My last lecture

Over this past weekend, I submitted the final grades for the graduate class I was teaching this semester. In the middle of the term, I had to leave the class because of my illness. Several of my colleagues at Texas State (Sandy Rao, Bruce Smith and Lori Bergen) jumped in and helped with the remaining lectures and grading. I am truly grateful for their help.

I love teaching this class. It is called Seminar in Advertising and Public Relations Issues. The class meets once a week for 3 hours. And like a graduate seminar should be, the class only had 10 students in it. I teach the class using lecture, cases and student presentations. Each week we discuss a different theme in advertising or public relations. For example, when we discussed Advertising Creativity, I first presented a lecture on historical trends in advertising creativity. Then we discussed a case involving a problem related to an agency’s creative work. Finally, a student gave a presentation on a current issue related to advertising creativity: the popularity of user generated ads. As small graduate seminars go, I felt I really connected with the students.

When I was creating my syllabus in August, I cancelled class on October 25 so that the students would have time to attend lectures/talks during our annual Mass Communication Week. I was planning on spending all week at school attending sessions and visiting with colleagues. Little did I anticipate that on the evening of October 25, I would be spending the night at a La Quinta Motel in Dallas. The next day, the liver surgeon at Baylor Medical Center came out of my laparoscopic biopsy procedure and told David that the mass in my liver was cancer.

The following week, I did manage to attend one last lecture. I was in pain and moving very slowly, but I managed to fake good health for a few hours. The class went as planned. I had a wonderful guest speaker (a former grad student of mine who is now a successful public relations professional). Next, students presented and discussed the public relations case. The class closed with a good student presentation on the influence of think tanks and foundations on media content.

During the whole class, I was dreading making my announcement about my illness. I had to tell the students, because I thought this would be my last class. At this point, no one knew about my cancer except close family. Because so few people knew about my illness, it almost seemed like it didn’t exist. As I was sitting in the back of the room watching the students present, I thought how perfectly normal everything seemed. If I didn’t make an announcement, perhaps my cancer might just go away. The more people who knew about my cancer, the more it became real. What if I just never told anyone. Could I get away with that?

At the end of the class, I slowly made my way up the front of the seminar table and began my announcement with a failed attempt at cancer humor. Given that we were discussing public relations, I told the class I was pulling a “Tony Snow” on them. I didn’t get any laughs, only confused looks. I explained that just as the White House Press Secretary had to leave his position because of cancer, I was going to leave the class because I also had cancer. I heard gasps in the room. Confused faces turned to sad faces. As I went on explaining my situation, my voice started to crack. I could see some of the students holding back tears. I just paused and took a breath until I regained my composure.

I told the students that other faculty would probably be taking over the class. I discussed the logistics of the rest of the semester. Everyone was quiet. I wished them good luck with the rest of the semester. Nobody moved. I finally had to just say that the class was over. What I should have done was stand up and hug each of them as they walked out the door. At that moment, institutional titles no longer separated us. I was no longer Dr. Taylor. They were no longer graduate students. We were just people in a room all struggling with a devastating piece of news that had just become reality.



Old Main, home of the Texas State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication.