DATE: Saturday, September 27, 1997          TAG: 9709270436

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ERIKA REIF, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG                      LENGTH:   47 lines

THATCHER: PUBLIC COLLEGES NEED PRIVATE HELP

In the shade of the College of William and Mary's newest and most technologically sophisticated building, Great Britain's former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher spoke Friday afternoon about the need for private funding to keep public universities up to par.

Thatcher, the college's chancellor since 1994, was the featured speaker at the re-dedication of 2-year-old Tercentenary Hall. The $9.5 million physical sciences building was renamed McGlothlin-Street Hall in honor of a family of donors who had contributed more than $4 million to the school.

Students, families and the government can only pay so much, Thatcher said. ``We have to turn now to private sources and, in most cases, to those whose education here has helped them achieve great success,'' she said.

Thatcher, who served as Great Britain's first female prime minister from 1979 to 1990, noted that England for the first time is considering asking college students to pay toward their tuition - ``an idea you undoubtedly find less shocking than we do, since you had the same idea quite some time ago. And I understand it has worked out reasonably well.''

Many in the audience were parents on campus for Family Weekend. But two students, Brett Thelen and Ian Dubinski, were there to see a speech given by their friend, Sarah M. Scott. Scott, a junior, spoke at the ceremony about how a Parents Association Geology Scholarship of more than $2,000 funded her independent research project.

For five weeks this summer, geology major Scott searched for mastodon bones in a Newport News creek. She was following the tracks of a hunter's discovery in 1982.

After describing a dig that was an unsuccessful but valuable experience, Scott exchanged words with Thatcher, who holds a chemistry degree from Oxford University.

``She just leaned over and said, `Wonderful job,' and `It was a marvelous account.' And she asked me what my last name was,'' Scott said. ``And when I told her what it was, she said that it was a good, scientific name.''

ILLUSTRATION: Photo

NHAT MEYER/The Virginian-Pilot

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, left, talks with

Larry Mtetwa, far right, a doctoral student in atmosphere and

applied sciences, at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg

on Friday. Mtetwa is from Zimbabwe. Thatcher has been the college's

chancellor since 1994.

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