randy pausch

CMU prof with cancer continues to inspire
Randy Pausch making final national appearance on 'Oprah'
Monday, October 22, 2007
By Mark Roth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pam Panchak / Post-Gazette
Randy Pausch talks to the standing room only crowd at CMU's McConomy auditorium in his final lecture at the school on September 18, 2007.When Randy Pausch found out he had terminal cancer and decided to Webcast his final lecture at Carnegie Mellon University last month, he thought he would be leaving a nice legacy for his children and some of his friends.

He never expected to become a worldwide icon.

In the weeks since his Sept. 18 lecture, which focused on his gratitude for achieving his childhood dreams and his advice on how to live a fulfilling life, more than 1.2 million people have viewed the video of the address.

Following initial publicity in Pittsburgh newspapers and the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Pausch made appearances on "Good Morning America," "CBS Evening News" and "ABC World News."

And today, he will cap off his national media exposure with an appearance on "Oprah," which will air at 4 p.m. on WTAE TV.

The response to his talk and the interviews has flowed in from all corners of the globe, and Dr. Pausch has personally received more than 5,000 e-mails.

"It's been extremely humbling and flattering," he said in an e-mail interview Saturday. "I'm completely taken aback at the response and the popularity of this. I actually lost a $20 bet that I wouldn't even fill McConomy Auditorium" for the live lecture on the Carnegie Mellon campus.

When he made that appearance, he said doctors had given him another two to five months to live with an aggressive recurrence of the pancreatic cancer he had been fighting for more than a year.

When a CBS reporter asked him if he'd be around for Christmas, Dr. Pausch said, "It's 50-50." When asked if he'd be here for Father's Day next year, the computer science professor said: "I wouldn't buy me anything."

No one looking at Randy Pausch last month would have believed he was in such dire straits. His health seemed vibrant, he had a full head of hair and he delighted his audience by doing several pushups.

He is taking palliative chemotherapy, and a month later, still feels pretty good, he wrote.

"In terms of energy and pain, I'm clearly in worse shape than I was before I got cancer," he said, "But I'm thoroughly enjoying my life. I'm riding my bike an hour each morning, and I'll be joining a gym so I can lift weights.

"The tumors are not yet large enough to cause pain, and the chemo side effects are not too bad; mostly fatigue and one day a week (shortly after the injection), I have flu-like symptoms for about 24 hours -- a small price to pay for walking around."

He remains a little mystified at the immense response his lecture has generated.

When he reflected on it, he decided that "context is everything."

"If I'd given that lecture two years ago, when I was healthy, I suspect it wouldn't have become so widely viewed.

"I honestly don't know why it struck a chord. I think that there's an element of 'this guy is being completely authentic, since he has no reason not to be' and I sort of found a way to give what I would call 'old school' advice in a way that didn't come off as 'old school.' Plus, I think every parent can relate to the challenge of 'What would you want to tell your children if you knew you were going to die?'"

In the scores of e-mails sent to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette after its story on his lecture, many people referred to the poignancy created by Dr. Pausch's young family -- his wife Jai, and his children, Dylan, 5, Logan, who turned 3 this month, and Chloe, 1.

The "old school" advice that he gave included lessons on gratitude, humility and looking for the best in people.

He praised his late father for teaching him how to look for adventure in life and how to help people through work, like a school that Dr. Pausch's parents helped to support in Thailand.

His mother gave him support, too, but also a sense of humility.

When he complained as a student about how hard a particular test was, his mom patted his hand, and said "We know how you feel, honey, and remember, when your father was your age, he was fighting the Germans."

He also said that after he got his Ph.D., his mother used to introduce him by saying, "This is my son; he's a doctor, but not the kind that helps people."

He lauded his mentors, particular Brown University computer science professor Andries van Dam.

Dr. van Dam not only encouraged Dr. Pausch to go into computer science teaching because he had gifts as a salesman and "you might as well be selling something worthwhile like education," but told him at another point that he was too full of himself.

"Randy, it's such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant," Dr. van Dam said, "because it's going to limit what you're going to be able to accomplish in life."

And when he got his doctorate and thought that the Disney Co. would hire him immediately to become an imagineer, and it didn't, he learned that obstacles could have value, too.

"The brick walls are there for a reason," he told his audience. "The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."

Before his lecture, Dr. Pausch had said that he wanted to focus his final weeks on his wife and family. Has the media onslaught prevented that?

Not really, he says.

"My wife and I sat down and formulated a strategy, where we said 'no' to most media requests and did only a few, and we kept the media away from my wife and kids.

"It's taken very little time; people have been quite kind, and the interviews were done at my convenience, often while our kids were napping.

"And I feel very good about being able to draw attention to Carnegie Mellon, after all it has done for me over the years."

Today's Oprah appearance will be his last major media event, he wrote, except for some public service announcements on behalf of seeking a cure for pancreatic cancer.

"I'm done being in front of cameras," he wrote, "unless, of course, Jon Stewart calls, because I couldn't say no to the smartest guy on TV."

CMU prof with cancer continues to inspirePittsburgh Post Gazette, USA
- Oct 22, 2007
- 19 hours ago
By Mark Roth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette When Randy Pausch found out he had terminal cancer and decided to Webcast his final lecture at Carnegie Mellon ...
clipped from Google - 10/2007
Randy Pausch Answers Your QuestionsABC News
- Oct 03, 2007
- Oct 03, 2007
Randy Pausch, a 46-year-old Carnegie Mellon computer science professor, gave his last lecture this week, and it's getting a lot of attention. ...
clipped from Google - 10/2007
Dying CMU Professor Appears On 'Oprah'Pittsburgh Channel.com, USA
- Oct 23, 2007
- 3 hours ago
Randy Pausch, dying of pancreatic cancer, is married with three children. He gave his final lecture at CMU in September. Pausch livestreamed his final ...
clipped from Google - 10/2007
Randy Pausch And "The Last Lecture"CBS News, USA
- Sep 28, 2007
- Sep 28, 2007
His name is Randy Pausch and he's one of the foremost authorities on virtual reality. Not long ago he was asked to give a "last lecture. ...
Randy Pausch
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Randy Pausch (born Randolph Frederick Pausch October 23, 1960) is a Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Pausch received his bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Brown University and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. He has been a co-founder of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator, and a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow. He has done sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts (EA), and consulted with Google on user interface design. Pausch is the author or co-author of five books and over 70 articles, and the founder of the Alice software project.

Contents
1 Battle with cancer
1.1 Pausch's "Last Lecture"
2 References
3 External links

[edit] Battle with cancer

Pausch's last lecture posterPausch has been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer[1][2] and was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health.

[edit] Pausch's "Last Lecture"
Pausch delivered his "Last Public Lecture", entitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", at CMU on September 18, 2007 [3]

During the lecture, Pausch was upbeat and humorous, alternating between wisecracks, insights on computer science and engineering education, advice on building multi-disciplinary collaborations, working in groups and interacting with other people, offering inspirational life lessons. At one point he performed push-ups on stage.

This 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", i.e., "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", some in the audience shouted back "you did!"

Brown University professor Andries van Dam followed Pausch with a tearful and impassioned speech praising him for his courage and leadership, calling him a role model and "a Mensch"[4]

Electronic Arts, which is now collaborating with CMU in the development of Alice 3.0[5], has pledged to honor Pausch by creating a memorial scholarship for women in computer science[6], 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"[4]. He then announced that CMU will celebrate Pausch's impact on the world by building and naming after Pausch a raised pedestrian bridge[7] to connect CMU's new Computer Science building with their Center for the Arts, symbolizing the way Pausch linked those two disciplines. Cohon jokingly said that brick walls would block the entrances to the bridge, in reference to Pausch's advice that "The brick walls are not there to keep us out, the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."

Pausch was named "Person of the Week" on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson on September 21[8]. His last lecture has also attracted wide attention from the international media[9].