Seniors, Faculty Pick Orators For Commencement, Class Day

Robert C. Spring '84 will get an opportunity this June 7 to tell all of Harvard how concerned he is about the disappearance of Latin from the academic world. And for added emphasis, Sprung will make his plea in Latin.

The Dunster House senior was recently selected to deliver the annual Latin oration at Commencement by a committee of faculty and the 1984 class marshals chaired by Richard C. Marius, director of the Expository Writing Program.

Nicholas J. Wyse '84 of Adams House will deliver the undergraduate English oration, and fourth-year Medical School student Robert Kaplan will give the graduate English speech.

The 1984 Class Committee also recently chose three classmates to join ABC-TV anchorman Ted Koppel in addressing the graduating class and their parents the day before Commencement, at the June 6 Clas Day exercises.

Jimmy L. Morales '84 won the honor of giving the Harvard oration, Christina A. Spaulding '84 the Radcliffe oration, and Jacob Slichter '84 the traditionally humorous Ivy oration.

Morales said he plans to speak on the apparent death of heroism in society, but said he will end his speech on a positive note. Spaulding, who has been very active in women's issues and sexual harassment, will address those topics.

Bombing

Only 19 students this year auditioned for the Commencement address--compared to 43 last year. Harvard Student Agencies failed to distribute posters advertising the speeches, Marius said.

"We were terribly worried. We usually have posters up for eight weeks," Marius added.

But Marius said that word of mouth managed to attract a talented pool of would-be orators. "We ended up with three good speakers, and we had to choose between three particularly good speeches for the undergraduate oration."