The Wake

It’s a sight that deservedly gets a second glance. The dining hall at Bailey, usually filled with sleepy-eyed freshmen and their PJ-clad sophomore counterparts waiting for food, and 50-year-old Bill Greuling, in line with his food tray, who may not be in his pajamas but still comfortably calls the St. Paul campus dormitory his home.

“The quintessential non-traditional student” is how Greuling identified himself last May at a Board of Regents public forum. And, with his salt-and-pepper hair, the visits from his 14-year-old son and the fact that he is 30 years older than most of his fellow residents, he might just be right.

“I try not to act 17 or 18,” Greuling says about being a resident in Bailey. “But I will try not to act my age. My life is like any other college kid, really. We’ll try and find a middle ground.” Greuling, who is studying scientific and technical communications, has been a dormitory resident since fall 2004, when he transferred to the university from Rochester Community and Technical.

But if Greuling’s presence at Bailey Hall is an unusual circumstance to some, it is certainly not unheard of according to statistics provided by the university’s Housing & Residential Life department.

As expected, the majority of students that live in the dorms (5,580, to be exact) are between the ages of 17 and 20. There are 647 students between the ages of 21 and 30. Finally, according to statistics, four people over the age of 30 are living in the dorms this year.

“There is no policy on how old a student can be and live in the residence halls,” says Mannix Clark, the associate director of Housing & Residential Life. “We have had students who were over 60 years old living with us since I have been here in fall of 1999,” Clark says. It appears that the older a student is, the more likely they are to distance themselves from the party halls most people associate with dorm life. “Many of the students that are over 20 and live with us chose to live in a single room or one of the apartments,” Clark says.

Originally, Greuling did not live in a single room or an apartment, but instead lived with a 22-year-old roommate. Now, he has his own room but still finds that the dorm life agrees with him. “The community here has connected me to campus life,” Greuling says.

On the other hand, he also admits that the relatively peaceful atmosphere that is often associated with the St. Paul campus appeals to him as well. “I can’t imagine living on the ‘Superblock,’” he says, referring to the cluster of dormitories on the East Bank Campus in Minneapolis that is traditionally known to be noisy and rambunctious. “There’s no way in hell I’d live on the ‘Superblock.’”

Greuling is no stranger to residential life, having lived in the dorms as a “traditionally-aged” undergrad at Texas Tech University. He was a journalism major whose interests included magazines, radio and television. Due to a misunderstanding about the number and diversity of credits required for the degree, Greuling did not graduate from Texas Tech, but instead sought work that eventually led him to his family-owned business, “a medium-sized manufacturing company,” where he worked for several years until getting a job at IBM, which brought him and his family to a small town near Rochester, Minn.

It was in Minnesota where life for Bill Greuling seemed to take a severe turn. After falling down a set of stairs and being airlifted to the Mayo Clinic, Greuling was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, which left him disabled and unable to continue his job duties with IBM. “I wasn’t really expected to recover,” Greuling says about the incident. As it stood, Greuling did mostly recover, but lingering fatigue meant that his lifestyle needed to change.

Faced with the prospect of “living out the rest of my life on Social Security disability,” Greuling found another option—going back to school full-time, which is how he eventually found himself living the dorm life, plastic food trays and all.

“I choose to look at it as a blessing,” Greuling says, “It did enable me to change my life around.”

And according to Greuling, the university has been more than helpful in dealing with his disability. “The university has bent over backwards to an amazing degree,” he says, though adding the disclaimer that more needs to be done as far as easing the transition for transfer students. “They’re not really great with transfer students,” he says.

What do other students think about having a considerably older student as a neighbor? “He’s a really, really nice guy,” says sophomore Erica Nolte. She adds that, at the start of the semester, many students “thought he was another student’s dad” and that “everyone thought it was a big joke.” But she says that, in certain cases, the age difference went a lot further than a mere joke. “He mentors with the guys, and really encourages their career plans.”

“At first, they’re really freaked out,” Greuling says about the other residents at Bailey. “But then, I’ll go B.S. with them … and all of a sudden the age difference goes away. They know I’m older, more experienced … they see that,” he says. “But, not being a CA,” he adds, “I’m not going pounding at the door to see who’s got hooch, I’m not going to rat them out, and they know that.” But Greuling also makes sure that there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed. “They know I will step in, put a stop to anyone behaving badly. I don’t think I have many enemies,” he adds.

Greuling says living on campus has been hard on his family, but his son is “pretty cool with the idea” and “hopefully” he’ll be graduating in December 2006. “This has really kept me a lot younger,” he says.

Greuling encourages other potential “non-traditional” students that might be considering returning to school to “get in and get involved with the campus well beyond what’s required.” However, he cautions that the experience could be challenging at times, like when he was looking for someone to grab a beer with at Stub and Herbs one evening. “I realized, hell, they’re all too young to go with me! Maybe it’s time to join the adult world.”

Sarah Howard and Rachel Drewelow contributed to this article.