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Slide 1

Good evening.  Thanks for coming.  I’m honored to see you all here, and grateful to Delta Upsilon for sponsoring this lecture series.  Chris Haynes, who was my contact, could tell you it took me something like three weeks to accept the invitation.  To be honest, I was pretty nervous about it. 

I’m told that “last lecture” series were once popular at many schools.  Faculty would be invited to give a talk on whatever topic they would like to address if it were their last chance ever.  Carnegie Mellon University had exactly this sort of series, but it gained new poignancy and international attention two years ago when Randy Pausch was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.  His talk went viral on YouTube, and was turned into a book that reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List.