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News and Events

News & Events Recaps

April 2007

  • The Pepperdine School of Law hosted Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo for a conversation about careers in public service.

  • The School of law hosted its annual Advocates for Public Interest Law (APIL) Auction. Items included a signed Pepperdine team baseball or basketball and lunch with Dean Ken Starr. Proceeds funded APIL fellowships for students volunteering in public interest law during the summer of 2007.

  • Pepperdine juniors Michael Wang and Stevie Siebert, members of the Seaver College Speech and Debate Team, were named to All-American squads at the opening ceremony of the 2007 Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) National Tournament. The tournament took place in March at the University of Oklahoma.

  • Pepperdine was recognized, along with two University staff members at the 17th annual Dolphin Awards ceremony held in Malibu. The Dolphin Awards, sponsored by the Malibu Times, recognize select individuals for their outstanding contributions to the Malibu community. Pepperdine received the Harvey Baskin Memorial Award for its partnership with the Malibu Celebration of Film. Two individual Dolphin Awards were given to Marnie Mitze, managing director of the Center for the Arts, and Carol Kmiec, ARTSReach and museum coordinator at the Center for the Arts, for their work with Pepperdine's ARTSReach program. ARTSReach gives thousands of children from the Los Angeles area the opportunity to see live performances and visit Pepperdine's Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art each year.

  • The Italian Institute of Culture awarded Pepperdine University with a one-of-a-kind film collection encompassing 133 classic Italian movies and cultural documentaries. The collection will be housed in Payson Library and will provide educational enrichment for numerous students enrolled in Italian language and film courses.

  • Esteemed broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite was the keynote speaker at the 31st Annual Pepperdine University Associates Dinner in March. The annual black-tie event honoring the University’s extended community of friends, alumni, and benefactors took place at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Mr. Cronkite was joined on stage by Lester Holt, co-anchor, Today, Weekend Edition as well as a correspondent for NBC Nightly News and parent of a current Pepperdine student.

  • William George, Harvard Business School professor and former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, Inc., spoke at the Graziadio School of Business and Management’s Dean Executive Leadership Series.

  • The Senior Student Exhibition, "Polyfocal," was featured at the Weisman Museum on the Malibu campus. The show showcased works of art from Seaver College fine art majors who graduated in April.

  • The Graziadio School of Business and Management celebrated the 2007 graduation of GSBM students in Firestone Fieldhouse. Eli Broad, renowned business leader and venture philanthropist, received the honorary doctorate. Robert C. Marshall and James R. Marshall, cofounders and managing directors of Selby Venture Partners, were honored as Distinguished Alumni.

  • First Lady Laura Bush delivered the 2007 Seaver College Commencement. During the ceremony, she received Pepperdine’s highest honor, the Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. In her speech, Mrs. Bush invoked the University motto—Freely ye received, freely give—as she encouraged the graduates to make the most of their blessings. Mrs. Bush's participation in the commencement ceremony received a considerable amount of national press coverage.

  • The School of Public Policy held its 2007 commencement ceremony in Firestone Fieldhouse. Edwin Meese III, Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C., was the recipient of the Honorary Doctor of Laws award. SPP alumnus Hanna Skandera was honored with the Alumni of the Year award. A reception in Alumni Park immediately followed the ceremony.

  • Pepperdine responded to the tragedy in Virginia which claimed the lives of 32 innocent victims at Virginia Tech University. Within hours of the tragedy, members of the Pepperdine campus community gathered in Stauffer Chapel in prayer and offered the University community advice on how to cope with the tragedy.

  • Pepperdine University participated in the 12th Annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. Several faculty and alumni authors from Pepperdine schools were featured at the festival. Described as “the country’s largest celebration of the written word,” the festival drew more than 130,000 attendees. Books by nearly 50 Pepperdine faculty, staff, and alumni authors were on sale, including Provost Darryl Tippens; June Schmieder-Ramirez, Jack McManus and David Levy (GSEP); Bruce Herschensohn (SPP) and Mark Allen (GSEP and GSBM).

  • Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes and alumnus of Pepperdine University School of Law, and Dr. Robert Lloyd, professor of international relations at Pepperdine University, were sent by the International Republican Institute (IRI) as part of an international delegation to monitor Nigeria's April 21 presidential and parliamentary elections.

  • Golfer Misun Cho was named Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year while head coach Laurie Gibbs was tabbed Coach of the Year after the fourth-ranked Pepperdine women's golf team captured the West Coast Conference (WCC) Championships at the La Purisima Golf Course in Lompoc, California. The women's victory marked the sixth straight conference crown and ninth in the last 10 years for the Waves.

  • The Pepperdine men's golf team captured the WCC crown for the 16th time and eighth time in the last nine years and after finishing fifth in 2006.

  • Pepperdine University hosted the men’s volleyball Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championships in Firestone Fieldhouse. The Waves received an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships in Columbus, Ohio after dropping a 3-2 decision to the second-seeded UC Irvine Anteaters at the MPSF championships.

  • The Waves men’s volleyball team made its 14th appearance at the NCAA Championships in Columbus, Ohio. The Waves lost 3-1 to Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne in the semifinal match at St. John Arena.

  • Ed Shafranske, professor of psychology at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology, served as the keynote speaker for the Faith and Life Conference 2007 - "Psyche and Soul: Issues in Psychological and Religious Health" at California Lutheran University. Shafranske also received the California Psychological Association's "Distinguished Contribution to Psychology as a Profession" award in a ceremony at its annual convention. Shafranske and his colleague, Carol Falender, gave a six-hour workshop on supervision at the meeting. They also gave an address at the biannual meeting of the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) held in San Diego.

  • Robert Chandler, professor and chair of the Communication Division at Seaver College, co-authored a newly published research report titled "Communication Factors During Crises, Disasters, and Emergency Situations," in the Disaster Recovery Journal, 20, 2, (Spring 2007), 16-24. Chandler also coauthored a new research study "Six Points for Improving Crisis Communication Plans: The Application of Visual Communication for Effective Crisis Response" (Tandberg).

  • Karen Martin, professor of natural science at Seaver College, was awarded a grant by the National Geographic Society for her project, "The Expanding Range of the California Grunion: A Southern California Icon Surfs North."

  • President Andrew K. Benton contributed an article to the 2007 UCLA Anderson School Annual Forecast, along with other contributing writers from the area. Aimed at identifying "solutions to our city," President Benton's contribution focuses on the importance of volunteerism in building community.

  • Pepperdine University Associate Provost Tim Perrin was named vice dean to the School of Law. Perrin, a longtime professor and associate provost for Pepperdine University, will step down from his four-year-plus tenure as associate provost and take on the vice deanship.

  • Angela Hawken and School of Public Policy students Brian Dille, Joseph Drezek, Aaron Fellner, Elizabeth Garcia, Sean Gill, Lisa Happee, Alison Hultman, Jared Ide, Matthew Mark, Annie Poe, Clifford Smith, Joseph Smith, Timothy Sohn, Catherine West, and Kris Winder delivered a briefing on Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (H.O.P.E) program at the California State Capitol. Four of the students visited Hawaii with Hawken to see the program firsthand and help collect data for the ongoing evaluation.

  • Dan Caldwell, professor of political science at Seaver College, presented a seminar on the Iraq War at the John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies at SMU University in Dallas.

  • Ted McAllister, professor of public policy at the School of Public Policy, presented "The Romance of Conservatism: Russell Kirk and a Conservative Aesthetic" at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) National Leadership Conference in Indianapolis.

  • David Baird, dean of Seaver College, was inducted into the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame at a banquet in Oklahoma City.

  • Mark Mallinger's talk, "The Multiple Lens of Organizational Culture," was presented at Concordia University by Steven Appelbaum, Concoria's chair in organizational development. Mallinger is a professor of business at the Graziadio School of Business and Management.

  • Stephen Davis, Distinguished Professor of Biology at Seaver College, was selected as one of three finalists for the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching sponsored by Baylor University. The Cherry Award is a sizeable award given to honor outstanding professors in the English-speaking world who are distinguished for their ability to communicate as classroom teachers. As one of three finalists, Davis will receive a $25,000 stipend (plus travel expenses) and will be expected to make three presentations at Baylor in the fall of 2007.