
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 3, 1994                   TAG: 9406030130
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LEXINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

W&L GRADS EXEMPLIFY DIVERSITY

Student body Vice President James Kull urged Washington and Lee University graduates Thursday to honor tradition, but the Class of '94 was a tribute to growing cultural diversity at this once all-male, all-white bastion of Southern conservatism.

For the first time in the school's 245-year history, a foreign student, Herman Safin of Lithuania, was recognized as the graduating class's valedictorian. The economics major accumulated a 4.08 grade-point average after transferring to W&L from Moscow State University in 1992.

The graduating class of 189 men and 146 women represented 39 states. There were blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and those of Asian descent.

"This is a time of transition for America," said U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, one of the speakers at the graduation, which was held Thursday morning on the front lawn of the W&L campus. "I pray that your talents collectively will be equal to the task."

That task, Lugar said, is keeping a fragile hold on the threat of nuclear weapons at a time when Third World nations, such as North Korea, seem intent on developing and distributing them.

The university presented Lugar and Evan J. Kemp, a W&L graduate and civil-rights champion for the handicapped, with honorary doctor of law degrees.

"I learned as a child that dreams will come true if you wish upon a star," Kemp said. "My dream was the integration of people with disabilities into society."

He urged the graduates to keep on dreaming.

by CNB