2,182 Students Turn Their Tassels at UNC Winter Commencement

Family, friends and alumni filled the stands at the Dean Smith Center on Sunday afternoon to see 2,182 students receive their hard-earned degrees at the Winter Commencement.

Nine hundred and ninety-seven were undergraduates. Masters degrees went out to 790 candidates; and 41 students received professional degrees. Doctoral degrees went to 354 recipients.

UNC President Tom Ross, an alumnus of the UNC School of Law, congratulated the students and thanked their families. He expressed confidence in the likelihood of future success for members of the graduating class, but added that he hopes for more.

“I’m equally hopeful and confident that each of you will strive to make life better for others,” said Ross. “That you will work to improve the community in which you live. And that you will do all you can to contribute to the common good, and a better world.”

The keynote speaker was James H. Johnson, Jr., the William R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at Kenan-Flagler Business School; and director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center in the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.

Johnson told students they are entering a hyper-competitive workforce, driven by profound economic and demographic shifts.

“We are entering what is called a ‘Human Age,’” said Johnson, “where inner human potential will be the primary driver of innovations in our economy, and in all major advances in our lives.”

Johnson added that an entrepreneurial mindset will be required to meet the challenges of the new global economy. That includes the ability to adapt quickly in an unpredictable environment.

Chancellor Carol Folt close the hourlong ceremony with an experience she first shared last spring at a TED-X UNC conference called “Taking Flight.”

Folt, a biologist with degrees from The University of California at Davis, recalled one unforgettable research trip to New Zealand.

“It was a moment when I was crouched on a high, rocky cliff that looked out over a spectacular beach, into what looked to be an endless sea at the southernmost tip of New Zealand,” said Folt. “I was there, concealed behind a hideaway, to witness one of nature’s greatest marvels, the flight of a newly fledged giant albatross.”

Folt said the wingspan of the albatross she saw that day reached about 12 feet, as it leaped awkwardly off a cliff to soar over the ocean. She told UNC graduates that she hopes they all realize “how large [their] wings have become” during their time at the university.

The Spring Commencement for 2015 is scheduled for Sunday, May 10th.

2,182 Students Turn Their Tassels at UNC Winter Commencement

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