And Mazzoli speculates that his unusual educational decision may portend an imminent trend.

For the “baby-boom” generation, rapidly approaching retirement age, life after a career could entail similar pursuits, he says.

“They’ll be more vibrant in their mental acuity, in their accomplishments, and they’re going to be very restive about being resigned to the scrap heap, about being put off to the side as extra baggage or detritus,” he says. “They’re going to be looking at things like this.”

A New Rep. in the House

Unlike most of his soon-to-be peers, Mazzoli will be enrolling in the program exclusively for personal, rather than professional, enrichment. He says he plans to do non-profit or advocacy work upon returning to Kentucky.

And the veteran of national politics says he wants to embrace everything the University has to offer, awkwardness and imperfections included, as a test of his resilience—a conviction countenanced by his decision to live at the heart of undergraduate life.

“This is what I call the intellectual equivalent of the Full Monty,” he says of his and his wife Helen’s decision to spend the year in Lowell. “If you’re going to do this thing, you do it the whole way.”

Since his discussion group met a couple of times in the Lowell House common rooms last year, he has fallen in love with the College’s residential system, which he calls “the Alpha and Omega of all things Harvard.”

Immediately after deciding to enroll in the master’s program, he applied for an apartment in the house he knew best.

“Lowell was kind of in my blood,” he explains.

Acquaintances in Louisville were shocked, he remarks.

“People say, ‘You know, it’s one thing about going back to school. Maybe we can grab that, maybe we can hang onto that. But you mean you’re going to live in a dorm?’”

“I say, ‘Well, you know, Harvard calls them houses,’” Mazzoli grins.

Shortly before he left, a family friend left a pair of ear plugs on his front porch as a going-away gift. He says he may find them necessary over the course of the year.

He describes the moment when he and his wife entered their scarcely furnished Lowell rooms after two days of driving their U-Haul truck as the first “fiery test” of their commitment to the year-long endeavor.