The ticket lottery for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s “Rathbun Lecture on a Meaningful Life,” scheduled for Feb. 6, opened on Monday and will close at the end of Jan. 29. Students, faculty and staff with SUNet IDs are eligible for tickets.

Ginsburg’s lecture is part of a series created in memory of late Stanford law professor Harry Rathbun, who delivered his distinguished “Last Lecture” every year from the 1930s to the 1950s. In years in which a lecture is scheduled, the Office for Religious Life chooses a speaker to visit campus and speak about the various paths to building a meaningful life.

Due to high demand, the lecture usually determines attendees through a lottery. However, via funding through the Rathbun Fund, students, faculty and staff are able to attend the lecture for free.

Previous iterations of the lecture featured former Secretary of State George Schultz, the 14th Dalai Lama, Oprah Winfrey and Ginsburg’s former colleague on the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor. In the lectures, speakers touch upon how they define happiness and how they have derived meaning from their lives’ work. Winfrey, for example, discussed the importance to her of empowering others as part of a meaningful life.

“Understanding that what you have to offer is your gift,” said Winfrey in her 2015 lecture. “It matters to you, to the people that you love and to our planet that you are here.”

Lottery winners will be notified by email on Jan. 31.

 

Contact Victor Xu at vxu ‘at’ stanford.edu.