Ann Merriwether has some big shoes to fill.
She is set to deliver the inaugural lecture in Binghamton University’s “Last Lecture” series at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 12 in Anderson Chamber Hall.
The series, and many like it, was inspired by the story of Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who delivered his “last lecture” in September 2007. The concept behind the series was to ask academics to give a lecture consisting of their most important advice — everything they would want to say if it was the last lecture they would ever give.
In Pausch’s case, that lecture would prove to be his last. Pausch, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2006, was told a month before he gave his lecture — now famous thanks to YouTube hits, media coverage and a book titled “The Last Lecture” that he authored afterward — that he did not have long to live. Pausch died of the cancer in July 2008.
Many found Pausch’s speech, titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” inspirational, as evidenced by his book’s success on bestseller lists, and by similar programs that have begun at universities across the country.
The Student Association Programming Board organized BU’s version of the series, and chose Merriwether, a psychology professor, to be the first to deliver a “last lecture” in what is intended to become an annual event.
Aaron Cohn, SA vice president for programming, said he, David Hagerbaumer, SA executive director, and Matthew Lugo, SAPB insights chair, came up with the idea to recreate the lecture series here at BU.
“Traditions like these are the types of things that schools that are better than us do,” Cohn said. “It’s a … program that you’ll find in the top 20 universities.”
According to Lugo, the principal requirement for the lectures in BU’s new series is that they be both informative and inspiring.
“They can talk about pretty much anything but the aim is to give advice [or] pearls of wisdom to past and present students and faculty,” Lugo said.
A group of about 18 students from the SAPB chose Merriwether to speak.
“She was chosen primarily because she is brilliant. She is a very, very interesting person,” Cohn said.
Professor Merriwether said she feels honored to have been selected.
“I have seen the last lecture and I thought professor Pausch was inspiring. His passion for life and his message about living life to the fullest [were] deeply moving,” Merriwether said.
She said her lecture would be focused primarily on her field of study.
“I’m a developmental psychologist so [the lecture] will be on developmental transitions and exciting stuff like that,” Merriwether said.
She added that she hopes that many of her students will attend the lecture and that she will be able to inspire them.
Cohn said he believes these lectures will be beneficial to students because they will allow students to hear outstanding professors from a variety of departments speak.
“I don’t know if students always appreciate the fact that we do have some really, really outstanding professors here and part of the last lecture is that we’ve got amazing professors in most departments,” Cohn said. “It’s a once-a-year or once-a-semester opportunity for the entire campus to come out and listen to something really special from one of our faculty.”