Virginia University of Lynchburg taps 81 in area's first commencement

By: Darrell Laurant | Lynchburg News and Advance
Published: May 03, 2009

As Central Virginia’s first college, it was only appropriate that Virginia University of Lynchburg was also the first area school to hold its 2009 commencement ceremony.

And as the first local institution with a stated religious purpose, it was also appropriate that VUL’s ceremony remained closest to heaven — the second floor auditorium of Humbles Hall, which is itself perched on a hill.

Saturday morning, VUL (established in 1886) filled that venerable space with 81 graduates and their families and friends, helping to erase memories of the lean days of the 1980s and ’90s, when the number of degrees awarded some years dipped to less than 10.

“You are graduating from Virginia University,” president Ralph Reavis told the Class of 2009, “at a time when the school is expanding beyond its regional boundaries and local reputation of excellence.”

And expanding beyond its former curriculum. Once primarily a place to train ministers, VUL now offers everything from arts and letters to business administration to dentistry to science.

“I knew Dr. Reavis and his family,” said commencement speaker Benjamin J. Lambert III, a Richmond optometrist who served 29 years in the Virginia General Assembly, “but I didn’t know all that much about the school itself. Dr. Reavis sent me a book he had written on the school’s beginnings, and I spent a whole weekend when I was at a convention in Niagara Falls reading it.”

Lambert’s talk was upbeat, focusing on the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president and the explosion of technology in recent years.

“Only the educated are truly free,” he said.

The intermittent sunshine outside caused the striking blue and gold stained glass windows inside the Humbles auditorium to glow like cats’ eyes. Meanwhile, the ceremony moved along at a stately pace, interspersing the traditional speakers with rousing music from the Central Virginia Community Chorale Assembly.

Five honorary degrees were also conferred, one of them to Lambert. The others went to local artist Ann Van de Graaf, Lynchburg Del. Shannon Valentine, attorney and minister Claudie Grant of Prince George County and former Richmond Teacher of the Year Quentina Kinney.