Skip Navigation

News and Events

News & Events Recaps

August 2007

 

  • Pepperdine University School of Law has announced that Herbert and Elinor Nootbaar of Laguna Beach, California, have endowed the Herbert and Elinor Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics with a generous $5 million gift. Director of the institute and the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law, Robert Cochran, said the endowment will enable the institute to further investigate the nexus between law, religion, and ethics, in addition to providing students and faculty the opportunity to explore these areas through interdisciplinary seminars, conferences, and symposia.  

     

  • The Pepperdine University Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art in Malibu will open its doors for the new exhibit Made in California: Contemporary California Art from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation through Sunday, Dec. 16, in conjunction with the museum's 15th anniversary celebration. Members of the public are invited to meet the artists at a reception on Saturday, Sept. 15, from 6 to 8 p.m. Families and children are also invited to explore their artistic sides with free activities on family art day, Saturday, Oct. 13, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  
  • Akhil Amar, the Southmayd Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, has taught at Pepperdine as a D and L Straus Distinguished Visiting Professor for the past three years. This fall marks his third time teaching the seminar Advanced Constitutional Law: Reading the Constitution. Professor Amar first came to Pepperdine in 2001 at the invitation of Professor Doug Kmiec, for a constitutional seminar titled, "The Supreme Court's Most Extraordinary Term," where he was a featured presenter and panelist. Over the next six years, Professor Amar returned to speak at numerous symposia and institutes before becoming a D and L Straus Distinguished Visiting Professor in 2005. In addition to teaching the constitutional law seminar, Professor Amar co-taught advanced criminal procedure last spring.

     

  • Pepperdine University and the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) have announced the connection of Pepperdine University to the high-performance, fiber-optic based California Research and Education Network (CalREN). CalREN is run by CENIC and is one of the most advanced of such networks in the world. With a 50 Mb/s Opt-E-Man connection between the University's West Los Angeles Graduate Campus to CalREN's Los Angeles hub site, Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff now have the ability to collaborate with colleagues throughout California and the world on cutting-edge research and education projects. The addition of this circuit increases Pepperdine's overall bandwidth capacity from 45mb to 95mb and also provides a critical redundant link to the Internet. 

     

  • Pepperdine University will open the 2007-08 school year with two new University chaplains. Shelly Cox and David Lemley will replace longtime and beloved chaplain D'Esta Love, bringing with them an abundance of experience and dedication to the University and its students, faculty, and staff. In their new roles, the chaplains will carry out a wide range of duties including planning or assisting prayer services, devotionals, and worship services throughout the year. They will also fill the critical role of providing pastoral care, mentoring, and spiritual direction to members of the University community.  

     

  • To further strengthen University emergency preparedness, Pepperdine University has launched a comprehensive campus-wide emergency communication system leveraging InstaCom Campus Alert, a mass notification system from 3n (National Notification Network), the leading mass notification system provider. The 3n mass notification system enables Pepperdine to communicate with students, staff, and faculty in minutes via a number of contact methods -- including native SMS text messaging, almost any voice-enabled device such as cell phones and landlines, instant messaging, pagers, faxes and more -- greatly increasing the likelihood that messages will be delivered and received in a timely manner.

     

  • Pepperdine University was selected as the favorite to capture the 2007 West Coast Conference women's volleyball regular season title, as selected by the conference coaches. The Waves garnered five first place votes and tallied 61 overall points to earn the top spot. Pepperdine returns five starters and nine letterwinners from last season's squad that finished with a 16-12 overall record and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the ninth time in the last 10 years. The Waves, who finished second in the WCC last season, return three players who were selected to the All-WCC freshman team in outside hitter Rachel Lumsden, opposite hitter Kayla Walker, and setter Kiah Fiers, the WCC Freshman of the Year.

     

  • Pepperdine University School of Law welcomed Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and attorney Carter G. Phillips for the inaugural William French Smith Memorial Lecture on Tuesday, Aug. 7, in the Caruso Auditorium in Malibu. The lecture aired live on CSPAN 1. The event included opening remarks by Ken Starr, the Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean of Pepperdine's School of Law. Starr offered reflections on William French Smith, the 74th attorney general of the United States. He and Douglas W. Kmiec, Caruso Family Chair in Constitutional Law, served as moderators during the Alito and Phillips conversation on Supreme Court advocacy and deliberation. 

     

  • Pepperdine University has announced the appointment of Michael Bucchi to its Board of Regents. Bucchi will serve on the finance and administration committee and the religious standards committee. Before his current position as senior vice president of Analex, a subsidiary of QinetiQ North America, Bucchi served a long and distinguished career in the United States Navy, retiring in 2003 as Vice Admiral and Commander of the United States Third Fleet.