thompson recognized the change in me by 1969 when we graduated and went out into the world. I finally relaxed and let another person into my intimate life. I am now married to a wonderful man I have been with for 37 years, a singer at the San Francisco Opera. Yale now teaches issues of gender as part of the curriculum, something unthinkable in 1965.