Hanging on a wall in Dr. Michael Meyer’s office are his diploma from the Emory School of Medicine, a certificate showing the completion of his pediatric residency at Duke University and a framed print of the Old Well.
That print was a stand-in for the diploma he never received from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This month, the Roanoke, Va., pediatrician will at long last realize his dream of swapping out the print for the diploma—48 years after he set foot on campus as a freshman in 1967.
“It was just a longtime personal goal for me,” said Meyer, who for the last 10 years has gradually been earning the 13 credits needed to complete his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the College of Arts and Sciences. (That’s assuming he passes his organic chemistry final, but he’s pretty sure he will.)
“It won’t help me in any future job endeavor,” said the semi-retired physician, chuckling.
Meyer, 66, was a good student the first time around at Carolina—a Phi Beta Kappa who met the requirements to apply to medical school after only three years as an undergrad. He was accepted into UNC’s School of Medicine but opted to go to Emory in part to experience big-city life in Atlanta.
After his residency and a short stint in Chattanooga, Tenn., Meyer settled in Roanoke in 1979, maintaining a private practice there.
He and his wife, Voleta, have four children, two of whom went to Carolina. About 10 years ago, Meyer reduced his private practice workload to part time and decided—when his oldest son, Joshua, began graduate school at UNC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication—that he would finally finish up that bachelor’s degree with the aim of the two graduating together. His son earned his M.A. in 2008 but Meyer, taking just one class at a time, still had more work to do.
In all, he took three online courses and got permission from UNC to take the required inorganic chemistry class and organic chemistry lab at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Going to class involved a 2½-hour roundtrip commute.
“The online courses were challenging but not overwhelming,” said Meyer. “The chemistry courses—largely because chemistry is challenging and secondly because I last took chemistry 45 years ago—were very challenging. I had to relearn a lot of old stuff, and a lot of the basics have changed.”
As for his classmates, “it took them a while to think of me as a student, but they were very accepting,” he said.
He confessed that he chose online courses that he thought he would have a leg up on—child psychology, environmental geography and human anatomy and physiology. “They were nice refreshers. And again, a lot of stuff has changed.”
He will not be on campus to attend Commencement but is throwing himself a graduation party to celebrate with his family and friends, who have been supportive of his return to school.
“I loved my time at Chapel Hill. I feel like I grew up there,” he said. “That’s why I was so motivated to get this degree. All these years it’s been a very significant part of my identity.”
By Geneva Collins
