The class of 2012 took almost 30 minutes to fill, and then overfill, the Kenan Stadium student section. With them they carried items ranging from a bright pink umbrella to a small planted tree.
Chancellor Holden Thorp presided over the ceremony and started by addressing the seniors.
“This is your day, and all of us join you in a celebration of your academic achievement,” Thorp said.
There were an estimated 32,000 in attendance, which Thorp compared to the small ceremony for UNC’s first seven graduates in 1798.
Speaker Michael Bloomberg began his commencement address with several Tar Heel cheers, and said innovation will make graduating seniors successful.
“Light and liberty; that is the motto of your university,” Bloomberg said. “And that, I believe, will be the defining spirit of the 21st century.”
Bloomberg said last week’s passage of Amendment One in North Carolina — an amendment to the state constitution identifying marriage between a man and a woman as the only form of recognized union in the state — is an example of a restriction of liberty.
The New York City mayor then concentrated on the value of a UNC degree.
“Only a lack of education can hold you back in America and today you’ve cleared the bar, and you’ve done it at one of the country’s finest institutions,” Bloomberg said.