Gene Holland stood in front of the Old Well holding back tears Friday as he received his 1965 undergraduate degree.
Holland, a retired dentist who formerly taught at the UNC School of Dentistry, earned a bachelor’s degree in dentistry from UNC nearly 50 years ago but finally was awarded it last week.
Due to an administrative error, Holland did not receive his undergraduate degree with the rest of the class of 1965, despite continuing his graduate school education at UNC’s School of Dentistry.
Holland, who received a prestigious teaching award from the dentistry school while on faculty at UNC, became emotional when he saw the undergraduate degree that he earned 48 years ago.
“I would say something, but I’m not very good at holding in emotions,” Holland said.
Bobbi Owen, senior associate dean for undergraduate education, presented the degree to him in a small ceremony attended by Holland’s friends and family in front of the campus’s most iconic landmark.
“It’s a great honor to be able stand here today and recognize your lifetime of accomplishments by going back to the past and remembering your undergraduate career here at Carolina and the College of Arts and Sciences,” Owen said. “So it is my privilege on the behalf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to award you a bachelor’s degree of sciences in dentistry retroactive to May 1965.”
Holland’s son, a UNC alumnus who is also named Gene Holland, was in attendance and said his father had been waiting for that moment for a long time.
When Holland attended the University in the 1960s, students could complete three years as an undergraduate and then go to medical or dental school.
