It’s Wednesday afternoon, and students in adjunct professor Bill Danoff’s songwriting seminar are settling into their dungeon-like studio deep in the recesses of New North for another long session of topical musical discussion, song analysis and the chance to perform some of their own material.

A spirited discussion concerning the best place to pick up guitar strings breaks out in the minutes leading up to class. When someone mentions The Guitar Shop, a cluttered little nook near Dupont Circle, it sparks an outcry from a few members of the class.

One student gives voice to his disagreement with the suggestion.

“That place is jank,” he says.

The word is barely out of his mouth before his classmates jump all over him. “Jank?! Where you from, dude?”

Unnoticed amid the tumult, one student, sitting quietly at her desk carefully writes the word “jank” in her notebook (the only one now visible in the classroom) and looks up, ready to learn more. This particular student, who preferred to remain anonymous for this article, is a bit of a standout. She is an elderly woman, whose chance to form a band and go on tour have probably passed her by. And yet she sits among a bunch of twenty-something rising musicians as a result of Georgetown’s Senior Citizen Auditor Program.

“It’s the best party in town,” she muses later in the class, watching a student across the room finger a guitar. “I love the spontaneity. It’s lovely.”

Administered by the School of Continuing Studies, SCAP dates back to at least the early 1980s, says SCS Assistant Dean Anne Ridder, who oversees the program. SCAP offers senior citizens in the Washington, D.C., area access to almost all of Georgetown’s undergraduate courses.

Fr. Timothy Healy, S.J., a former university president, was the driving force behind the program, Ridder says. Healy was looking for a way for Georgetown to bring its Jesuit philosophy beyond Healy Gates to area residents. Out of that search came his idea to provide affordable education to those students who had long since left school but never gave up their zeal for new knowledge.

“We owe something back to the neighbors for allowing us to live and thrive and grow and crowd their streets,” Ridder said.

To audit a course, a senior must first attend the class and obtain permission from the professor. Professors are usually very receptive and the candidate has little difficulty getting approval, Ridder said.

Upon turning in a completed sign-up form and a check for $50, the auditor is enrolled in the course and given a university NetID. The university places certain restrictions on senior citizen auditors: They are not allowed to take 100-200 level language courses, graduate level courses or any courses with hands-on labs, and they can only secure a spot after the add/drop period. Once enrolled, the university encourages auditors to communicate with the professor to determine an appropriate level of participation based on the atmosphere of the course and the professor’s wishes.

But while academic life for most undergraduates is often an endless narrative of hurrying to class, grinding out papers and cramming for exams, for SCAP participants, coursework is something like leisure. SCAP participants do not hand in papers, take tests or receive any kind of evaluation or credit for the course.

Knowledge of SCAP has spread primarily by word of mouth, Ridder said, which helps the program maintain its small size. Most participants spread out their time in class, interspersing semesters of coursework with semesters of vacation. There are about 26 people currently “in the loop,” Ridder said, 16 of whom audited a course this semester. That’s up slightly from the 80s and 90s, when only about 10 senior citizens were enrolled per semester.

“They take wonderful trips,” Ridder said with a laugh. “Some [audit a course] every semester, and some don’t. They build it around their families and other retirement activities.”

The men and women who enroll in SCAP each have a different motive for becoming a Georgetown student. Some are recently retired and looking to improve a casual interest in a subject area. Some are just trying to keep their minds active. Others enjoy the sense of community on a bustling college campus. And for still others, the price tag doesn’t hurt, either.

“50 bucks,” said Hall Kern, a 67-year old participant who audits Ori Soltes’ Jewish Mysticism course. “I almost hesitate to tell anybody that. It’s like telling somebody where the great fishing spot is, or that little restaurant.”

After closing his Virginia farm market store in 1997, Kern wanted to travel. But after six years of retirement, he had satisfied much of his wanderlust and soon found himself looking for a new challenge. A high-school dropout who held various jobs in the Army, construction and sales before opening his market, Kern frequently flashed a grin more youthful than his age as he described his long journey to his first undergraduate experience. “I have a quirky personality,” he said. “I was never suited to take the usual road.”

Kern had gotten a taste for adult education before then. About 12 years ago while still running his business, he signed up for a philosophy of art class under a now-discontinued Continuing Education program that offered night classes for adults and watched in awe as a professor clad in a tweed jacket walked in and took over the classroom.

“So college, you know?” he said. “That night, I had a dream, and in my dream I was back at Georgetown and I was kind of living there, and I was walking around campus.… It sounds corny, but I felt like I had arrived at heaven.”

Kern has since sampled a smorgasbord of offerings from the theology and philosophy departments and began auditing undergraduate classes a couple of years ago after night classes were discontinued. Though he admits he preferred to learn with students of his own age, Kern has nonetheless loved his experience with SCAP and raves about the pedagogy of his past professors, citing a Philosophy of Mind course with associate professor Linda Wetzel as one of the highlights. His favorite professor, though, is the philosophy department’s associate professor Francis Ambrosio. Kern recalls that he once told Ambrosio, who was a patron of Kern’s market, “You were my customer, now I’m your customer.”

SCAP is one of several programs that offer a Georgetown education to others in the community not seeking degrees. A separate program, the Georgetown University Learning Community, still offers a limited number of free courses, taught by retired faculty, to adults aged 55 and older.

Another initiative, the Bridge Program, allows high school seniors from Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School and Gonzaga College High School to take college courses for credit. The High Skip program offers the same opportunity for students in their senior years in D.C.-area public schools. Both programs are competitive and students are chosen through a selective application process.

While the Bridge and High Skip programs are the only ones offered without tuition fees, some high school students take classes at Georgetown while on deferral from their first year of college or attend classes after graduation to shore up requirements for graduate programs. University employees can also take classes using a human resources benefit to cover tuition.

Ann Sheffield, 66, is a newcomer to the program, and this week will finish up her first Georgetown class, Noreen O’Connor’s 19th Century Transatlantic Novel course.

After a long career in academia and government, teaching Latin and Greek at Barnard College in New York and running a fellowship program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars here in D.C., Sheffield was hoping to keep her mind nimble by reading and discussing novels in a classroom setting.

After discovering SCAP on the SCS Web site, she began auditing O’Connor’s English course. As it draws to a close, she has her sights set on an American slavery course as a possible choice for next semester.

“I’m already having separation anxiety from having [this class be] almost over,” Sheffield said. She said she participates “in a minor way,” letting students lead the discussion but contributing her thoughts when the class breaks into smaller discussion groups. O’Connor, who has never had a SCAP student in her classroom, is thrilled to have her as a student.

“I think it would be a delight to have a student like Ann in my class no matter what her age — she was so engaged and interested and open-minded,” O’Connor wrote in an e-mail. She added that she has taught older students at other schools and has “always found that these students brought a fresh perspective and another point of view to our discussions that broaden the learning for everyone.”

Even if it’s only a postscript on a diverse career life, Sheffield had nothing but praise for SCAP. “I will be writing a letter thanking the university and hoping to make a contribution and also praising Dr. O’Connor,” she said.

Ridder, for her part, said that SCAP’s wizened contingent of undergraduates has provided a new layer to the university community. “They add a richness to the class by their presence,” she said.

She fondly recalled a retiree named Hannah Leah Botsford, who audited 22 courses between 1981 and 1997 and grew attached to the university, After taking fine arts courses, she even endowed a chair in Washington’s National Theatre in Georgetown’s name. Many of her professors at Georgetown attended her memorial service and offered tributes to their dedicated student. “I think of her all the time,” said Ridder.

She also noted the many ways in which SCAP participants benefit beyond the lectures, such as mingling at luncheons, walking to the university together and watching youth at work. “They’re sitting back, very much enjoying what the students have to say,” she said. “It leaves them a good feeling about the next generation.”