Melody was a psychology major, so they didn't share any classes, but they did see each other on campus now and then.
"There were a few times I would scream ‘Nana!’ across one of the fields outside and just run up to her,” Melody says. “We didn't see each other a lot, but it was nice when we did."
Pat enjoyed all her classes, although it was disappointing when she had to trade dynamic in-person interactions with classmates and professors for a virtual experience because of the pandemic.
"That's one thing about COVID and taking online courses,” she says. “There's so much more reading. It's just not the same."
Having the drive to raise the bar
On November 20, 2020, Pat and Melody graduated together, then celebrated — just the two of them — with calzones.
Pat earned more than a degree during her time at the UT Chattanooga. She was selected as the school's 2019-20 Senior of the Year in anthropology, and was — and remains — president of its chapter of the Lambda Alpha National Anthropology Honor Society.
She also graduated magna cum laude.
"I knew she had the drive,” Melody says. “I was proud to see her grades, but I wasn't surprised at all. She asked me so many times to read her papers, and after a while I was like, ‘Nana, what's the point? You're going to make [a score of] 105 percent on it. But I read them anyway."
Pat encourages her “senior citizen colleagues out there” to audit classes in subjects they care about even if they don't want to follow in her footsteps.
"The fact that you don't want to go for a degree should not keep you from taking advantage of the great schools we have around the nation,” she says.
Not stopping with one degree
Pat isn't saying goodbye to academia anytime soon.
She wants to complete a project she started on campus just before COVID-19 hit. The project — mapping geographic information system locations for every archaeological site in Tennessee — had to be halted because it requires face-to-face interaction.
And she has started working on a history degree.
"It's really nice to see her flourish, to see how happy she is in an environment she loves and thrives and learns in,” says Melody. “She just won't stop."
"If you stop moving,” Pat replies, “that's when you're going to have problems. You have to keep moving."
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