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But when she went to pick up her student ID card at the University of º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍølast week, her age wasn’t top of mind — though she did make one joke to her son-in-law that she was the oldest person in the building.

“I didn’t feel out of place,” she said. “I was just the person who was coming here to go to university.”

Gommerman is just one of the tens of thousands of students who made their way to U of T this week with the start of classes for the fall semester.

On Friday, the grandmother went to her first class: an aging and health course taught by professor Raza Mirza in a unique setting. Known as the Intergenerational Classroom, Mirza has taught the class for the past three years to a room of university-age students and some of the senior residents of the Christie Gardens Apartments and Care, in the Davenport neighbourhood.

“We’ve been really intentional in trying to create a welcoming, inclusive learning community for people of all ages so that you don’t feel like being the oldest (student) is a bad thing,” Mirza told the Star after the first class.

It was this class — which Gommerman attended as a Christie Gardens resident in 2024 — that partly inspired her to enrol at U of T. (While Gommerman is retaking the class as a student this year, Mirza said it’s not uncommon for Christie Gardens residents to take his class multiple times.) 

Gommerman has a lifelong love of learning that never faded, even after she put her academic career on an indefinite pause 30 years ago.

In her 50s, she was a student at McMaster University, working on a bachelor’s of science in nursing. As someone who’s always been interested in health sciences, Gommerman loved the program and almost all of her courses.

But she began to find it harder and harder to juggle studying at the library for hours each day and taking care of her kids at home. So she made the tough decision to drop out.

“It was very hard for me to decide to leave,” she said, adding that the dean of her program even offered an extension to give her more time. “But it was the right decision.”

Thirty years later, Gommerman is starting where she left off.

Along with Mirza’s aging and health course, she said she plans to take classes on biometrics and philosophy, and she’s trying to transfer her credits from McMaster so she can take more advanced courses sooner. She’s also registered to take an immunology course next semester — which happens to be taught by her daughter.

“It was a bit of a surprise,” Gommerman said, explaining how her grandson — who’s also starting his first year at U of T this fall — was the one to realize the coincidence as the pair were signing up for courses.

(Gommerman made it clear that her daughter would not be marking her assignments and exams — “That would be a conflict of interest” — but said she thought her daughter would grade her extra hard if she did.)

As for how she feels about attending the same school as her grandson, Gommerman said if she sees him on campus, she expects to get a hug.

“He would be fine with it,” she said confidently, adding that he brags to his friends that his grandma is returning to school.

Speaking with the Star after her first class on Friday, Gommerman said she was excited for what’s to come. She’s was also shocked at how much interest there has been in her studies, joking with the Star that she’s gotten a lot of practice answering reporter questions over the past week.

“It is rewarding, from that perspective, that there is that interest,” she said. “If I can stimulate that interest in somebody else, then I’ll feel really good for them.”