OXFORD — Miami University Sunday became the first Tristate college to honor graduates at spring commencement this year, and this one was notable for several reasons.

        Miami held its first combined graduation ceremony since the mid-1980s, with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson as speaker at Yager Stadium.

GRADUATION BY THE NUMBERS

Miami University in Oxford awarded 3,209 degrees at its 163rd spring commencement Sunday.     • Actually attended ceremony in Yager Stadium: About 2,500 undergraduate and several hundred graduate degree candidates.    • Total crowd: More than 11,000.    • Miami undergraduates who finish degree in five years: 80 percent.    • Yager's concession stands were stocked with: 30 cases of water, 30 dozen muffins, 36 dozen cookies, 36 cases of juice, 40 gallons of coffee and 10 gallons of hot chocolate.    • Vehicles that passed through Oxford streets during the graduation weekend: 30,000.    • Top-selling items at Shriver Center food court over the weekend: Egg sandwiches and Tuffy's Toasted Rolls, a butter- and sugar-drenched Miami delicacy.    • Top-selling memorabilia sold at Miami Bookstore over the weekend: Miami decals, T-shirts and sweat shirts.

        Mr. Gibson challenged the 3,200 graduates to ""live a life that matters,” urging them to develop a code of personal ethics that will ground them in compassion, honesty and trustworthiness.

        Alluding to those involved in the Enron collapse, academic plagiarism and Roman Catholic sex-abuse scandals, Mr. Gibson said, “I wonder if any of them really understood what their education was really about. These ethical imperatives I mention define us as human beings.“

        The commencement capped a year of impressive student achievement at Miami.

        The university is one of only eight U.S. educational institutions to produce winners of all three of the most prestigious undergraduate awards: Rhodes, Truman and Goldwater scholarships. Miami is one of just two public schools in the group.

        In addition, the Class of 2002 has two Fulbright scholars and a finalist for the new Bill and Melinda Gates Award.

        Anne Kafoure of Westerville, Ohio, won one of 32 Rhodes scholarships. In October she begins two to three years of study at Oxford University in England.

        “Honestly, I don't think I would have applied for the Rhodes scholarship had it not been for the strong encouragement of my professors,“ said Ms. Kafoure, a triple major in creative writing, English literature and women's studies.

        “Their belief in me and willingness to spend so much time with me and other students really sets them apart,” she added.

        Junior Meredith Schnug plans to use her $30,000 Truman Scholarship for graduate school in preparation for a public service career. The Kansas native, one of 77 students nationwide to win the award, is pursuing a double major in political science and speech communication.

        Goldwater scholar Elizabeth Hague, also a junior, is one of 309 American students selected for a $7,500 award to support graduate education in mathematics, the natural sciences or engineering. Ms. Hague, from Beavercreek, Ohio, majored in zoology, mathematics and statistics.

        The other universities that this year produced Rhodes, Truman and Goldwater winners are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Syracuse and the University of Washington.

        Like Ms. Kafoure, Disha Patel's interest in doing graduate work abroad was stimulated by a Miami-sponsored semester at England's Cambridge University.

        A finalist for the new Gates scholarship, Ms. Patel has been accepted for advanced studies at Cambridge.

        Research and service work in Ghana with associate professor Gail Della Piana provided the spark for Elizabeth Strunk, who received Miami's Goldman Memorial Prize. Ms. Strunk will use her $27,558 award to study Ghanaian village society and produce a series of essays and photographs.

        Miami's two Fulbright scholars will explore very different parts of the world with their grants.

        Josh Greenberg of Oxford will build on his major in English/creative writing as he travels remote regions of New Zealand to document endangered bird species and weave bird lore into a series of short stories and prose poems.

        Loveland resident Jaclyn Turnwald will spend a year teaching English to teens in South Korea, supported by a Fulbright-funded teaching assistantship.

        Ms. Turnwald was encouraged in the Fulbright application by her professors, her friend Ms. Patel and her roommate Carly Krebs, who earned this year's Phi Kappa Phi Graduate Award of Excellence.

        “I see the caliber of people around me and feel like I'm so lucky,“ she said.

        Marcia Baxter-Magolda, professor of educational leadership, was presented with the 2002 Benjamin Harrison Medallion, an annual faculty honor.

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