Last Lecture to focus on human fortune

Grand Valley State University’s annual Last Lecture offers an opportunity for a professor, nominated by his or her students, to present on a topic that ties to an overarching theme of lifelong learning. This year, Charles Pazdernik, professor of classics, has been selected as the Last Lecture honoree.

Scott St. Louis, Student Senate vice president of educational affairs, said one reason Pazdernik was chosen is because of his dedication to his students despite facing adversity.

“In spite of having suffered a severe spinal injury during the summer of 2014 after colliding with a car while riding his bike to work, Dr. Pazdernik has remained dedicated to helping his students, advising several of them even while undergoing full-time rehabilitation,” said St. Louis. “Dr. Pazdernik is known on campus for serving those around him with his powerful intellect, approachable personality and superb teaching.”

This year’s lecture, titled “Blind Hopes? Storytelling and Human Fortune,” will take place Thursday, November 20 at 7 p.m. in the Mary Idema Pew Library Multipurpose Room on the Allendale Campus. Pazdernik said his lecture will focus on the ways in which people rely on the telling of stories in order to organize experiences and to make them meaningful, especially when they involve catastrophic change.

“The ancients referred to such changes as ‘reversals of fortune’ and devoted a lot of thought to the topic,” said Pazdernik. “I plan to share some of the resources from Classical Greco-Roman civilization that have been especially relevant and valuable to me as I’ve navigated my own reversal of fortune.”

Each fall students nominate the professors who have had the greatest impact on them to be the possible Last Lecture honoree.

This year, the Student Senate received more than 250 nominations from students for approximately 160 unique faculty members. Following nominations, the Student Senate chooses the honoree.

Pazdernik said it is a “great honor” to be invited to deliver the Last Lecture.

“It’s an opportunity for me, as a member of the faculty, to address issues and topics that are personally meaningful and hopefully of wider relevance,” said Pazdernik. “We all profit from interactions like these that take place within an academic setting but outside of regular coursework and the established curriculum.”

St. Louis said the Last Lecture is loosely based on a similar event held in 2007 by Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Melon University who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.

For more information, contact Scott St. Louis at [email protected].