Author: Kelly Neukom
Kinesiology Professor Stuart Rugg gave a lecture October 24 on what matters to him, as part of the Last Lecture series put on by Mortar Board. According to the group’s flyer, the series is made up of lectures professors will give as if it was their last.
Mike Salisbury (senior), a member of Mortar Board, said that as soon as he heard about the idea of the Last Lecture series, he knew the first professor would have to be Rugg (from whom he had taken an anatomy class). “We needed to open the event with a bang,” Salisbury said. “Stuart is just one of those people that makes you feel better about life.”
Jennifer Phan (junior) had never taken a class from Rugg, but said her friends were so enthusiastic about him that she wanted to hear what he had to say. “I was encouraged to attend with the knowledge that his last lecture would be anything other than standard, or—for lack of a better word—boring,” Phan said.
At his lecture, Rugg admitted to the audience that although he has taught anatomy for 20 years at Oxy, his lecture would have nothing to do with this subject. “I’m going to talk about the most important thing in life—being human,” he said.
Rugg first asked the audience a question: how do you greet the day? “We have a choice to make about how we want to feel every day,” he said. “When someone asks you how you are, instead of saying ‘Fine’ or ‘Good,’ I want you to say, ‘Super fantastic!’ It makes them smile because they didn’t expect that answer, and it makes you happier because you feel like if you say you’re super fantastic, you have to act like it.”
“Also, the next time you’re ordering a cup of coffee, ask the barista, ‘How are you doing today?’ rather than just ordering right away,” he said. “I once said that to a guy and he said, ‘No one ever asks me that.’ It’s the little things that make a big difference.”
Rugg spoke of other little things make a big difference, including encouraging people to make eye contact and smile when they run into each other. He also said it’s a good idea to leave a message on your cell phone when you are upset so that later on, you will hear it and laugh. Rugg explained that in one of his classes when he saw one of his students was having a bad day, he called her cell phone and left a complimentary message for her. She later admitted that she saved the message the entire week to listen to when she felt down.
Rugg also encouraged students to pursue a career in something they had both knowledge and passion for. “If something doesn’t come easily to you, it may not be what you are the best at,” he said. “You should understand what you’re not as strong at and learn from that so that you will find a job that you look forward to going to every morning.”
“Stuart inspires me,” Lindsay Willems (junior) said. “I was interested in what his last lecture would be mainly because I hope (although I know this is not true) that he will never have to give it.”
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.
