My Last “Last Lecture”
Scott Jeffreys, Special Associate Professor, Dept. of Computer Science
May 2, 2025, Induction of Honor Students into the Upsilon Pi Epsilon (ΥΠΕ) Honor Society
If you could share your most essential thoughts with those people who are the most important to you – and could only do it one last time—what would you say? This is the essence of the “Last Lecture,” a practice rooted in a September 2007 presentation delivered by Randy Pausch at Carnegie-Mellon University, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams ” From Pausch’s moving presentation, my own course “Last Lecture” framework was set in Spring 2015.
On the closing day of every course that I taught here at Hofstra University, I shared a story that reflected a life lesson relevant to that specific course, highlighting ideas that extended well beyond our textbooks, lecture notes, assignments, and examinations. Students have listened to thoughts from Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” Boston College’s Fr. Michael J. Himes’ “Three Questions of Discernment,” a practical discussion of “What is Luck?”, and a precise mathematical analysis that attempted to answer the question “How Many Times Do We Die?”, among many others.
Following twenty-one consecutive semesters of teaching (with some summer sessions thrown into the decade for good measure), I retired at the close of the Spring 2025 term. Before I left the lectern, I was profoundly honored to provide the Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE) Computer Science Honor Society Induction Ceremony keynote address. What follows is a summary of that talk, entitled “My Last Last Lecture,” where students were challenged to reflect on the prisms through which they view successes and failures
Choose Your Prisms Carefully
The 1989 film, Field of Dreams, exposed us to a character who was little more than a footnote on baseball history, Archibald “Moonlight” Graham. In real life, Graham played baseball at the University of North Carolina between 1895 and 1902 followed by several seasons in the minor leagues, including stints in Nashua, New Hampshire, Lowell, Massachusetts, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Binghamton, New York.
In May 1905, “Moonlight” was purchased by the New York Giants major league baseball franchise where he rode the pine, watching game after game from the dugout. He cracked the lineup card late on June 29th, 1905. Graham replaced the right-fielder, George Browne, for the ninth inning of a nondescript game against the Brooklyn Superbas. Graham was on deck when the third out was recorded in the top half of that ninth inning and played the bottom half of the inning without logging a putout or assist. Essentially, he never touched the baseball.
That Thursday game turned out to be Archibald “Moonlight” Graham’s only appearance in the major leagues. Shortly thereafter, he was demoted to toil once more in the minor leagues where, for the next four years, he played in Memphis, Tennessee, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, before retiring in 1908.
Imagine being so close to your lifetime dream of playing major league baseball and never getting to touch the ball. Imagine working for over a decade to become a better player and never reaching the top level of play that seemed so close. When you think about the prism of professional baseball, one could certainly see Archibald “Moonlight” Graham as a failure and a product of being misguided in his youth.
But, as famed radio broadcaster Paul Harvey used to say, “now, the rest of the story.”
While he was playing baseball, Graham was also pursuing his medical degree from the University of Maryland. Ironically, in 1905, he received his medical license and was practicing in Chisholm, Minnesota, by the 1908 off-season. “Doc” Graham successfully established his practice and served the Chisholm community for fifty years before his retirement in 1959 and death in 1965. As a doctor for the local school system, “Doc” arranged for used eyewear to be sent to his office, offering children free examinations and proper glasses if needed. Effectively, “Doc” Graham was changing people’s lives on a level that he never could have imagined as a baseball player.
When viewed through this revised lens, Graham was an overwhelming success. Two different paths, pursued in parallel, with very different outcomes depending on the prism through which you choose to examine the work of Archibald Graham.
Some Prisms from My Life
My relationship with Hofstra University began in September, 1979, as an undergraduate student. I originally thought of launching a career in engineering, but after five course changes in my opening week, I decided to pursue my personal passion, mathematics. Emotionally, I was probably not ready for college and I certainly was not prepared to see so many of my high school friends leave the New York area for new horizons. As a result, I heavily focused on academics, counted semesters by hours and days rather than weeks and months, and earned my Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics, along with minor degrees in computer science and economics, by May, 1982, one full year early.
Since so many of my scholastic friends still had their senior years in front of them in 1982, I decided to start my graduate work at Adelphi University. I earned my master’s degree in mathematics by May, 1984, having already passed my PhD qualifying credentials.
During those two years of graduate work, most of my scholastic and university friends had
started their professional business careers and the academics-only prism through which I saw them, the only prism I knew how to use, suggested that they were more successful as they were now being paid a salary for their knowledge. In June, 1983, I applied for one and only one job as a design engineer at General Instrument Corporation in Hicksville, New York I was interviewed and offered a job within 48 hours working for two gentlemen who were the technology founders of the Mattel Intellivision STIC microprocessor and graphics environment. Suddenly, I was building assembly language, mathematical transformations of threedimensional objects for the future of gaming consoles. Overnight, I had reset my self-reflective prism from academics to business.
Academic friends at Adelphi University questioned my decision and were sure that their academics-centric prism was correct when I left that first job in 1986. Through the only prism they knew, I was measured as a failure as I never completed by PhD degree.
And once again, now, the rest of the story.
You can read my LinkedIn profile to explore many rewarding positions and career choices over a twenty-five-year period. However, I never lost my interest in academia and hoped that one day, I would find my way back to a collegiate platform.
In 2010, I returned to Hofstra University as a member of the Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (HCLAS) Dean’s Advisory Board under the direction of Bernie Firestone. It was that group that created the new DeMatteis School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. By 2015, Professor Simona Doboli offered me the chance to begin teaching in the computer science department. Along the way, I tallied more than twenty different computer science and mathematics course numbers among my offerings.
Who could have expected the timing of these career changes, first into business from academia in 1986 and then into academia from business in 2015? My willingness to accept change and alter my personal success prisms made both radical career changes possible.
So, What Does This Prism Stuff Mean for You?
As our computer science students and their families celebrated their UPE induction, it was important to recognize their achievements and yes, success, through our academic prism. Each student had demonstrated a superior knowledge of the subject area and an ability to turn abstract ideas into architecture, design, and functioning programs. This prism through which you experience this success can be fleeting. Your definition of success at twenty-one will not be the same as when you are thirty-one or forty-one. It is a natural evolution and should be expected. Change will indeed happen. While you will do everything possible to avoid failures, those failures will come along with your future successes. Your
personal prisms will take new shapes as you grow into your careers, yet-to-be-established future families, and evolving personal interests. Maintaining an open mind with an ability to reenvision your prisms will be a most important lesson for your personal satisfaction in life. More importantly, remember that this Tik-Tok, instant media, crowd-sourced, always-on world in which we find ourselves will pressure you to form opinions of others more quickly than previous generations. Always be aware of not only your own prism, but how you are applying your life experiences when evaluating others. As Randy Pausch told us, “If you wait long enough, people will surprise and impress you. People will show you their good side. Almost everybody has a good side. Just keep waiting. It will come out.”
Epilogue
Since my last Final Examinations, I have been back to campus a few times over the summer. I was pleased that more than a dozen students welcomed me in August, all anxious to share details of their senior designs, internships, research, job offers, and lives in general. Many asked if I already missed being on campus, leading senior designs, and teaching. In the moment, I responded too quickly saying that I did not miss all the preparation work, stacks of papers, endless e-mail streams, and general behind the scenes responsibilities. Maybe, I should have given more thought to my academic prism.
Yes, I have found a new freedom in retirement where my time is my own and such has enabled a fully packed travel schedule for my wife, Cathie, and me. Reconnecting with friends and colleagues collected from around the world during my forty-year career has been joyous, but it also reminded me of just how many current conversations start with “I saw my doctor last week and …”
I miss being around the youth and the promise of the students at Hofstra University. I miss watching their prisms change in real-time. I will share with you this final thought, one so many students have heard over the years.
“It has been a privilege to be part of your lives and the trust that you have all placed in me was a lifelong gift. For the very last time as my computer science students, I wish you a sincere and heartfelt, good night.”