THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 12, 1995 TAG: 9512120002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
The top prize a university undergraduate can win is a Rhodes Scholarship.
``It will get you through any door in the world,'' said Louis H. Henry, director of Old Dominion University's honors program. The prize helped propel one winner, Bill Clinton, to the presidency of the United States.
On Saturday, Samantha Salvia, an ODU senior, was named one of 32 Rhodes Scholarship winners nation wide. She will receive two years of study at England's Oxford University with free tuition, room and board. And as Henry put it, she opened all the doors.
Flying back this week-end from final Rhodes Scholarship interviews in New York, she studied. This is finals week, and she has an all-A's record to protect, in the tough major of civil and environmental engineering.
As an indication of the caliber of the competition, the other three winners in her district attended Harvard, West Point and West Virginia. Some of the losers in that district attended Stanford and Princeton.
Salvia is the first winner in ODU's 34 years, and her victory is a milestone in the school's continuing academic ascent.
The award goes to students who have excelled in mind, body and leadership, and who have shown a concern for the less fortunate. Salvia was captain of the ODU field hockey team, a perennial national powerhouse. For two summers in her home in Norristown, Pa., she performed volunteer work with handicapped students. She also demonstrated and taught field hockey to inner-city high school coaches and students.
The prize seems made for Salvia.
She plans to study ``ethical, political and economic considerations'' in environmental engineering. It seems likely that the world will gain from whatever she learns.
Congratulations to her, and congratulations to ODU. by CNB