Virginia ‘Ginny’ Hislop receives her Stanford master’s degree at age 105 – Credit: Charles Russo for Stanford University

Stanford University’s recent graduation ceremony featured 105-year-old Virginia Hislop completing a master’s degree in education 83 years after she started her coursework.

Put on hold in favor of the bounties of life, a husband and family, World War II, and a long career in education, she finally had a chance to grab that paper, cap and gown, to the applause of her peers.

Hislop was attending Stanford at a time when anyone attempting to achieve a master’s degree had to write a master’s thesis. A significant challenge at the best of times, but as the school year of 1940 dragged on, the US population was dragged in turn into the Second World War.

Her fiance, George, was called up to make war on the German, and so she put her master’s thesis on hold to marry him and join the homefront war effort. After the fighting was finished, Hislop began a long career of educational work, putting the teaching certificate she obtained via her bachelor’s in education to use in serving on various school boards.

She described her career in a nutshell as trying to improve education opportunities for the largest number of people possible.

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Decades went by, and Hislop eventually learned that the master’s thesis requirement had been removed—there was almost nothing stopping her from visiting campus and picking up where she left off.

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83 years later, in June, she finally did just that, with her grandkids and great-grandkids looking on.

“For a lot of people the degree is a badge of accomplishment, and it was great to be able to celebrate someone who cared so much about learning, and dedicated her lifetime to other people’s learning,” said Stanford Dean Daniel Schwartz on the occasion of the 105-year-old’s graduation.

Her son-in-law described her as a woman under whose feet “moss doesn’t grow” owing to her active lifestyle of volunteering, voracious reading, and walking around her garden.

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