F O R M E R FAC U LT Y P R O F I L E b y Ro b L e i t h , Fa c u l t y E m e r i t u s
Roger Stac ey Retired in Name Only
None of Roger Stacey’s former students or colleagues will be surprised to hear that
PICTURED: 1: Faculty Emeritus Roger Stacey
English literature and culture remain central to his life since he retired from teach-
2: Stacey in the classroom, circa 2005
ing English at BB&N in 2007. When I visited recently, for example, he was preparing to read aloud the role of Macbeth at the Olde Cambridge Shakespeare Association. Roger is a past president of the Association, which has longstanding BB&N roots— George Henry Browne was among its founders in 1880. Performing opposite Roger
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as Lady Macbeth would be Lower School librarian Heather Lee.
“Quite a bit of my time, as it turns out, involves Shakespeare,” Roger notes. “Last week I began a seminar on Hamlet at BHS, my third course there thanks to [former Latin teacher] Lee Behnke.” Beacon Hill Seminars, a non-profit organization, provides “a diverse set of courses in which participants…broaden their intellectual horizons, learn from one another, and have fun along the way.” His course description proposes a “close cooperative reading solely of the text,” with no prerequisites other than “a willingness to read thoughtfully, share perplexity, and propose ideas in a mutually supportive classroom,” a description that evokes memories of the rectangular table where Roger presided, as a former student once observed, like the host at a lively dinner party in his Upper School Pratt Building classroom. “It’s great to be back in a classroom—just like climbing back on a bicycle,” Roger observes. Roger is also Vice President and a Director of the Boston Branch of the English-Speaking Union, an 26
organization created after World War One to preserve the “special relationship” and “contribute to world peace….” An enthusiastic Anglophile, Roger and his indefatigable wife, physician Maureen (“still holding down three jobs!”), visit England two or three times each year. On one visit they attended a banquet at Buckingham Palace honoring former E-SU Patron Prince Philip upon his retirement. Boston Branch President Paul Boghosian praises Roger’s “incisively expressed wisdom” as well as the characteristic “sly humor and witticisms” that he contributes to Board meetings. Roger was instrumental in establishing the E-SU’s Boston Shakespeare Competition, which several BB&N students have won over the years. Though Roger still lives in the elegant West Cambridge home to which he moved when he came from the Taft School to BB&N in 1983 and summers on the Cape, he spends considerable time around Beacon Hill. The Hamlet seminar meets in
Prescott House, a Beacon Street house museum built in 1808. At the Boston Athenaeum, one of the oldest libraries in America, Roger is both a Proprietor and a docent, offering art and architecture tours. Further down the street, he regularly edits playbills and has acted—twice—as a butler in productions by The Somerset (Club) Players. “In my first marriage, as the husband of a wife who was unwell, then as a father, and later as a son, I have been responsible for others,” he reflects. “Since the death of my mother at 101 three years ago, I have been finding out who I now am as that role has diminished.” He recalls being struck by a line from Shakespeare after his mother’s passing: “Othello’s occupation’s gone.” But as much as Roger relates to the past, he continues to look forward, with plans to travel to Israel, Vietnam, and India, following a recent visit to South Africa. He is an active user of Facebook, and those who visit his page will be amused to see him and Maureen walking across
the famous intersection near Abbey Road, mimicking the Beatles. Roger’s page has a large following, and he welcomes keeping up with former students (although he “never solicits them”), electronically or in person. Last spring Taft’s Class of 1974 invited Roger to their 45th reunion. One of those attending was his former student Richard Smoley, a writer and philosopher, who speaks of him as “a superb English teacher but much more. Being befriended by him was a great education in being courteous and civilized, in what it means to be a gentleman.” Roger’s love of reading and his desire to encourage that love in others remain constant. He continues to lead an annual session of the BB&N Past Parents Book Club. Former co-chair of the BB&N Scholarship Auction Francine Crawford P’97, with input from her son Will, remembers asking Roger (in 1999), “if he would consider making a ‘guest appearance’ at a high bidder’s book group and leading a discussion.” She describes
his response as “thrilling: ‘I can do you one better,’ he said. ‘I’ll get a group of faculty together and we’ll offer a series.’ He did, bidding was fierce, and by the end of that year we all had so much fun we decided to continue.” The Club recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and has, over the years, contributed over $200,000 to BB&N financial aid funds. Roger, who is currently working with an eighth grader on her writing, has helped edit the publications of friends and former students. Their works are among the many filling his bookshelves and spilling out onto surfaces all around the house. Some of them, like Maura Roosevelt ’02’s novel Baby of the Family, published earlier this year, thank Roger in the acknowledgments. Maura told me that “Mr. Stacey not only exposed me to some of the best books I’ve read, but his satire class was where I learned that thinking about literature, and working through the problems it presents, can be really, truly fun. He also—nearly single-handedly—taught
2 me to write!” Roger describes himself as a voracious reader, someone for whom reading has always been such a “necessity” that he would “read the telephone book if no better alternatives were available.” During our conversation, Roger’s many current pursuits and his undimmed intellectual powers struck me as an admirable, if intimidating, role model for retirement. While he enjoys the freedom of not having to grade papers or follow a daily class schedule, teaching remains an essential part of his life, a life upon which he looks back with satisfaction: “I have been very fortunate to have been free to pursue a career that engaged my talents and interests at two strong schools with a variety of capable students. I am always reluctant to take much credit for my students’ accomplishments but am always pleased to learn of them and to think that our working together provided some of them with occasions to discover and develop talents of their own.” 27