She lives in a residence hall, rides CyRide or her bicycle to campus, and wonders how she ever managed to get an “A” in a particularly tough class last semester.

She sounds like a typical Iowa State student. Or does she? She’s not looking for a dream job after graduation and doesn’t want to date any of her fellow students.

One more thing — she has seven grown kids and 10 grandchildren.

Dorothy Morgan, 80 years old and a Buchanan Hall resident, has been a student at ISU since 1979.

In that time, she has earned two bachelor’s degrees, accumulated enough graduate hours to “almost” have a master’s degree and studied history, philosophy and, most recently, religion.

And she’s still going strong.

Morgan is one of a small, but remarkable number of non-traditional ISU students who are past retirement age and are going to college because they love to learn.

These students choose to spend their time in class, studying side-by-side with students the age of their grandchildren.

They do it because they want to.

According to figures published by the Office of the Registrar, 24 percent of ISU students are classified as “non-traditional” — that is, they are age 25 or older and did not come to college immediately after high school. Of those students, about 2 percent are over age 65.

Ellen Fairchild, director of the Office of Adult & Commuter Student Services, said her office does not offer any special programs aimed at senior citizen students, but she said they do work with them from time to time.

One ISU program especially for persons of retirement age, the ISU College for Seniors, offers special learning and travel opportunities for retired faculty and staff.

Other seniors who are attending ISU, however, are regular students like everyone else. Most of them are classified as part-time, and many like Morgan have continued to do college work for years.

Irma Winslow, 85, has been passionate about education all of her life. “I didn’t have a chance to go to high school,” she said. “We lived in the country, and my parents needed me to help out on the farm.”

After marrying and raising three children, Winslow was one of the first adults in the state to earn a GED certificate after the program’s inception in 1981.

She wasn’t proud of the fact that she had never attended high school, and didn’t tell her friends or family that she was studying for the GED until she knew she had earned it. “I sent my son a graduation announcement,” she said, “and he came home for the ceremony.”

Winslow was selected to deliver the address at her graduation. “I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it was about how important getting a high school diploma was to me.”

Winslow knew when she completed her high school studies that it was not going to be the end of her education. “When I got my GED, I knew I was not going to stop until I had gotten a college degree,” she said.

Winslow’s husband died following a massive heart attack in 1981. The following year she received a degree from Indian Hills Community College, and then she moved to Ames to continue her studies at ISU.

“We had always worked closely, as farmers, with ISU Extension,” she said.

Her familiarity with ISU and the quality of its programs made choosing a school easy, she said. In 1985, Winslow earned her first bachelor’s degree in liberal studies.

One of the things Winslow especially liked about being at ISU in those years was having her granddaughter as a fellow student. They shared an apartment for one and half years, an experience she recalled with great fondness.

“We weren’t grandmother and granddaughter — we were roommates,” she said. “It was a wonderful experience that we both enjoyed.”

When her granddaughter graduated and joined the Peace Corps, Winslow visited her in Ecuador. “The local people could not believe that her grandma would travel so far just to see her,” she said. “They were used to the old people not doing very much.”

A few years later, Winslow took an anthropology course which whetted her appetite for “digs” and the idea of hands-on discovery of history.

Another grandchild suggested that they go on a dig together, and in 1984, she and two of her granddaughters participated in an ISU-sponsored expedition to Israel.

Winslow has continued to take classes at ISU each school year since she received her bachelor’s degree. In l997, she earned a second bachelor’s degree in fine arts. She is now a special student in the College of Art and Design, currently working in the area of jewelry design.

“I love all kinds of crafts,” she said. She has explored most of the areas taught at the Design College and is an accomplished woodworker and fiber artist.

Winslow’s multi-media skills have given her some interesting learning opportunities outside the classroom, too.

“I took a weaving class at the suggestion of Shirley Held (emeritus professor of art and design), and I really liked it,” she said. “I decided that I would like to have a loom of my own. I priced them and found that they were very expensive, so I decided to make one.”

Winslow built her own four-harness table loom, which she still uses.

Morgan, too, has followed her long-time dream of getting an education. A native of Eagle Grove, she worked in her father’s hardware business after high school.

She briefly attended Eagle Grove Junior College. “I was trying to go to college clear back then” she said.

At age 27, she arrived at ISU.

Morgan had a strong interest and aptitude for mathematics and soon found a job teaching algebra and geometry to many of the returning soldiers from World War II.

“Lots of them had never had math in high school,” she said “And so they needed to learn it before they could take the college classes.”

Morgan married in the early 1950s, and she continued to attend school until shortly before the birth of her first child. She said at the time it was very unusual for women to work or attend school up until the time of their delivery.

After her husband took a job with the Maytag Co. in Newton, Morgan left ISU to raise a family of seven children. When her husband died in 1970, her four youngest were still at home. She remained in Newton until all of them had graduated from high school before returning to Ames and ISU.

Morgan picked up where she had left off and completed work for a degree in mathematics.

“Then I took another class. I liked it so much, I took another, and another,” she said.

In 1985 she received a second bachelor’s degree, in anthropology. She followed that with more than 20 graduate hours in anthropology. “I just like it,” she said about her work.

Since that time Morgan has studied history, philosophy and religion.

“I just take what I want to learn about,” she said. “If you want another degree, you have to take what they tell you to. I don’t want all of those.”

She enjoyed several courses so much that she took them more than once. She is currently enrolled in Religion 322 — New Testament, for a second time. She is taking the class for audit, not credit, because she already has an “A” on her transcript from the first time she took it.

But she doesn’t think she will audit another class. “There’s nothing wrong with taking a class as an audit,” she said, “except that you quit trying.”

Morgan hasn’t decided exactly what she will register for next semester. She has a strong interest in the study of Christianity and Christian philosophy, and wants to explore that subject in greater depth.

Winslow, too, plans to be back at ISU next fall. She returns to her farm home near Allerton during breaks. During school, however, she lives off-campus in Ames.

Morgan is a longtime “off-and-on” resident of Buchanan Hall.

“My kids think their mother is crazy,” she said about her choice of living quarters. “But I really enjoy it. It is a great opportunity to meet people from all over the world.”

Morgan and Winslow agreed that their fellow students are one of the best things about being in college. They said they are accepted and respected by both students and faculty, and they said their age has not been a detriment to their ability to get along with others on campus.

“They accept me as a person,” Morgan said. “I don’t have any problems with them about age.”

Winslow agreed. “Nobody’s ever made me feel like I don’t belong,” she said. “That includes the professors.” She joked that after so many years of study in the Design Center, she had become well-known in the building. “Even the custodians call me by my first name.”

Winslow and Morgan agree that what motivated them to go to school in the first place is the same thing that keeps them coming back: the love of learning.

“I just love to learn new things,” Morgan said.