Marilyn Krause walks quickly to her History class early one cool fall morning. She passes by a professor and waves hello, and then resumes talking in a warm, quiet tone.
She is dressed neatly, a sweater set matched with pressed slacks and a light scarf. Her auburn hair is braided and pinned up, and her makeup perfectly in place.
Upon arriving at class, Krause sits, as usual, near the back of the classroom, stopping to pick up the class agenda for the day. She listens attentively, occasionally pausing to sip coffee or scribble notes.
Krause, however, is completely unlike any of the students who sit around her. She is not concerned about the next midterm, her overall GPA or even trying to find a job for next summer.
A wife and mother of two, the 62-year-old Krause is both a senior and a student. Although she may have already graduated from Bryn Mawr College and attended Penn Medical School and graduated from Georgetown Medical School, practiced medicine and raised two daughters, Krause is ready and eager to continue learning as a member of Penn's Senior Associates Program.
At Bryn Mawr in her youth, Krause took classes that went toward her degree, and not for her own enjoyment.
"I didn't take art, I didn't take music, I didn't take astronomy," she says.
"I just feel like I have a second chance to find things out I didn't know then," Krause says. "I feel very fortunate."
SAP began in the 1970s initially as an audit program for professionals teaching in the Philadelphia school district, according to program coordinator Eleni Litt.
As the program evolved, it eventually changed to target retired seniors who wanted to continue their education at Penn, while remaining an audit program at the same time. The class credits do not go toward any degree, so the seniors do not submit papers, take exams or attend recitations and seminars.
The seniors are also not allowed to participate in class discussions, unless permitted by the professor, or register for either graduate level courses or Wharton classes.
The program is one of several under the College of General Studies, which promotes "lifelong learning" adult classes as a division of the School of Arts and Sciences.
SAP is designed for seniors, who are either retired or 65 and older, to audit up to two classes per semester. Seniors pay $100 per class, with all proceeds going toward scholarships for CGS students.
The program serves over 450 senior associates attending classes in the fall, 300 or more in the spring and a large amount in the summer.
Though technically seniors are not supposed to involve themselves in discussions, Litt finds most of the professors "totally welcoming of seniors... they're very open."
While the limit for the number of seniors in each class is 10 percent, unless otherwise stipulated by the professor, the program has already grown so much that some seniors are unable to register for their first choice classes.
Through SAP, seniors are given an opportunity to continue challenging themselves, quite unlike programs at any other university, including Temple University, where classes for seniors are taught by seniors themselves, and not professors.
"They love it, they adore it... it's a wonderful program," Litt says.
The classes "are a big part of their day," she says.
Subjects that are the most popular with seniors include history, political science and Jewish studies.
Krause attends all of her classes with her husband Bob, 65, who also attended Penn Medical School after he graduated from Haverford College. The couple met more than 40 years ago at a mixer in Houston Hall.
The Krauses settled in Philadelphia after graduate school and recently retired after long years of work -- Marilyn as a pediatrician and Bob in preventative cardiology.
The Krauses enjoy taking classes as a pair each semester. They sit together, sometimes exchanging a whispered aside or glance, and often discuss class material later at home.
Learning in class together "adds a lot of fun and camaraderie," Bob says. "We love being together."
Both agree on the benefits of a program that does not require long hours of work.
"It's a relief... to be able to listen intently and have time to think about what you're hearing," Marilyn says.
Marsha Allen, a self-described "65-plus" senior, a grandmother of two and local resident, is also a member of SAP and spends her days painting watercolors, working on ceramics at home and taking classes at Penn.
Although she never received a college degree, Allen did not want the annoyance of struggling through exams and books. She chose instead to take the classes she found most interesting through SAP.
"I'm exploring my options," she says. "I'm going to be the most well-rounded woman."
Allen currently takes Edward Peters' "Europe in a Wider World" class but later hopes to study art history and take a course on the lives of modern authors.
History Department Chairman and Professor Jonathan Steinberg, 68, was first shocked at seeing senior citizens in one of his classes when he began teaching at Penn more than two years ago. Yet, he gradually realized that seniors were an important aspect of his class.
"I think the program is essential," he says. "There's a whole future of education here which this university is especially suited for."
Steinberg believes seniors are an integral part of the University, as shown by the 103 seniors who are in his "Europe Since 1945" class alone because of a special allowance from Steinberg.
With seniors as "the fastest growing population," he says, "we're looking at a situation in which one third of the population will be overage."
Steinberg says he feels society should embrace seniors and begin programs specifically suited for seniors with "a new kind of academic professor" suited to teaching older students.
"I think this stuff is just at its beginning," he says.
He says he believes this kind of program would help the crisis in funding for education with seniors who are "eager for a lot more," being the "biggest market for education in the U.S."
Steinberg is eager for an increase in the number of senior students, and some undergraduates say they enjoy the interaction, but a few others feel seniors can be a burden to a class meant for younger students.
College senior Nadine Spitalnick complained of "irrelevant" questions from seniors that would sometimes force professors to diverge from relevant material into discussion of more unnecessary topics. The questions were "wasting a little time," she says, and distracting to classroom order.
Yet, she still finds the program a necessity because of other benefits. In History Professor Thomas Childers' class "The World at War," last spring, Spitalnick reflects, "It was really interesting to have some veterans there."
To many students, the insight provided by seniors into recent history is invaluable. Seniors have lived through events in history that young students find difficult to imagine, including the Great Depression and the second World War.
"We owe it to [seniors] to keep them in society," Spitalnick argues. "Maybe the undergraduates have to make a bigger effort."
College senior David Nacchio also recognizes the importance of senior wisdom, and of "bridging the gap between the MTV generation and those who have gone through all we're supposed to know."
Although seniors make many positive contributions to the classroom environment, senior associates themselves agree that the number of seniors in each class should remain limited, and that seniors should not always be allowed to participate in discussion or smaller, seminar and laboratory classes.
"I would like to take some biology labs, frankly... but that's OK," senior associate Aaron Rubenstein, 67, concedes.
"We've had our time, it's your time now," Marilyn Krause says.
Senior Associates may be retired, but many are not even grandparents yet, and most are still active and vibrant. Taking classes allows seniors to continue to challenge themselves intellectually.
"I know for many of the seniors, it's become a very important part of retirement," SAP Steering Committee Chairman Phil Eidelson, 74, says, calling SAP the "next best thing to medicare."
"The marvelous thing about the program is that it's just a wonderful environment, a stimulating way to spend one's retirement."
At a price comparable to a semester of yoga classes, one of the favorite parts of the program is the low price seniors pay for an Ivy League education with top-notch professors, making the program easily accessible to every senior.
"To be able to take an undergraduate course at Penn for $100," Rubenstein says, "is a real bargain."
The only disappointment, according to the Krauses, is the lack of interest on the part of students.
"Young people today don't seem to be interested in us," Bob says. "It's a generational thing."
Whether or not the program ever expands, or senior students are universally appreciated by undergraduates, senior associates just like Marilyn and Bob Krause will attend class each day, learning solely for the sake of learning.
