Every Tuesday and Thursday this semester, Marty meets Helen outside of Braker Hall after class. But Marty and Helen are not your usual Tufts students. They are not allowed to write papers or take exams. They take only one class each and they don't receive credits or grades. They are also married. And as alumni in their mid-60's, they are a part of Tufts' past as well as witnesses to its present.
Martin (Marty) Santis and his wife Helen take classes through the Community Audit program, which is part of the Graduate Special Student program of the University. The program is open to Medford and Somerville residents and teachers, senior citizens, and Tufts alumni of all ages. As auditors, Marty and Helen take classes for their own enrichment and personal fulfillment and do not receive a transcript with grades or credits.
"At our age, it's a very exciting place to be- bright students, marvelous and admirable professors," Helen said.
Marty graduated from Tufts' undergraduate program (LA '58), and attended Tufts Medical School. Helen, a graduate of Simmons College, attended the Tufts Dental School (DDS '61) and has served as a faculty member there.
The Santises, who are now retired, met through a mutual friend when Marty was in his first year of medical school at Tufts. They married soon after Helen's graduation from dental school.
As medical students, Helen and Marty missed out on taking humanities classes, and are happy to be studying the liberal arts during their current Tufts careers.
"We're catching up on parts of our lives that we've missed, enriching ourselves in culture, arts, and humanities," Marty said.
Things have changed since Helen attended dental school as the only female member of her class. When she graduated, less than one percent of women in the country were dentists.
"There were no role models," she said.
Helen joined the faculty of the Tufts Dental School in 1968, when she and Marty returned to Massachusetts. She is a clinical professor emerita, and during her 30 years on the faculty at Tufts, she has been the acting department chair of the department of oral pathology and a faculty advisor for the Student Women's Dental Association. Throughout her years at the University Helen was "very active in working with women in the dental school."
The class Helen is taking this semester is very much a part of her own life - "History of Women in Twentieth Century America (HIST 93)."
"It's exciting, coming from dentistry, an all-male profession, learning how women came along themselves," Helen said.
Despite the many changes to the campus over the years, Marty and Helen still find the school attractive and enjoy its "campus spirit."
"I'm having the campus experience I didn't have," Helen said. "I love it!"
Simmons College, where Helen was an undergraduate, was an urban school whose campus consisted of one major building.
According to both, the University was "more rigid" when they attended.
"The faculty is a lot more casually dressed now. The professors, mostly male back then, wore jackets and ties," Marty said.
"There were also no room phones or TVs," Helen added.
There were also no study abroad programs and virtually no transfer students. And, Tufts had stricter policies for class attendance. According to Marty, there was a limit on absences allowed for a class, and students were forbidden to miss class right before a vacation. Like many universities at the time, Tufts had Saturday classes.
"The weekend began Saturday at noon," Marty said, recalling his 8 a.m. Saturday classes as an underclassman. "Almost everyone had Saturday classes, especially the freshmen! It was difficult to avoid."
Tufts also looks quite different now than it did 40 years ago. "There were much fewer dormitories and more space," Marty said.
The residential quad that students are familiar with today did not exist. When Marty was a freshman, Carmichael had just been built and opened to students, and Olin, Miller, and Houston Halls had not been built. The school bookstore was located in Bendetson Hall with the admissions office, and Eaton was the library the undergraduate library. East Hall was once a dormitory that complemented West Hall, and Hodgdon was a dorm for women. And at the time, Crane Hall housed the Crane School of Theology, a graduate school of religion.
As an undergraduate at Tufts, Marty experienced what he refers to as a "grind."
"As a pre-med student, there wasn't much time for activities," he said.
His major, chemistry-biology, which many pre-med students of his day majored in, no longer exists at the University. Marty was a commuting student who traveled from Brookline to Tufts each day on the MBTA. He was also a brother of the fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi.
This semester Marty is taking "Reason and Revolt," which gives him a chance to interact with current Tufts students.
"I'm very impressed with the students. I find them to be very bright and articulate, and forthright," Marty said, comparing confident students of today with his peers, which were part of what was he calls the "silent generation."
As auditors of the class, Marty and Helen pay a "modest amount of money" to attend classes, and feel that "it's [the students'] class, and their place, but we both feel very welcome in our classes."
There are some restrictions to the program, however. For example, people in the program are not allowed to use the gym facilities and while they are allowed to use the library, they cannot check books out.
And as retirees, Helen and Marty feel they luxury of time to truly enjoy what they learn.
"It's wonderful, we savor what we're reading and hearing in class," Helen said. "We can be very focused and get an enormous amount from the class."
This is Marty and Helen's first semester participating in the Community Audit Program, and they are both "very satisfied" with it. They conveniently found two classes at the same time in buildings across from each other. They also plan to continue taking classes this spring semester.
"We're planning our vacation around spring break," Marty said.
Marty and Helen have been married for 40 years and have three children and four grandchildren. Marty practiced dental medicine for 31 years in Concord before retiring this past summer. Having struggled with serious health problems, Marty feels that at his age he has a "carpe diem" sense about life.
"You enjoy things more, and sweat things less," he said.
The couple encourages students to savor their time here, and to adopt the kind of attitude that they have towards life.
"Enjoy it. Enjoy your education. It is such a privilege to be here," Helen said. "We feel privileged to be in this environment."
