Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 7, 1995 TAG: 9505080090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
"Such senseless, heartless examples of man's inhumanity to man are shocking, painful reminders of this very simple fact: As we approach the millennium, we are in the midst of a moral crisis," said Covington, chosen from among 150 candidates to become the university's fifth president in June.
"Volumes have been written and spoken, with great eloquence, on the subject of human relations. And we must surely continue doing all that we can to purge our society of prejudice and of violence," Covington said during the university's 82nd commencement exercises.
Senior class President Kate Randall sounded the same theme: "Many of us this morning are wearing blue ribbons showing support and advocacy for our fellow Americans in Oklahoma City. The color is blue, the universal color of hope. The purpose is to apply hope as a tool to evoke forgiveness in the face of hate, and to ensure the prevention of any such thing ever plaguing our nation again. Our responsibility on this day is real."
Randall also presented a check for $10,000, the largest single-year senior class gift since 1986, to acting President Charles Owens. The money will buy materials and equipment for the university's McConnell Library.
Covington said culture shock is inevitable if people try to insulate themselves from diversity. "Even the immediate communities in which you and I reside and work, they will increasingly represent a microcosm of the larger world," he said.
If the entire population of the world was shrunk to exactly 100 people, with all existing human ratios staying the same, he said, it would look like this:
"There would be 60 Asians, 14 Europeans, 14 from the Western Hemisphere (that is, North and South America), and 12 Africans," he said. "There would be 70 that would be non-white, 30 white. Seventy would be non-Christian, 30 Christian. Fifty percent of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only six people, and all six would be citizens of the United States. Seventy would be unable to read, and 50 would suffer from malnutrition. And 80 would live in substandard housing, and only one out of the 100 would have a college education.
"When one considers our world from such an incredibly compressed perspective, the need for both tolerance and understanding comes sharply into focus."
Covington drew cheers from the some 1,200 graduates by explaining why he sympathized with them.
"I say that I sympathize with you because, not unlike you here today, several decades ago I sat in a long black robe and a strange little cap, listening impatiently to tired cliches and vague platitudes, in a soon to be forgotten commencement address, delivered by a college president from another era and, I thought at the time, from another planet," he said.
"So, consequently, while I understand your dilemma, believing as I do in equal educational opportunity, it's only fair that you should suffer as I did!''
by CNB