’Zip Your Lips and Listen’: Daley delivers ‘Last Lecture’
Published on Monday, March 31, 2025
By: Danny Barrett Jr., dlbarrett@umc.edu
Photos By: Jay Ferchaud/ UMMC Communications
As a lover of classic films and music, it seems appropriate Dr. William Daley felt he needed a second act or a change of key in an otherwise successful career in sales.
“I worked in the family business for 10 years and learned a whole lot about life, about business and about people,” said Daley, professor of pathology, last week during the 2025 Last Lecture at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. “The best part is that I got to work with my parents every day. It was wonderful to do that.”
Presented by the Office of Development-Alumni Engagement, the Student Alumni Representatives (STARS) and the Associated Student Body, the Last Lecture is an occasion for selected faculty members to hold forth as if it is their last chance to pass on words of wisdom. Daley became UMMC’s ninth Last Lecturer.
Chosen from among a slate of nominees, each Last Lecture honoree is part of a tradition adopted by many other institutions of higher learning since 2007. It began with a Carnegie Mellon University professor, Randy Pausch, a pancreatic cancer patient. Aware of his terminal diagnosis, Pausch presented the original Last Lecture, offering insights turned into a best-selling book.
Daley’s father, Charles L. Daley, was a salesperson for Arnolds, a supplier for local beauty and barber shops in Jackson. In 1946, some of its salesmen formed their own company, with his dad eventually becoming the sole owner. It’s where Daley worked in the years just after graduating from Mississippi College with a business degree in 1983.
“That’s what I did at first, though my lifelong dream at the time was to become a commercial pilot. But after high school, my eyes just went south, and I developed an autoimmune problem. So, that career plan was gone.
“But, making money for making money’s sake by selling permanent waves and hair color just didn’t fulfill me anymore,” he said. “It seemed very empty.”
“I had watched my brother go through medical school, so I made the decision to go to medical school at 34 years old,” he said. “At first, I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t lost my mind. But, doors started to open because it was the right thing for me and my life.”
Daley joined the UMMC faculty in 2003. He completed medical school at UMMC in 1998. He has directed coursework for sophomore pathology since 2005.
“He would humbly refute this, but his knowledge and personal experiences along his career path show he’s among the best at his job,” said Will Farmer, the fourth-year dental student and STARS member who introduced Daley. “We are thankful for him sharing the importance of family, strong mentors and laughter.”
Being an older student in classes frequently filled with recent high-school graduates was a plus when it came to some intangible qualities needed for medical school.
“I didn’t worry about partying – I just worried about studying and getting a good night’s sleep,” he said. “At 10 p.m., it was lights-out and books-closed.”
He took pre-med coursework while still working his sales job, then did a five-year residency in pathology before joining the faculty as an assistant professor of pathology in 2003.
“Pathologists are sort of the doctors behind the scenes,” he said. “A piece of glass with tissue on it is our patient, too. That’s how seriously we take what we do in pathology. And teaching gives me a great deal of fulfillment in addition to taking care of patients.”
Daley shared the history, humor and hobbies he’s turned into passions that make up his story.
“Humor is central to who I am; it’s a great icebreaker,” he said during slides showing dad jokes about kids, pets and social norms. One of them read: ‘My wife and I decided we don’t want kids. We’re going to tell them tonight after dinner.’
His family history in Mississippi began with his great-great-great-grandfather, David Daley, who migrated from Maine in the 1830s as a carpenter who’d eventually work on the Old Capitol building on what became State Street. David Daley’s daughter, Adaline, married Charles Manship, who later became mayor of Jackson during the height of the Civil War. A great-uncle, Luther Manship, was lieutenant governor of Mississippi from 1908-12.
“The reason everyone looks mad in old photos from the 19th century is because how slow film was then,” he said. “You had to hold a pose for eight to 12 seconds, so a lot of people just stood there like a stone instead of holding a smile that long.”
Daley’s father, Charles Sr., had to become “the man of the family” at just 15 after William Daley’s grandfather, Luther H. Daley, and others in the family died of food poisoning. His mother, Effie L. (Garrett) Daley, was born on a farm in Flora, and, together with his dad, made for “the best parents any child could have hoped for. It was like ‘Leave It to Beaver,’ but I’d call it ‘Leave It to Billy.’”
His professional mentors include Drs. Robert Brodell and Steven Bigler. Brodell chairs the Department of Pathology. Bigler, a former department chair in pathology at UMMC, recently retired from Mississippi Baptist Medical Center, Daley said. Other mentors of his are Drs. Jack Lewin, Charu Subramony and the late Fredrick Shipkey and Julius Cruse.
“If you know him (Brodell), you know what I’m talking about – energy, compassion, drive and understanding,” he said, pivoting to addressing Brodell directly. “Thank you for everything you’ve done, including talking me off the cliff, on occasion.
“Both of them (Brodell and Bigler) are humble. They’re brilliant in their areas, but they’re humble. They do their work without waving their arms or raising their voices. They put others before self, which I think is rare these days.”
He also recognized Dr. Diane Beebe, professor emerita and retired chair of family medicine, and her husband, Bill King, as being like a second family to him. Diane’s parents, Marguerite and Harold Beebe, had moved from Chicago in the late 1960s to the house next door to the Daley household in Jackson, he said. Beebe and King made the trip from Ocean Springs just to hear the lecture.
“I’m very fortunate in life in that I didn’t have just one family, I had two,” he said. “How many folks can say that? Diane is like my sister.”
Get him in front of some vintage amplifiers, stereos or other old audio equipment, and he’s in quite the happy place, he said.
“I’m just a mad scientist playing around,” he said. “I love taking the old and making it new again. I spend a lot of time in my audio room listening to music. It feeds my soul.”
Daley drew laughter with his life advice, which consisted of a blank screen – “OK, next slide!” he said.
He balanced his speech from humor to practical perspective featuring the iconic Earthrise photo, taken during the Apollo 8 lunar orbit mission in 1968.
“The astronaut who took the picture and his fellow astronauts said walking the moon was great, but it took going to the moon to really understand the Earth,” he said. “It was a life-changing perspective for them. Just look at the beautiful blue marble, hanging in the blackness of space. So, think about all the blessings of this life, the simple things we take for granted every day.”
Among Daley’s other words of wisdom were:
- “Show kindness. It’s easy in life to be kind to people you have to be kind to and then treat everybody else in a different way. Treat people like VIPs – because they are!”
- “Be a good listener, and be your own person. Often, people in conversation only think about what they’re going to say next. Zip your lips and listen – you might learn something. And make your own decisions based on facts. Don’t make your decisions based on other people’s opinions.”
- “Have some quiet time for yourself. Everybody says it, but how many people do it? It seems to me the more communication devices we have, the worse our communication seems to get. Make a time to just disconnect and just listen to music.”
- “Have a sense of humor, get a sense of humor, buy a sense of humor – there’s healing properties in laughter.”
- “Don’t be afraid of black-and-white movies. They’re some of the best ones. Pick a genre and dive into it.” Daley’s presentation showed the official movie posters of his favorites, such as the postwar drama “The Best Years of Our Lives” from 1946 to the more obscure classic “Bigger Than Life,” from 1956.
Daley mused on his favorite musical figures, from Beethoven to two giants of jazz trumpet in the 20th century, Doc Severinsen and Louis Armstrong.
“An extraordinary musician who did everything from the heart,” he said of Armstrong before deferring to Satchmo himself to sing a poignant ending to the 50-minute lecture.
“I want to end with Armstrong singing a very simple, heartfelt song with a profound meaning – What a Wonderful World.”