THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512090287
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Mixing athletic skills with academic prowess, Samantha Salvia seems the classic profile of the Rhodes Scholarship recipient.
The 21-year-old senior is captain of Old Dominion University's field hockey team. She's also an honors student with a straight-A average in civil and environmental engineering.
Tonight she'll know if the Rhodes judges think she's the perfect fit.
On Wednesday, she was named a finalist for the prestigious scholarship - the first Rhodes finalist in ODU's history. On Friday, she flew to New York for another round of grueling interviews before finding out if she makes the final cut.
She has a 1-in-3 shot of getting the award. Before her flight to New York, she reacted calmly about her prospects. ``It's wonderful to get this far; it's very exciting,'' said Salvia, who is from Norristown, Pa. ``We'll see what happens.''
Louis H. Henry, director of ODU's academic honors program, said her success is ODU's success. ``This is a nice culmination of a lot of hard work a lot of people put into this place,'' he said.
It doesn't hurt that she held her own against students from the likes of Stanford and Harvard. ``We like that company,'' he said.
How has she managed to do it all at ODU? ``It's just a question of priorities,'' Salvia said matter-of-factly. ``Academics have always been a priority for me, so you make time for it.''
Salvia, who is on a full academic scholarship at ODU, would enjoy two years of study at England's Oxford University with a Rhodes.
She is one of two finalists from her native Pennsylvania.
Salvia is competing against 11 other finalists from a six-state Mid-Atlantic region. Four winners will be selected from each of eight regions in the country, she said.
ODU administrators encouraged her to apply for the Rhodes a few years ago. At first, she admits, she didn't think it would suit her.
``I didn't really see how Oxford would fit into my future; I knew they didn't have a really strong engineering program,'' she said.
But ``what I've realized here is there's a lot more to environmental engineering than just the technical side,'' she said. ``Now I need more of a humanities background.'' So she has crafted a proposal to study the ``ethical, political and economic considerations'' in environmental engineering.
That exemplifies her maturation at ODU.
``I think she's empathetic to other people's problems; she's really growing,'' Henry said. ``When she came here, she had to be very focused on engineering and on her field hockey. Through four years, she's really developed into a mature and caring person.''
Henry said she has visited local high schools to serve as a role model to field hockey players.
Salvia went to Philadelphia Wednesday for the interviews to select finalists. She had little hope.
``I went in thinking there was no way I was going to get this,'' Salvia said. ``Old Dominion never had anybody get this far.''
She had two interviews that day, and both were intense. ``They asked me pretty pointed questions about exactly what I wanted to study,'' she said. ``They didn't focus too much on my athletics.''
She expects the same today. But no matter what happens, she feels she's a winner.
``I'm just excited to have gotten this far,'' Salvia said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Samantha Salvia
by CNB