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News and Events

News & Events Recaps

June 2008

  • The 31st annual Youth Citizenship Seminar (YCS) took place June 23 through June 27 on Pepperdine's Malibu campus. The event brought together 273 high-achieving high school juniors from throughout Southern California to explore leadership themes with professionals who have successfully carved their own leadership niche. This year's line-up included high-profile speakers such as Ben Stein, Tommy Lasorda, and George Foreman.
  • The Pepperdine University Center for the Arts presents its exciting lineup of performances and exhibitions for the 2008-09 season. The new season begins Wednesday, Sept. 24, with Garrison Keillor, host of NPR's A Prairie Home Companion. Country music superstar Randy Travis performs on Thursday, Oct. 9, followed by the masterful improvisation of Ryan Stiles and Greg Proops in Whose Live Anyway? on October 10. Guitarist/vocalist Roger McGuinn (cofounder of The Byrds) makes a rare Southland solo appearance on Friday, Dec. 5, and jazz lovers will not want to miss singer Jane Monheit's holiday concert on December 6.
  • Education students in the Graduate School of Education and Psychology will celebrate their 2008 graduation on Saturday, June 21. The ceremony begins at 10:30 a.m. at Alumni Park on the Malibu campus. Community leader, philanthropist, and lifelong professional educator Rosalyn R. Shostak Heyman and Ziegfred G. Young, founder and president of Orioxi International Corporation, will receive honorary doctorates. Former community college president Lydia Ledesma-Reese will be honored as a Distinguished Alumnus.
  • In the first round of a new initiative at Pepperdine University to support faculty innovation specific to the field of technology and learning, chief information officer Timothy Chester has awarded a total of $37,000 to five successful faculty applicants. The grant program is sponsored by the Office of the President, the Office of the Provost, the Chief Information Officer, and the deans of the schools of Pepperdine University. Its intent is to encourage and fund faculty members who propose new ways to integrate technology and learning and share them with peers across the University.
  • Pepperdine University professor Edward J. Larson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, recently met with President George W. Bush to discuss his newest book, A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800. The commander in chief welcomed Larson to a private meeting in the Oval Office to discuss the book.
  • Pepperdine University and SongFest, an intensive summer training program for exceptional singers and pianists, will present a series of six free public recitals beginning Thursday, June 5, through Tuesday, June 17, on Pepperdine's Malibu campus. This year's internationally renowned faculty of professional performers and composers includes award-winning composer and pianist John Musto, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Harbison, pianists Graham Johnson and Martin Katz, American tenor Paul Sperry, and sopranos Amy Burton, Frances Young, and Melanie Emelio. 
  • Rotary International has selected Seaver College senior Braden Mogler as a recipient of the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship. The award will give him $23,000 to study abroad in Latin America during the 2008-09 academic year. In November 2008 Rotary International will assign Mogler to one of 200 countries and geographical regions where Rotary clubs are active. His first choice is Uruguay, where he hopes to study health sciences and observe how medicine and public health are administered in local communities. At Pepperdine Mogler is a sports medicine major also pursuing a minor in social work and Spanish.
  • Seaver College students and professors from the Natural Science Division joined hundreds of scientists, naturalists, and volunteers from all over the California and other parts of the country at BioBlitz, a 24-hour species inventory, combing more than 150,000 acres in the Santa Monica Mountains.