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(Originally published JANUARY 22, 2024)

By Leslie Virostek

A student in the Bachelor of General Studies Program, Patti Penney is simply extraordinary. It’s not just that she’s a veteran who once directed arrivals and departures of military aircraft at the Norfolk naval base. Or that she’s also a veteran of the insurance industry who earned her CPCU certification and rose to the rank of senior underwriting supervisor. It’s not that she has a 3.81 GPA with an insatiable zest for learning. What makes her really stand out is that she is an 81-year-old Central undergraduate. 

She also feels perfectly comfortable in the classroom. From an academic perspective, she relishes the fact that her program of studies has been broad and varied, a far cry from what she considers the limited and limiting experience of her schooling in the 1950s. Her curriculum has included philosophy, sociology, and the humanities, and she especially enjoys delving into disciplines that didn’t exist back then, including women’s and gender studies. Penney likes to share on social media what she’s learned, especially with people her age who have not been exposed to the big ideas and breadth of cultures that have been so “eye-opening” to her. 

“I just have found that the education I’m receiving, the openness, the awareness is absolutely phenomenal,” she says. 

In one of her favorite English courses, she discovered the poetry of rap lyrics. It’s a far cry from her work in insurance. 

She quips, “From the ridiculous to the sublime!” 

Most of her classmates are around the age of Penney’s grandchildren, but building a rapport has not been a problem. For her part, she says, “I don’t go in with an old lady’s notion of thinking I’m smarter than you are.” 

She notes that she is widowed, has had cancer twice, and has experienced other life crises. “But I don’t let that define me,” she says.

For their part, her professors and classmates aren’t making age-related assumptions about her. She thinks that her irreverent sense of humor and penchant for mild oaths are among the reasons that she is relatable. “Nothing is sacred to me,” she asserts. 

It was validating when a former classmate told her recently, “I love you for your honesty.” 

Penney says, “That made me feel so good, because if I can bring that to the table, then what the hell.”

Raised in upstate New York, Penney joined the Navy after high school, serving from 1963 to 1966. After air traffic control training — where she learned to identify different types of aircraft, understand radar, and account for weather — she went to work in the tower at Naval Station Norfolk. Passing a civilian exam after discharge, she was offered a plum air traffic control position on the island of Nantucket. She declined the job on account of a love interest, only to have the boyfriend break up with her two weeks later, when her career opportunity was gone. 

Today she laughs about being so young and foolish. 

“When I think about it I want to stick a pen in my eye!” she declares.

Her parents had moved to Connecticut by then, and they encouraged her to get into the booming insurance industry. Penney gave it a try and ended up working for 33 years for the Hartford Steam Boiler company. She says, “I loved every minute of it.” 

She pursued a few part-time gigs after that — including a job as a billing clerk at a cardiology practice — before retiring at the age of 75.

But she wanted to keep the “muscle” of her mind strong, so she took her son’s suggestion to go to college. After earning an associate’s degree at Asnuntuck Community College, she enrolled at the University of Connecticut with the dream of completing her bachelor’s degree. But the commute from Enfield was rough, and getting around the big campus was a challenge to her arthritic knees. 

Taking a semester off to regroup, she investigated the offerings ������Ƶ. “I didn’t want to let up on this momentum that I had,” she says. “And oh my God, it’s the best thing I ever did. It was either that or the end of my dream.” 

Today she says the academic program, the warmth and engagement of the faculty, and the more centralized campus have made Central a perfect fit. 

Highly motivated, Penney already has a plan to use the knowledge and skills she’s gained from her studies. Ideally, she’d like to find a part-time or volunteer position helping people access services and resources in her town. “What I would’ve wanted to do — if I had my life to live over again — would be like a community advocate, and help people through the system,” she says.  

Penney will be 81 when she graduates in May. From across the country, some 25 to 30 family members are expected to come to celebrate the milestone. There will another party for all her friends. She loves how everyone is excited and amazed that she is completing her degree. 

“They are just mind-boggled that I’ve taken on this journey,” she says, noting, “It’s been a wonderful, wonderful experience that I’ve had.”

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Patti Penney takes a break in Willard-DiLoreto Hall after a recent Criminology class.