What’s Next?
Grandmother celebrates milestone graduation – at 82
By Mary Beth Roach
When Mary Anne Winfield walked across the stage during LeMoyne College’s graduation ceremonies this past May, she made history. At the age of 82, she became the oldest person to graduate from the college — cum laude, no less.
She said that initially she hadn’t wanted to walk across the stage, but her family convinced her otherwise.
And she’s so glad they did.
At the conclusion of the ceremonies, there was a video of LeMoyne grad and NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps, currently on a space mission, delivering a message that ended with the phrase, “’Phins Up,” referring to the college nickname, the Dolphins.
Winfield, a grandmother of five, joked during a recent interview, that she has grandchildren who are older than almost everyone in her class.
And while some classmates thought, at first, she was a professor or was there to help them, Winfield said she was learning right along with them. Always a writer, Winfield took a lot of notes, whereas her classmates “are sitting with their Chromebooks or their computer. I’m in the wrong era here,” she said, laughing.
Now, with her degree, she said that one of her grandsons asked her if she now plans to get a job, to which she responded that she wasn’t going to get a job, that she’s already had several.
She’s had several jobs, started college, raised a family, started two businesses and has served on a wide variety of community organizations.
She started college back in the 1960s, but she left for Michigan with her husband, Don, who was doing graduate work there.
She had their first daughter, Jennifer, while in Michigan; moved back to Syracuse and had two more daughters, Julie and Megan.
She would go on to start two businesses and hold down a few other jobs as well. Always a writer, she started the Syracuse Magazine with a friend in 1977; sold it in the early 1980s; went to work for the chamber of commerce; and in 1985, began a marketing and communications business called Winfield Ink., which she ran until retiring in 2023.
Her community work has included serving on LeMoyne’s Board of Regents, United Way, Onondaga Citizen’s League, St. Camillus Foundation, past president of Loretto Foundation and U.S. Small Business Administration.
She currently is on the board of the Elmcrest Children’s Center.
Her degree in religious studies was prompted by her time teaching religion through the Release Time program. She was also involved with a committee the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, aimed at improving the religious education that junior high students, who Winfield called “restless believers,” received. The committee set up a program that brought in Jesuits from some of the leading Jesuit colleges in the country.
“That sparked my interest in Jesuit education,” she said. This, together with her work on LeMoyne’s Board of Regents, cemented her desire to take more classes with the Jesuits.
She began “in earnest” as she called it, in 2019, working toward a degree in religious studies, on a part-time basis, taking classes both online from her Skaneateles home and on campus.
“Mary Anne’s story is the epitome of perseverance, and we are thrilled that she was finally able to graduate nearly 60 years after she took her first class at Le Moyne,” according to Joseph Della Posta, director of communications at LeMoyne. “I’ve heard from several professors who had Mary Anne in class in recent years and they said she was engaged, curious and a wonderful student. We are so proud of her for achieving this milestone.”
And while she may not be pursuing a job, as she told her grandson, she hopes to continue her creative writing. Aside from articles for her magazine and various press releases and such for her clients at Winfield Ink., she has written poetry, which she enjoys, and has been published in Salamander, LeMoyne’s student literary magazine.
And while she doesn’t know if she’ll ever get anything more published, for someone who earned her college degree at the age of 82, isn’t anything possible?