UNC Asheville 2024 Commencement Ceremony to Include Honorary Degree Awards to Oscar Wong, David Holt, and Walter Ziffer

Since 1986, the University of North Carolina Asheville has presented honorary degrees to prominent education, civic, and arts leaders at its May Commencement ceremony. Three more talented and worthy recipients will be recognized by UNC Asheville during the 2024 Commencement event, held May 11.

Honorees will include Oscar Wong, founder of Highland Brewing Company and a former UNC Asheville trustee; David Holt, a four-time Grammy Award-winning artist who toured for many years with Doc Watson; and Walter Ziffer, a concentration camp survivor who has written about the Holocaust.

According to UNC Asheville Chancellor Kimberly van Noort, "The accomplishments achieved by these remarkable members of the broader Asheville community represent resilience, dedication, and purpose - pillars worth celebrating as our graduates forge ahead."

Oscar Wong

The son of Chinese immigrants, born and raised on the island of Jamaica, Wong came to the U.S. in 1948 to study engineering at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, where he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in civil and structural engineering.

He began his career in San Francisco, specializing in nuclear power plant safety analysis, later moving to New Jersey, where his entrepreneurial spirit took root. Success launching a new division for the company he worked for led him to eventually start his own company focused on nuclear waste treatment systems. Wong eventually sold the company and moved to the Asheville area in 1992 with plans to retire.

At first, Wong pursued brewing just as a hobby, then in 1994 he launched Highland Brewing Company, Asheville's first craft brewery since prohibition. Several decades later, Asheville became known as "Beer City, USA" and Wong was dubbed the "Godfather of Asheville craft beer."

Oscar Wong receiving the Brewer's Association 2020 Recognition Award. Photo courtesy of Highland Brewing.

Now retired for a second time, Wong has kept Highland Brewing a family owned business, which is run by his daughter, Leah Wong Ashburn, who serves as president.

In addition to earning every major recognition in his field, Wong received the highest civilian honor in North Carolina in 2023. The Order of the Long Leaf Pine was awarded by Gov. Roy Cooper for Wong's extraordinary service to the state.

Deeply committed to community service, in addition to serving two terms on the UNC Asheville Board of Trustees, Wong was president of the Asheville Rotary Club and Board chair for Arc of Buncombe County, which serves children and adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

David Holt

Originally from Garland, Texas, David Holt spent his teenage years in Pacific Palisades, California. He earned undergraduate degrees in art and biology at UC Santa Barbara before embarking on a musical career that earned him a reputation not only as a talented performer but also as a historian, storyteller, and television host.

Holt made Western North Carolina his home after college. In 1995, he founded and directed a program in Appalachian music at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa. The unique academic department still thrives to this day, offering a bachelor's degree in traditional music.

As part of this work, Holt began an extensive collection of folk music, much of which is now part of the permanent collection at the Library of Congress. He hosted several television shows, including two successful programs for North Carolina Public Television that shared his considerable insights. "Folkways," which first aired in2008, was followed by the Emmy-nominated "David Holt's State of Music" in 2019.

David Holt (left) and Doc Watson (right) with their Grammy awards. Photo courtesy of David Holt.

A successful performer perhaps best known for his long collaboration with Doc Watson that earned the pair two of Holt's four Grammy Awards, Holt also received seven total individual Grammy nominations. He won twice on his own for Best Traditional Folk Album and Best Spoken Word Album for Children.

Holt won two Emmys for his work on the "Great Scenic Railway Journeys: Trains Around North America." Aperforming role in the Coen Brothers movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou," where he wore his trademark vintage fedora, counts among his several screen credits.

Walter Ziffer

As a teenager, Walter Ziffer spent several years in numerous concentration camps after being taken with other children from his native Czechoslovakia by the Nazis at the age of 14. Sadly, only two people survived out of the group of more than 30 victims captured.

Ziffer eventually made his way to the U.S. at age 22 with only six years of formal education to study engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, graduating with both Phi Beta Kappa and Omicron Delta Kappa honors.

He eventually worked for General Motors in Ohio. While there, he converted to Christianity and pursued graduate work in theology at Oberlin College to become a minister. He later earned his doctorate in theology at the University of Strasbourg and spent several decades teaching at a number of European universities.

Walter Ziffer in his Weaverville home. Photo courtesy of UNC Asheville.

By the time he moved to the Asheville area in 1993, Ziffer converted back to Judaism. He offered classes and lectures at UNC Asheville and was honored in 2021 by the UNC Asheville Center for Jewish Studies with the creation of the Walter Ziffer & Gail Rosenthal Lecture Series. He also taught as an adjunct professor of Jewish Studies at Mars Hill University and began writing.

His best-known book, "Confronting the Silence: A Holocaust Survivor's Search for God," has been recognized as one of the most personal and profound reflections on this dark period of human history.

Richard Chess, professor emeritus of English and former director of the Center for Jewish Studies at UNC Asheville, noted in his review of Ziffer's book, "you will learn of Walter's complex life journey, and you may experience, thanks to his skillfully told story and clearly articulated questions and insights … the presence of a great man who finds in his own story lessons important for the rest of us, especially now."

All three honorees will receive the degree Doctor of Humane Letters.

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