For Caitlin C. Gillespie ’05, who has been selected to deliver the Latin Oration at today’s Commencement ceremony, the Latin language has always had a special draw.

“I’ve been studying Latin since I was 11 years old,” explains the Wilmette, Il. native. “Now, I tell people that I’m an English concentrator but in a better language,” she adds with a smile.

“Latin is beautiful. I prefer a world that is imagined in Latin—in its myths, syntax, and poetry.”

Gillespie even admits to choosing Harvard for its Classics Department and its traditional Latin Oration at Commencement.

“When I was a junior in high school, my father said, ‘You should apply to Harvard. They have a Latin speech,’” she says with a laugh.

For Gillespie, who will be delivering her five-minute oration today alongside two orations in English, the idea of being the Latin Orator has been on her mind ever since.

She says that she has been thinking about possible topics for her speech all semester and making lists of the “seminal events” of the last four years, but she did not start writing until spring break, when she came upon a theme that she deemed oration-worthy.

“I was trying to figure out what defines our class and what defines our year. Baseball seemed an obvious choice,” Gillespie says.

The oration, entitled “The Campus Somniorum” or “The Field of Dreams” enacts an extended conceit between Harvard’s and America’s athletic pastime—comparing each year of her college education to one base on the diamond.

In keeping with the light tone of the Latin oration, Gillespie says that she even may deliver hers in costume—in baseball cleats, that is.

“Harvard is a field of dreams. We can do anything here—and we have,” she says.

This Commencement, everyone attending the ceremonies will receive an English translation of Gillespie’s speech and English subtitles will simultaneously be projected onto large screens flanking the stage.

THE CHOSEN ONE

With Commencement Day upon her, Gillespie says that she is beginning to feel more and more nervous. When she practiced on stage with microphones this week, Gillespie finally got a sense of the vast crowds that she would face from the podium.

“There are like a million and one chairs out there,” she says.