by Jon Caroulis/University Communications

The memory reel of all that La Salle meant to Emily Moran was playing on the ceiling of her dorm room.

Watching this in her mind's eye was, she felt, a way to focus on the past four years, which would be the basis for the speech she would submit to be considered for the role of the University's Commencement speaker.

It worked. Moran will be giving the address at La Salle's graduation exercises on May 18.

Any graduating senior is eligible to submit a speech for consideration. A committee of faculty, staff, and students choose several finalists, who then read their speech before members vote on a selection.

"I wanted to write this speech because I have made such a strong connection with La Salle in so many ways," said Moran, a communication major who has played on La Salle's softball team all four years of college. "I felt that I owed it to myself to try my hand at the Commencement speech. La Salle has become such a huge part of my life, and I wanted to be able to express that to everyone else. I felt that I could appeal to so many different students and grasp everyone's feelings about graduation as a whole."
 
"The theme of 'home' immediately popped into my head," she added. "I walked around for a few days, drumming up central ideas and memories that I could associate with it. I sat down at my desk and began hammering away at the keyboard, speaking the way I would to one of my friends. I was stuck after the first paragraph because I had a theme, but I did not know the exact ideas to tie into it."
 
That's when she began playing the memory reel on her ceiling.
 
"After a night of that, I took to my laptop again and finished the rest of the speech the next day. In total, the speech took me roughly five hours. It seemed to have flowed out of my fingers once I began writing from my heart and not from my head. And honestly, it was a feeling that I will remember for the rest of my life," she said.
 
But reading a speech is a different experience from writing it. Moran was quite nervous before she went onstage at the University's Dan Rodden Theatre to read her speech to the selection committee.
 
Anna Allen, Assistant Dean of Students, saw that Moran was anxious, and probably not only about giving the talk. Allen told her not to worry about a softball game against the University of Massachusetts later that afternoon and to simply speak as she always did.
 
"At that point, all of my nerves were replaced with honor and confidence," Moran said. "I found that speaking to the committee was not just an audition, but rather a moment in time in which I felt I was on top of the world. I could see some smiles mixed with pens scribbling on pages, yet my only thought was that I was actually being considered to speak at my college graduation. It was an incredible atmosphere, and I am beyond blessed to have had such an amazing opportunity."
 
In her speech, Moran cites the word "home" five times, and defines home as it pertains to La Salle. For example, she defines home as a place "where everyone gathers around the table. However, in the case of B&G and Treetops (dining halls), we huddle around a few tables as we fix up and rearrange the furniture to accommodate all friends and their stories of the weekend's events."

Ron Shoemaker, La Salle's head softball coach, said Moran "has been a terrific member of our team. She is a leader in every sense of the word, both on and off the field. She is the first to lend an ear or offer a kind word when needed. Emily is the person who always puts the needs of the team before her own and will always be remembered for that."
And being an athlete, Moran wanted to briefly discuss the success of the University's sports teams in her speech.
 
"There is a portion where I spoke about the men's basketball team and the Sweet 16. I focused on the women's soccer team and men's swimming school records," she said. Within the same framework, she mentions her teammate Megan Hodgson, who became the all-time homerun leader in women's softball history at La Salle.

"Discussing athletics is, I hope, powerful enough to catch everyone's attention and speak to my passion here at school, but not weigh down the entire speech with only sports," she said. "I am proud of being a part of the women's softball team here at La Salle and am very happy to be able to recognize our program in my Commencement speech."