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News & Events Recaps

March 2008

  • The Pepperdine Law Review will present the symposium "Free Speech and Press in the Modern Age: Can 20th Century Theory Bear the Weight of 21st Century Demands?" on Friday, Apr. 4, from 8:45 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the School of Law. The symposium will bring together a wide range of public intellectuals to discuss the development of free speech law in the 20th century in relation to the major challenges of our modern age. Listen to an interview with Professor Barry McDonald, faculty advisor to the Pepperdine Law Review. In it he discusses the important of the free speech symposium. Symposium topics will include extremist/terrorist speech, campaign fundraising and spending, and mass media in the digital age.
  • Pepperdine School of Law's Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution has been ranked the number one program by U.S. News and World Report for the fourth consecutive year. The Straus Institute bested Harvard University, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Hamline University, and Ohio State University, which comprise the remaining top five schools. In the last 12 years, the Straus Institute has never been lower than third and has achieved the number one position 7 times.
  • The 2007-08 Dean's Executive Leadership Series at the Graziadio School of Business and Management continues Tuesday, Apr. 1, with Robert Simpson, president and COO of Jelly Belly Candy Company. The evening begins with a reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by the lecture presentation at 6:30 p.m. at the Silicon Valley Center at Techmart in Santa Clara, Calif. Robert M. Simpson, Jr. oversees the Jelly Belly Candy Company, a family-owned company manufacturing Jelly Belly® jelly beans made famous by President Ronald Reagan. Today the company features more than 100 gourmet confections that are marketed and sold to more than 35 countries worldwide.
  • Avery Falkner's recent 29-minute video titled Light Water Maine Woods Stone will be shown Wednesday, Mar. 19, at 3 p.m. in Elkins Auditorium on the Malibu campus. All students, faculty, staff, and members of the community are invited to attend the free event. In creating his first video production, Falkner said he is attempting to apply his artistic vision to a "reexamination of basic natural elements, namely, water, woods, and stone with the necessity of light to view them." He said the project is a byproduct of his sabbatical leave last fall, where he and his wife Pat lived on Toddy Pond in Downeast Maine.
  • Renowned theatre historian Charlotte Canning will give this year's fourth Seaver College Dean's Distinguished Lecture on Monday, March 24, at 7 p.m. in Smothers Theatre on the Malibu campus. The lecture, titled "A Yankee Hamlet in the European Court: U.S. Theatre and Cold War Foreign Policy," is open to the public and free of charge. Canning has published in many journals, but her best known works are two monographs, Feminist Theaters in the USA: Staging Women's Experience (1996) and The Most American Thing in America: Circuit Chautauqua as Performance (2005). In 2006, the American Society for Theater Research awarded her the prestigious Barnard Hewitt Award for Excellence in Theater History.
  • Dr. Jean Ping, the recently elected chairperson of the Commission of the African Union (AU) and previously the Foreign Minister of Gabon (1999-2008), visited with Pepperdine officials Monday, Mar. 10. Ping is in the United States to brief State Department officials on current affairs in Africa. He visited Pepperdine University to explore a future relationship between the University and Gabon and participated in a subsequent meeting at University of Southern California. Currently, Pepperdine's nationally ranked international programs offer students the opportunity to learn and serve in Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa. During Ping's visit, he extended an invitation to consider Gabon and the possibility of establishing a permanent presence in Africa. Already, Pepperdine has acclaimed international programs in Buenos Aires, Florence, Heidelberg, London, and Lausanne and more than fifty percent of the University's students attend the programs during their sophomore year.
  • Nine Seaver College students set out Monday, Mar. 3, for a unique Pepperdine spring break adventure. Project L.E.A.D. (Leadership Education and Development) is an alternative spring break program at the University that allows a small team of students to engage with the concepts and application of leadership principles and service. During the weeklong road trip stretching from San Diego to Sacramento, students will conduct leadership workshops and seminars with local high school and middle school students. They will also engage in small group meetings with prominent community and national leaders in fields such as business, politics, Christianity, education, media, and social activism. The team's blog will chronicle their adventures through text and film footage.
  • Bestselling author and screenwriter Skip Press will headline Pepperdine University's Hero's Journey Renaissance: The Second Annual Entrepreneurship Festival, Saturday, Mar. 8, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. All activities are free and open to the public and take place in the Drescher Auditorium on Pepperdine's Malibu campus. Press, who is also a noted script consultant, has taught screenwriting on over 1,000 campuses. He will discuss his latest book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Screenwriting, beginning at 1 p.m. Five panels are planned throughout the day including one titled Leonardo Da Vinci and the New Frontiers of Robotic Technologies at 2 p.m. The Italian Cultural Institute and Mentorography are proud to present the Da Vinci panel with Mark Rosheim, an American robotics expert. Following the lecture, panelists and attendees will gather in the adjacent cafeteria and patio for a Hero's Journey Networking session to meet like-minded entrepreneurs and renaissance enthusiasts.