Traute Kohler, 75, of Roeland Park, is getting her doctorate from KU’s department of Germanic languages and literatures. She says many people her age simply retire, but “I don’t know what they retire to.”

Traute Kohler remembers how the most recent of her adventures began.

She was talking to the chairman of the German department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, discussing a program she developed to teach adults how to grasp basic German language concepts.

“I remember exactly how he put it,” Kohler said. “He said, ‘I take it for granted that you have an American degree.'”

She didn’t.

Sparked by that conversation years ago, the now 75-year-old German immigrant can boast not one, but three American degrees, all from Kansas University. The last of them, her doctorate, officially comes from KU’s department of Germanic languages and literatures, but actually reflects an interdisciplinary study of psychology, linguistics and German.

She defended her dissertation last November, and will participate in an upcoming hooding ceremony on campus. The dissertation presents her ideas on the role that color can play in teaching German grammar.

Her unique teaching style pairs grammatical concepts — such as direct objects and prepositions — with different colors to help students better commit the concepts into their long-term memories.

William Keel, professor and chairman of KU’s German department, has known Kohler since she first became affiliated with KU in 1995. She earned her bachelor’s degree in 1998 and a master’s degree in 2000.

“While most people are sitting back and collecting Social Security benefits, she’s writing a dissertation,” Keel said.

Sitting in her Roeland Park home of more than 44 years, Kohler is surrounded by trinkets, artifacts and furniture that reflect her varied interests. There’s a Navajo rug on the wall, a small replica of an elephant from Thailand, and a piano with Bach, Mozart and German folk music on it.

Before ever going to school in the United States — Kohler has a degree in business from a German university — in 1984, she founded Languages on Wings, an academy that put her language teaching practices to use, often for international businessmen.

She grew up in Ratzeburg, Germany, and has also lived in South America, working as an executive assistant to the Austrian Trade Delegate in Caracas, Venezuela, promoting trade between Austria and Venezuela. She was also a full-time mother to her two daughters, and said that — then and now — family is her No. 1 priority.

Ruth Ann Atchley, a KU psychology professor, has worked with Kohler for more than 12 years. She said Kohler was very “goal-oriented,” and recalled asking her why she wanted a doctorate.

“She said something like ‘I think I have something here, but I don’t have the titles behind my name that say I know what I’m talking about,'” Atchley said.

During the time she’s known her, Atchley said, she’s watched Kohler fuse her real-world experience with hardened data.

At first, Atchley said, Kohler would begin with the ending — trying to use the data to prove something that she knew to be true from experience. But, over time, Atchley watched Kohler grow acclimated to the ways of higher education and letting data drive the conclusions.

“She got to the point where she would say, ‘I don’t know if we know this yet,'” Atchley said.

It takes a little bit of guts to sit in classrooms surrounded by younger people, Kohler said, but she had only good experiences. Some people retire, she said, and develop a new hobby. Others just retire.

“I don’t know what they retire to,” she said.

Next on the horizon for her? She hopes to be able to develop a teacher training program based on her methods, and teach an occasional special German course at KU.

Kohler said life doesn’t stop when you reach a certain age.

“You just get there,” she said. “You keep yourself alive, and you’ll be the same way.”