About Pepperdine University
The Five Schools of Pepperdine University
Frank R. Seaver College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences
A graduate of the Frank R. Seaver College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences said something about Pepperdine University’s undergraduate school that underscores its true nature: “I majored in advertising, but at Seaver we all really major in liberal arts, and minor in our majors.”
Pepperdine’s undergraduate education offers the recent high school graduate a classical liberal arts curriculum, providing a broad education in rhetoric, language, sciences, mathematics, logic, history, and theology; alongside of professional expertise within a specialized career focus.
Seaver College endeavors to produce men and women who will have skills needed to find employment in their chosen fields. But more important than that, it intends to send forth graduates who will have at the start of their adult lives a highly developed capacity for critical thinking, quantitative analysis, and logical reasoning; the ability to transmit that thinking clearly in written, visual, and oral communications; and an understanding of our current age in the context of Western Civilization. These same graduates examine the extent to which Christianity has informed and created that civilization; they develop an ability to assess and enjoy beauty and truth expressed in the fine arts; and gain a sense of themselves as people within a world of which the United States is only part.
The namesake for Seaver College is Frank R. Seaver (1883 - 1964), a Harvard-educated attorney and oil-drilling equipment inventor and entrepreneur, whose widow, Blanche Ebert Seaver (1891 - 1994), became the college’s principal and earliest benefactor.
Seaver College typically enrolls around 3,000 students and offers BA and BS degrees within 40 courses of study (and 35 minors), and master’s degrees in six disciplines.
Seaver College students attend classes at the Malibu main campus and study abroad courses are offered at our permanent international campuses in Germany, England, Italy, Switzerland, and Buenos Aires.
The George L. Graziadio School of Business and Management
The mission of the George L. Graziadio School of Business and Management flows from to the heart of University’s founder, George Pepperdine. He was himself a Christian businessman and entrepreneur, who advocated that business education be coupled with the development of Christian character.
The chief aim of a graduate business education at the Graziadio School is to produce more than competent business professionals who pursue profit and shareholder return; in addition, the school seeks to produce businessleaders who are ethical, entrepreneurial, and globally aware, and who work for collective good.
Since its establishment in 1969, the Graziadio School has made the pursuit of an advanced business degree as convenient and as practical as possible for working professionals, emphasizing programs that apply theory and employ experiential learning in small groups. Instruction is highly collaborative and team oriented. Certain elite MBA programs are cohort based, whereby small, highly connected executive-student groups progress as a cohesive unit throughout the degree program. Graduates of the Graziadio School also take advantage of an alumni network of over 30,000. Alumni enjoy a robust schedule of ongoing workshops, lectures, and special events to keep skills up-to-date and to renew networking contacts long after graduation.
In 1996 Pepperdine's graduate business school was honored to take on the name of its principal benefactor, Mr. George L. Graziadio (1919 - 2002), who enjoyed a long and supportive relationship with the University. Mr. Graziadio was a Southern California entrepreneur who enjoyed a remarkable and successful career in commercial real estate development and who cofounded Imperial Bank.
With an annual enrollment of approximately 2,000, the Graziadio School offers a Full-Time MBA residency program on the Malibu campus, and part-time graduate study (evenings or mornings) at five graduate campuses throughout Southern California, as well as at one learning center in Santa Clara. In addition to the MBA, the business school offers a part-time bachelor’s completion program (Bachelor of Science in Management), the specialized International Master of Business Administration, Master of Science in Organization Development degrees, and two new master’s degree offerings: the Master of Science in Management and Leadership and the Master of Science in Applied Finance. In addition, the Graziadio School is accredited by AACSB International—The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
The Graduate School of Education and Psychology
The Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP) has a dual educational mission, being dedicated to training skilled leaders, administrators, and practitioners of the highest level within two allied fields of human care: education and psychology. As part of its overall mission, GSEP seeks to be an inspiration for change in all of its students (approximately 1,800 enrolled), inspiring them to develop into their best potential, doing everything educationally and administratively possible to make that happen, so that they will in turn become inspirations and agents of change for the good in their chosen endeavors.
In the words of current dean Dr. Margaret J. Weber, GSEP prepares and sends forth “the hearts and hands of Pepperdine University,” equipping caring professionals who will have direct, hands-on experience in counseling, mentoring, and giving therapeutic care to the mind and soul; as well as preparing those who are called to the very same vocation as Pepperdine University itself, the teachers.
From its beginning Pepperdine has been a source of highly qualified teachers and educators in Southern California. Over the decades, the influence and impact of Pepperdine-trained teachers upon millions of California children is immeasurable. In addition to carrying on the heritage of training excellent teachers, the Education Division seeks to bring out the best in those who work in education at systemic and management levels.
Graduate study in psychology at Pepperdine has been available since 1951 when the first master’s program was offered. Psychology programs are rigorous, based on research and scientific methods, but delivered within a learning community of high-level student care and personal involvement from professors, administration, and fellow students, such that professional and personal relationships endure long after graduation. Programs are also highly practical and scholar-practitioner opportunities are readily available at GSEP’s community clinics.
At GSEP, the Education Division offers master’s degrees in education, educational technology, administration, and school counseling. The Psychology Division offers master’s degrees in psychology and clinical psychology. GSEP is also home to all of the University’s doctoral programs, the Psy.D. degree and four Ed.D. degrees.
The School of Law
A dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law was known to tell prospective students, “If you want to be a decent person and a good lawyer, come here.” A legal education from the School of Law intends not only that its students become excellent practitioners of the law, but that they would aspire to epitomize the legal profession in its best practice, as advocates and instruments of peace, care, and service to their clients and to society. Students are instructed and counseled within a context and worldview of Christian values, supported by faculty and administration.
Originally founded in 1964 as the Orange University College of Law located in Santa Ana, and became affiliated with Pepperdine University in 1969.
Distinctive to Pepperdine among law schools is that “it is all about the student,” in the words of current dean Kenneth W. Starr. This attitude manifests itself in the law student experience of open-door accessibility to professors, delivery of solid foundational concepts, superior “examsmanship” preparation, useful clinical and legal practice skills, events to interact with the highest practitioners in the profession today, and cultivation of a keen moral and ethical sense in approaching the practice of law.
The law school is home to several special-interest institutes and academic centers that address, through scholarship, seminars and symposia, and practical workshops, how the law does (and should) interact with society and individuals in very specific arenas. The Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, repeatedly ranked first of its peers in the nation, trains professionals to be agents of reconciliation; the Geoffrey H. Palmer Center for Entrepreneurship and the Law deals with issues on the role of enterprise and its practitioners in a free society, to name just two.
Today the School of Law enrolls approximately 650 full-time students, offering three degrees: the JD, the LLM in dispute resolution, and the MDR (master of dispute resolution). The school is approved by the American Bar Association and accredited by the Committee of Bar Examiners, State Bar of California. Graduates of School of Law are eligible to apply for admission to practice law in any state.
The School of Public Policy
The School of Public Policy (SPP) is the youngest of the University’s five schools, established in 1996 after one year of existence as a freestanding institute of the University. The mission of the nonpartisan School of Public Policy is to take a student-centered approach to studying the multidisciplinary field of public policy. The school aims to properly equip its graduates with conceptual and economic tools of analysis necessary for the profession. It also seeks to encourage students toward the self-discovery and self-examination required to become leaders with clearly defined values and moral certainties who can then effectively change, design, or create the organizations that serve society.
SPP is distinctive in its curriculum which, in addition to imparting the contemporary tools of behavioral and scientific analysis of policymaking, uniquely looks to the study of the lives and ideas of great thinkers and leaders in the past—essential to considering and applying the ideals of limited government and capitalism, the moral implications and consequences of personal responsibility, and the belief that every individual is a sacred being with a transcendent end. Like all other Pepperdine schools, instruction is highly practical and the required internship is performed in the middle (not toward the end) of the curriculum.
The approximately 100 enrolled students at SPP enjoy innovation, freshness, and currency of ideas through instructional contact with visiting distinguished professors, visiting research scholars, and fellows, as well as through SPP-hosted forums, seminars, and symposia on topical issues. It is through such events, and through scholarship by its research fellows at the resident Davenport Institute, that the school fulfills its mission to strengthen the institutions the lie between the individual and the federal government, such as the family, religious organizations, volunteer associations, local and regional government, and nonprofit organizations.
The School of Public Policy offers the Master of Public Policy degree through its two-year, full-time resident program on the Malibu campus.
