William T. Moynihan ’62 PhD

William T. Moynihan ’62 PhD, of Storrs, Conn.; Mar. 28. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and graduating from St. Bonaventure University, he was employed as a journalist. In 1955 he began his teaching career at Connecticut’s Killingly High School, where he gained the nickname “Wild Bill.” At the same time, he began working toward his Brown PhD, while also teaching summer school classes at UConn. In 1961, he was hired as an English professor at UConn and in 1967, he was elected chair of the English department and served as department head for 20 years. He authored a book on the poetry of Dylan Thomas, and co-authored several writing textbooks. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to teach in Bergen, Norway, in 1969, then taught in Paris, France, and London on academic exchanges, all while leading the department. After stepping down as department head, he began a second career as a playwright in the 1980s, writing more than nine plays, including More Than a Man, about Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture, which was a finalist in both the CBS/Chicago Theater Project playwriting competition and the Sergel Drama Prize from the University of Chicago Court Theater competition in 1985. He is survived by seven children and their spouses, and 19 grandchildren.