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News and Events

News & Events Recaps

February 2007

  • The Seaver College and George Pepperdine College Alumni Office hosted Pepperdine University’s 2007 Homecoming, "It's Time to Come Home," at the Malibu campus. Hundreds of alumni, their family, and friends attended events including live music and game booths at the Homecoming Village, class reunions, an Alumni tailgate party, and numerous sporting events including the baseball game against Wichita State and the men and women’s basketball games against Loyola Marymount.

  • Pepperdine’s First Book Chapter sponsored the 2nd Annual Speed Read in conjunction with the Spirit Cup event during the Homecoming festivities on the Malibu Campus. The competition raised money to directly purchase books for local low-income children.

  • The Communication Division at Seaver College hosted the 4th Annual “Comm Connection: Character, Calling, & Careers.” The conference brought in media professionals to discuss vocation in the entertainment, news, and marketing industries. Students attended lectures by Lester Holt, co-anchor of NBC Today show, weekend edition; Brian Bird, screenwriter for Fox Faith’s The Last Sin Eater; Dr. Walter Fisher, emeritus professor, USC Annenberg School for Communication; Dan Voetman, CEO of Destination Marketing in Seattle; and Ed Klodt, author of The Jonah Factor: 13 Spiritual Steps to Finding the Job of a Lifetime.

  • The Eve Project, a sexual violence awareness campaign founded by Seaver College senior Julie Dlugokecki, was launched on the Malibu campus. Members of the Pepperdine community were asked what they will do when the fear of sexual violence ends. Responses were recorded on video and written on a large mural displayed in the “Sandbar” at the Tyler Campus Center. Proceeds from T-shirt sales were given to either the Eve Project or the Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center. Students also attended free self-defense classes organized by The Eve Project.

  • The School of Public Policy and Common Sense California co-hosted "Deliberative Democracy in California," a meeting created to give committed Californians a platform to participate in public policy conversation, on the Malibu campus.

  • The Institute on Law, Religion and Ethics at Pepperdine’s School of Law co-hosted a Genocide and Religion Conference with the Simon Wiesenthal Center at the Malibu campus.  The conference discussed the genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries and the roles played by perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and resisters.

  • Pepperdine presented its inaugural Entrepreneurship Week on the Malibu campus. The three lecturers included Josh Berman, co-founder and COO of MySpace.com, the leading Social Networking Life Style portal on the Internet; Elliot McGucken, author and visiting assistant professor of business; and John C. Bogle, founder and former CEO of the Vanguard Group, one of the largest mutual fund organizations in the world.

  • Pepperdine hosted "Poetry as Enchantment in a Disenchanted Age," a poetry reading and discussion by Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Gioia has authored three full-length books of poetry, as well as numerous poems, essays, translations and reviews for such magazines as The New Yorker and The Atlantic.

  • Jan Crawford Greenburg, ABC News Supreme Court correspondent, visited Pepperdine University School of Law for a discussion and signing of her new book Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.  Four of the nation's most respected constitutional scholars: Jonathan Varat, Jesse Choper, Professor Doug Kmiec, and Dean Ken Starr, engaged Greenburg on multiple Court nomination issues discussed in her book.

  • Pepperdine hosted Steve Turner, music journalist and author of Imagine: A Christian Vision for the Arts, at Payson Library on the Malibu campus. Over the past thirty years, Turner has interviewed a number of influential artists including David Bowie, Elton John, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Sting, Mick Jagger, Phil Collins, Keith Richards, and Bono. Turner has written for such publications as Beat Instrumental, New Musical Express, Cream, Melody Maker, and Rolling Stone.

  • Mark Bowden, national journalist for The Atlantic and author of the new bestselling book Guests of the Ayatollah, spoke on "America’s First Battle with Militant Islam" at the Pepperdine’s Malibu campus. Based on research from his new book, Bowden addressed the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis and its possible effects on modern Middle Eastern affairs.

  • Approximately 300 preschool children visited Seaver College in Malibu for the 4th annual Jumpstart for a Day Learning Fair. Booths were run by students from the Pepperdine Volunteer Center.

  • The 30th Annual School of Law Dinner was hosted at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills, California. The Vincent S. Dalsimer moot court winners were announced as well as a report of recent School of Law activities, accomplishments, and future goals by Dean Ken Starr. Paul D. Clement, United States Solicitor General, was the keynote speaker.

  • Charles B. Runnels, chancellor of Pepperdine University, marked his 40th anniversary at Pepperdine doing what he's been doing for decades, devoting time to friends whose support of Pepperdine is due in large measure to his love of the University.

  • The Pepperdine University Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team was awarded first place at the "Duel in Golden State" regional business competition held at California State University Bakersfield. The team was comprised of business students Nebiel Shaw, Josh Fadley, Jordan Drake, and Daniel Johnson. The award will allow them to compete in the 5th Annual Duel in the Desert National competition at the University of Arizona.

  • Dinesh D’Souza, writer/speaker, spoke at Pepperdine’s School of Law about his recently published bestseller, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and its Responsibility for 9/11.

  • Seaver College senior Brendan Groves was selected to the second USA TODAY 2007 All-USA College Academic Team, a recognition program for outstanding undergraduates across the nation. Groves is the first Pepperdine student to earn such an honor.

  • Kenneth W. Starr, dean of the School of Law, announced Grant S. Nelson as the William H. Rehnquist Professor of Law. As one of the leading real estate law professors in the country, Professor Nelson has published numerous books and articles on real estate finance law, property, and remedies, and has taught these subjects for forty years.

  • Pepperdine University announced the appointment of Marylyn M. Warren to its Board of Regents serving on the advancement and public affairs committee. Warren served as senior vice president for eHarmony.com from 2000–2005. eHarmony.com, founded by Warren’s husband, Pepperdine alumnus Dr. Neil Clark Warren in 2000, was the first relationship service on the Web to use a scientific approach to matching singles. Today it is one of the most popular and well-known relationship Web sites in the country.

  • Ed Shafranske, professor of psychology at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology, served as a discussant for a series of talks given by Princeton theologian Ellen T. Charry on Augustinian Psychology at the Fuller Symposium on Faith and Psychology at Fuller Seminary.

  • Ed Shafranske, professor of psychology at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology, was named a consulting editor for Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Psychological Association.

  • Ed Larson, professor of law at the School of Law and professor of history at Seaver College, delivered a series of lectures in the 2006 George L. Shriver Lectures: Religion in American History, presented at Stetson University in January 2006. Those lectures have been compiled in Larson's new book, The Creation-Evolution Debate: Historical Perspectives recently published by the University of Georgia Press.

  • David Levy, professor of psychology at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology, and his book Tools of Critical Thinking are referenced extensively in an article titled “Fighting Truthiness with Critical Thinking,” published recently in the Association for Psychological Science Observer. The article discusses various ways individuals assess “truth” in life situations, from critical thinking to mood assessments.

  • Dan Caldwell, professor of political science at Seaver College, joined former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney Barbara Mulvaney on a panel titled “Genocide and Religion: Collective Resistance,” which aimed to defend Mulvaney’s stance on the prosecution of those behind the Rwandan Genocide. The discussion was part of the Genocide and Religion conference cosponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Pepperdine’s Institute on Law, Religion and Ethics.

  • Dan Caldwell, professor of political science at Seaver College, visited and toured the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo, Cuba, where 395 enemy combatants are currently incarcerated. The Department of Defense invited Caldwell and nine others from around the country to tour the detention facility where they met with Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of the Joint Task Force, and Captain Mark Leary, the commanding officer of the Guantanamo Naval Base.

  • Ginger Rosenkrans, assistant professor of advertising at Seaver College, described the results of her research on assessment accountability in an article titled "Assessment Accountability in Courses that Deploy Advertising Competitions and Experiential Learning Techniques," which was published in the Spring 2006 issue of the Journal of Advertising Education, 10(1), 27-38. 

  • Teena Wickett, Pepperdine freshman and women’s basketball team member, was voted to the All-West Coast Conference first team as well as the 2007 All-Freshman team.

  • The number nine ranked Pepperdine women's golf team won the prestigious Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge with a score of 882 total and a nine-shot victory over Arizona State. This was Pepperdine’s third time winning the event.

  • Daniel Pipes debated radical Islam and the clash of civilization theory with the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre near Westminster Abbey in London, England.

  • Janet Kerr, professor at the School of Law, Melanie Howard, founder and executive director of the Palmer Center, and Kim Retts, program administrator, traveled to Dhaka, Bangladesh to present the inaugural Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award to Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner.