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News & Events Recaps

June 2005

  • Senior Michael Putnam, runner-up at the 2005 NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championships, completed the best season of any golfer in Pepperdine history. Putnam was named the West Coast Conference Scholar-Athlete of the Year, honored with the Byron Nelson Award and helped the U.S. win the Palmer Cup qualifying for the U.S. Open at the Pinehurst Resort in Village of Pinehurst, North Carolina.  Also qualified was former Pepperdine standout Jason Gore, who was a member of the Waves' 1992 national championship team.
  • Senior Steve Kleen was named one of five finalists for the inaugural National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Stopper of the Year Award. The right-hander is tied for first in the nation with 15 saves.
  • Pepperdine’s head men's volleyball coach Marv Dunphy was selected as the 2005 Tachikara/ American Volleyball Coaches Association Division I-II Men's National Coach of the Year. It marks the first time Dunphy or Pepperdine has been honored with the national award.
  • The Graphic, Pepperdine's student-produced campus newspaper, won third place in the Los Angeles Times general excellence newspapers competition, in which daily and non-daily newspapers from colleges and universities all over Southern California competed. A $1,000 prize accompanied the third-place honor. This was the second year the Los Angeles Times held the competition.
  • David Lowry, professor of communication, was appointed Oklahoma Christian University’s new dean of College of Arts and Sciences. Lowry returned to Oklahoma Christian after 20 years at Pepperdine. Prior to teaching at Pepperdine, Lowry taught at Oklahoma Christian from 1980 to 1985, operated his own marketing research and consulting company, and worked in commercial broadcasting. While at Pepperdine, Lowry not only received an outstanding teaching award for his work in first-year seminars but he also received an innovative teaching award from the university's Seaver College.
  • John Jones, assistant professor of communication, and Robert Rowland of the University of Kansas, co-authored an article titled “Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate: Moral Clarity Tempered by Pragmatism,” which was accepted for publication in Rhetoric and Public Affairs.
  • Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. released a new book by Richard Hughes, distinguished professor of religion. The book is a revised and expanded version of his earlier text, How Christian Faith Can Sustain the Life of the Mind, and is titled, The Vocation of a Christian Scholar. In addition, Hughes presented a paper, “Response to Richard Bushman's 'Joseph Smith's Many Histories,'“ at an international conference at the Library of Congress, on the theme, “Joseph Smith in His Own Time.” Hughes spoke on the theme, “Tapping the Resources of Christian Traditions for Academic Excellence,” at a conference at Hope College, Holland, Michigan.
  • Ed Shafranske, professor of psychology at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology, spoke on religion and psychoanalysis at the annual meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Earlier, he completed a training video, “Addressing Spiritual Issues in Psychotherapy” for the American Psychological Association. Further, two papers, co-authored with adjunct professor Carol Falender, were presented at the First International Interdisciplinary Conference on Clinical Supervision, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.
  • In conjunction with the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, the School of Law sponsored a dinner with Dean Ken Starr at the Beverly Hills Hotel.  Dean Starr spoke about “The Influence of International Law on U.S. Domestic Policy.”
  • The Seaver College Career Center and the Los Angeles Regional Peace Corp Office received 22 Pepperdine student applications this academic year, including 10 from the Class of 2005. Thirteen of those students have already been nominated for service and depart for their assignments within the next year. Since 1961, 101 Pepperdine graduates served as Peace Corp volunteers in at least 62 different countries around the world. This includes 10 graduates currently in the midst of their 27-month commitment as a Peace Corp volunteer.
  • Some of the best and most promising national and international singers, pianists and composers were at Pepperdine this month, participating in the tenth annual Songfest, the premier summer art song workshop in the nation. This year's theme was “Breaking the Song Barrier.” Under the tutelage of a world-class faculty of artists, musicians from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom participated in master classes, emphasizing the art of performing and communication through text. Faculty included Pulitzer-prize winning composer, John Harbison, composer of the opera “Dead Man Walking,” Jake Heggie, and Martin Katz, pianist to some of the most renowned singers including Frederica von Stade, Marilyn Horne and many others.
  • David Baird, dean of Seaver College at Pepperdine University appointed Charles F. Hall as the dean of International Programs.  Dr. Hall came to Pepperdine from the sociology department of California Lutheran University where he served as the division chair since 1997.  While at California Lutheran University, Hall developed a study abroad program in Thailand. He also served as the chair for the International Studies Committee, which oversaw the university’s short-term travel courses and semester-long programs.
  • Six Pepperdine students and alumni traveled to Sri Lanka to help children who lost their parents in the December 2004 earthquake and tsunamis. The group partnered with the Children of Joy, an organization that founded a home for tsunami orphans. The group hopes to create a long-term people-to-people partnership for disaster reconstruction and exchange through a children's center and residence.
  • Richard Hughes, distinguished professor of religion, and Jeanne Heffernan, a political scientist formerly a faculty member at Pepperdine and now at Villanova, each have written chapters in a new book titled, Gladly Learn, Gladly Teach: Living Out One’s Calling in the Twenty-first Century Academy (Mercer University Press, 2005).  Professor Hughes's essay is titled, “What Makes Church-related Education Christian?”  Heffernan's chapter is on “Integrating Heart, Mind and Soul: The Vocation of the Christian Teacher.”
  • Khalil E. Jahshan, executive director of the Washington, D.C. Internship Program, participated in a conference titled, “Middle East Regional Security and Cooperation.” The conference took place recently in Athens, Greece, and was sponsored by the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and hosted by the Greek Ministry of Defense. Delegates from 41 countries attended the conference.
  • Former Pepperdine men's volleyball standouts Dain Blanton, Scott Wong, Sean Rooney and John Mayer competed in the AVP's Cincinnati Open presented by Liftoff at Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio.
  • Head coach for the women's golf team, Laurie Gibbs, who guided Pepperdine to a fourth-place showing at the 2005 NCAA Division I Women's Golf Championships and a No. 4 final national ranking, was named Golfweek's 2004-05 “National Coach of the Year.”