Randy Pausch wrote the book "The Last Lec ture" after he gave a speech in front of 400 people at Carnegie Mellon University. During the speech, Pausch told the audience about his pancreatic can cer and how he only had a few months to live. Pausch expressed to his audience to celebrate the dreams everyone strives to make reality.
On Monday, Feb. 13 in Blackwell Hall, the Geist Chapter of Mortar Board hosted the second-annual Lasting Lecture at Longwood University. The event is the same concept as the book. Four Longwood professors spoke in front of students to give them inspiration on what really matters in life. The four professors were Assistant Professor of Communi cation Studies Jeff Halliday; Associate Professor of Business Law Dr. Claire LaRoche; Assistant Profes sor of Sociology Dr. Jake Milne; and Adjunct in the Communication Studies and Theatre Department Ronda Scarrow.
The event was kicked off by Mortar Board Co-historian Emmy Borgie who helped coordinate the event and explained what the event had in store for the audience. Halliday was the first to give a presentation. Halliday spoke about his family and what it was like for him growing up.
He expressed the importance of having love in your life. Whether it was to love what it is you do for a living or love the people that surround you. If it wasn't for love, Halliday claimed he wouldn't be were he is today. Halliday also spoke about leading and how if you focus on successes you have already "lost" the people or cause you're trying to lead.
LaRoche followed Halliday in giving her presen tation. There were some similarities to Halliday's presentation, as there were throughout all the pre sentations. LaRoche tied in another book to her presentation called "7 Habits of Effective People: Powerful Lesson in Personal Change" by Stephen Covey. Finding what your "strengths" are was the first lesson LaRoche wanted the audience to under stand.
Then LaRoche wanted the audience to get out their comfort zone every once in a while as she did when she attended a painting school called Paint ing with the Right Side of your Brain. "Doing some thing outside of your comfort zone could potential ly change your life like it did for me," LaRoche said.
Next up was Milne, who constantly threw the fact that he had a dog, and not just a child, in his presen tation in Halliday's face. Milne talked about what lessons he has learned from his son Cole, a.k.a., "Little Dude" and his dog Maggie. Milne talked about loyalty first and told a story on how Maggie put herself between "Little Dude" and other dogs that were fighting at the dog park.
One of the things Milne wanted to get across to the audience ways to have some "me" time and that it was "okay to paint in your underwear some times." Milne had a picture of "Little Dude" paint ing in his underwear to get the audience to under stand. Another example Milne referenced was the annual performance that Milne and Halliday do at the midnight breakfast.
Last but not least was Scarrow, who started her presentation by singing to the audience. Although Scarrow reinforced what was already said she pre sented it in an entertaining manner. Scarrow kept expressing to do what you love because if you do what you love, then it isn't work. What ever it is that you end up doing Scarrow wanted you to "say it, express it or even sing it." All four presenters spoke about very similar things and wanted the students to realize there is more to life than money. Family is a very important part of your life and should to be treated that way.
Borgie said, "We didn't really give the professors too much direction and they took it where they wanted to … It was kind of cool because they were along the same lines … you could see the values of the professors and doctors here are pretty consis tent."
After the event, the process of picking who would speak at the Mortar Board was explained by Co-historian Mallory Pendleton. "We passed around a sheet of paper at our meeting and told people to nominate professors they felt would be good pre senters and then the votes were added."
LaRoche explained that the reason she participat ed in this event was to "attempt to make a differ ence … my brother gave a real last lecture at Rut gers University … I do love working with students and working at Longwood University."
The event was crowded and more chairs were needed before they could start the event. Pendleton said, "I did a head count at the end of the event and there were 150 people there and a lot had left before the head count … I would say close to 200 people were here and we were only expecting about 100."
