Brian and Kelly Hogan represent faculty romance at UNC

Inspired by the famous power couple “Brangelina,” UNC professors Brian and Kelly Hogan took on their new identity, “Brelly,” when promoting student participation for the teaching award committee on the Overheard at UNC Facebook group.

Kelly Hogan, senior STEM lecturer in the biology department, and Brian Hogan, a chemistry professor, met when they were freshman in a biology class at Trenton College.

Brian said Kelly was so smart, the professor gave her recognition when she scored the highest on the exam. He said he thought he could beat her on the next exam, but never did.

That’s when he came to the conclusion that she was the one.

“Long story short is, if you can’t beat ‘em on the test, you might as well try and get ‘em to marry you,” Brian said.

It wasn’t until their junior year that they actually started to date. Kelly said she was a little intimidated by Brian.

“You wouldn’t go on a date with me because you said ‘That guy’s a badass,’” Brian said.

Brian said he had to think of another way to get her to date him, so he asked for her notebook and purposely skipped class and didn’t give it back so that she’d have to come get it from him.

“To get rid of my badass image, I had to lie and wait,” Brian said.

“When she knocked on the door, I hit play and I had Stan Getz’ ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ playing, and then I was also reading short stories by Ernest Hemingway. I totally played dumb, like ‘Oh, did I forget?’ and I’d been waiting for hours.”

Now, the Hogans said they enjoy working together as a way to stay close.

“We love to come home and talk about work. That probably wouldn’t work for every couple, but it’s one of the ways we stay close to each other, so we do enjoy sharing that part of our life, as well as we have two kids,” Kelly said.

Kelly and Brian said over the years, they have learned a lot from each other.

“We grew up together. We started out dirt poor together,” Kelly said.

Brian said the hardest part about working together is that it can be difficult at times to coordinate schedules.

As science professors, the Hogans oftentimes have science-related conversations at home with the kids.

“We had a tick recently. We pull out the microscope, and we all look at it. That may be a little different than other families,” Kelly said.

Kelly said they also talk about their students at home.

“We love students. We love student life, we love student learning. That is our career,” Kelly said.

Denice Bautista, a sophomore exercise and sports science major, is currently enrolled in Kelly’s Biology 101 class, and said she enjoyed hearing the story about how Kelly met her husband.

“She mentioned the story of how she met her husband on the first day, which instantly made me like her better because she seemed more relatable. She seemed like a normal person with a husband and kids,” Bautista said.

“I think couple names are really cheesy,” she said. “But they’re actually really cute, so I support Brelly.”

arts@dailytarheel.com