Randy Pausch
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. 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!"
Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
After Pausch finished his lecture, Steve Seabolt, on behalf of Electronic Arts, which is now collaborating with Carnegie Mellon in the development of Alice 3.0, 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. Then, university president Jared Cohon called his contributions to the university and to education "remarkable and stunning". He then announced that Carnegie Mellon would build a raised pedestrian bridge named for Pausch in honor of his contributions to the university and to the world. This connected Carnegie Mellon's new Computer Science building and the Center for the Arts, a symbol of the way Pausch linked those two areas. Finally, 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.