Pi Lam Brother Jeffrey Zaslow Helps to create a media sensation that Inspires People throughout the World

“It was the best three hundred miles I have ever driven in my life, “said The Last Lecture Co-Author Jeffrey Zaslow, as he described how he was able to attend the now well known lecture by Professor Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). That was the distance between his Michigan home and the Pittsburgh campus that he drove when his boss at The Wall Street Journal decided it was too expensive to fly. Mr. Zaslow didn’t know Professor Pausch, but as a graduate of Carnegie Mellon was aware of The Last Lecture Series and the illness that left Pausch with little time to live. The resulting column in the Journal led to a worldwide awareness of this inspirational event.

This wasn’t Zaslow’s first brush with fame. Several years ago, he decided to write a column about the search for the replacement for advice columnist Ann Landers. There was a contest being held and he entered as part of his research. Out of over 14,000 submissions, he won and provided advice in many newspapers throughout the country for fourteen “crazy” years.

He has terrific memories of his time as a brother of Pi Lambda Phi’s PA Beta Zeta Chapter at CMU. In particular, he related that as a Sophomore, he decided to transfer to Columbia University to attend their Journalism School. The brothers threw him a big going away party. When, five weeks later, he decided that he wanted to come back to CMU, he was welcomed back with open arms and a very dirty fraternity house. It turns out that they hadn’t cleaned up since the party.

After graduating, he went to work for the Orlando Sentinel, where he ended up rooming with three other alumni PiLams from the University of Florida Chapter. He believes his Fraternity experience has affected his writing because he writes about transitions in life and sees that being in a Fraternity helps in a young man’s development from leaving home for the first time to the point when he greets the world as adult.

Today he is married to a news anchor and has three daughters. His college aged daughter decided not to go Greek at Indiana University, but he thinks the next one might find a sorority appealing. He had an opportunity, when on a recent visit to CMU for a lecture, to get together with brothers from his era at the home of their former Chapter Advisor. He said it was terrific as they all became the “same guys” they had been thirty years in the past.

For more information on the The Last Lecture or Jeffrey Zaslow, please go to

The Last Lecture Website

The Wall Street Journal Article on the Last Lecture

Randy Paush and Brother Zaslow