Professor of Art Steve Hilton will be the speaker for the Last Lecture Series at 7 p.m. Monday, April 11, in the Legacy Hall Multipurpose Room. The event is sponsored by Faculty-in-Residence Marcos Lopez and the Office of Residence Life & Housing. Hilton’s topic will be “Thanks Mom & Dad.” Free snacks and refreshments will be provided.

Hilton earned his MFA at Arizona State University in 2005. He also holds degrees in Art Education Geology from Missouri State University. He has taught science and art at the secondary and post-secondary levels, and his work has been collected by museums, universities, and individuals in Korea, Slovenia, Thailand, Australia, Austria, Portugal, China, Japan, Canada, Italy, Germany, Romania, the U.S., and Cuba. He has been juried and invited into over 190 international and national exhibitions in conjunction with curated exhibitions in the U.S.

He is the Fain Professor of Fine Arts in ceramics and art education at MSU Texas and is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics and a Fellow of the Council of the National Council on the Education for the Ceramic Arts. He lives in Wichita Falls with his wife Alissa Donaldson, an elementary school art teacher, and his 8-year-old son, Wes.

In 2007, Carnegie Mellon University Professor Randy Pausch delivered a lecture that was truly his last – he died less than a year later of pancreatic cancer. In his talk, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” he discussed how to find good in others, overcome obstacles, and live generously. His lecture inspired the 2008 New York Times bestselling book, The Last Lecture. Pausch’s story inspired institutions across the country to have “last lectures,” where professors speak about what matters to them as if it were truly their last lecture.

The series was inaugurated at MSU Texas in 2017, with speakers chosen by student and faculty ballots.