Randy Pausch
"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"
Pausch delivered his "Last Lecture", titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", at CMU on September 18, 2007. He gave an abridged version of his speech on The Oprah Winfrey Show in October 2007.[18][19] The talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk", with a topic such as "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?" Before speaking, Pausch received a long standing ovation from a large crowd of over 400 colleagues and students. When he motioned them to sit down, saying, "Make me earn it", someone in the audience shouted back, "You did!"
During the lecture, Pausch offered inspirational life lessons, and performed push-ups on stage. He also commented on the irony that the "Last Lecture" series had recently been renamed as "Journeys", saying, "I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it." After Pausch finished his lecture, Steve Seabolt, on behalf of Electronic Arts—which is now collaborating with CMU in the development of Alice 3.0[21]—pledged to honor Pausch by creating a memorial scholarship for women in computer science, in recognition of Pausch's support and mentoring of women in CS and engineering.
CMU president Jared Cohon spoke emotionally of Pausch's humanity and called his contributions to the university and to education "remarkable and stunning". He then announced that CMU will celebrate Pausch's impact on the world by building and naming after Pausch a raised pedestrian bridge[23] to connect CMU's new Computer Science building and the Center for the Arts, symbolizing the way Pausch linked those two disciplines. Brown University professor Andries van Dam followed Pausch's last lecture with a tearful and impassioned speech praising him for his courage and leadership, calling him a role model.
The Randy Pausch Memorial Footbridge was dedicated on October 30, 2009, with Jai, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe Pausch cutting the ribbon.
The Disney-owned publisher Hyperion paid $6.7 million for the rights to publish a book about Pausch called The Last Lecture, co-authored by Pausch and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow.[26] The book became a New York Times best-seller on April 28, 2008. The Last Lecture expands on Pausch's speech. The book's first printing had 400,000 copies, and it has been translated into 46 languages. It has spent more than 85 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and there are now more than 4.5 million copies in print in the U.S. alone. Despite speculation that the book would be made into a movie, Pausch had denied these rumors, stating that "there's a reason to do the book, but if it's telling the story of the lecture in the medium of film, we already have that." Media coverage
Pausch was named "Person of the Week" on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson on September 21, 2007.[29] His "Last Lecture" attracted wide attention from the international media,[30] became an Internet hit, and was viewed over a million times in the first month after its delivery. On October 22, 2007, Pausch appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show where he discussed his situation and summarized his "Last Lecture".
On October 6, 2007, Pausch joined the Pittsburgh Steelers for the day during their regular practice, after the organization learned that one of his childhood dreams mentioned in his "Last Lecture" was to play in the NFL.[32] On April 9, 2008, the ABC network aired an hour-long Diane Sawyer feature on Pausch titled "The Last Lecture: A Love Story For Your Life".[33][34] On July 29, 2008, ABC aired a follow-up to the Last Lecture special, remembering Pausch and his famous lecture.
Pausch gave a lecture about time management on November 27, 2007 at the University of Virginia, to an audience of over 850 people.[37] In March 2008, Pausch appeared in a public service announcement video[38] and testified before Congress in support of cancer research. On May 18, 2008, Pausch made a surprise return appearance at Carnegie Mellon, giving a speech at the commencement ceremony,[40] as well as attending the School of Computer Science's diploma ceremony, and on May 19 Pausch appeared on the show Good Morning America. His lecture, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", was nominated at the 2007 YouTube Video Awards.
A devoted Star Trek fan, Pausch was invited by film director J. J. Abrams to film a role in Star Trek. Abrams heard of Pausch's condition and sent a personal e-mail inviting Pausch to the set. Pausch accepted and traveled to Los Angeles, California, to shoot his scene. In addition to appearing in the film, he also has a line of dialogue at the beginning of the film ("Captain, we have visual.") and donated the $217.06 paycheck to charity.
