41 minute read
Snapshot
Golden WAVES
FOR 50 YEARS, PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY’S MALIBU CAMPUS
has been home to an extraordinary community of thinkers, leaders, innovators, and believers who have cultivated a spirit of excellence that stretches beyond the wildest dreams of founder George Pepperdine.
It began with a group of colleagues and friends who saw an opportunity to invest in the future of George Pepperdine College beyond its original Los Angeles campus. Together, they dedicated their lives to the advancement of a Christian college education steeped in faith and the values of purpose, service, and leadership. Today, Pepperdine University has expanded that dream in ways those early visionaries could have never imagined.
Take a look back at the community members and milestones that shaped the Malibu campus into a place that has fostered the intellectual, personal, and spiritual growth of exceptional individuals who have made a difference in their own distinct ways.
Campus Under Construction
Pepperdine College administration had been giving serious thought to establishing a second campus in Malibu since the early 1960s to expand the school’s footprint. A formal committee evaluated 40 different locations in the area and narrowed it down to three sites with potential: Calabasas, Westlake Village, and 138 acres in Malibu owned by the prominent Adamson family. On October 7, 1968, then chancellor and later president M. Norvel Young announced that Pepperdine College had accepted the Adamson family’s gift and launched an initiative to raise the funds to build the Malibu campus that would be designed by architect William L. Pereira.
Birth of a College
Amid the buzz surrounding the building of a new college campus in Malibu, 3,000 friends and supporters gathered at two locations—the second added to accommodate the overflow of guests—for the Birth of a College gala on February 9, 1970, at the Century Plaza Hotel and the Beverly Hilton. Featured guests included then governor Ronald Reagan, recording artist Pat Boone, and others who believed in the future of Pepperdine and committed to supporting it for years to come. From left to right, Pereira, Reagan, Young, Clint Murchison, and Pepperdine president William S. Banowsky pose with architectural plans of the new Malibu campus, which were revealed for the first time at the event.
Brock House
Following the Birth of a College event, Margaret Brock, heir to a commercial jewelry fortune, was so inspired by the potential of Pepperdine’s future that she committed $325,000 to build the official residence of the University president. The result was a 9,000-square-foot house overlooking campus that was completed in 1973 and dedicated in 1975 in Brock’s name. Brock would later endow student scholarships at the law school and give beachfront property to the University. Here, she tours the Malibu campus as it nears the end of its construction with President Banowsky.
Payson Library
The library was named for Charles S. Payson, a native of Maine, whose son, John, transferred to Pepperdine from Bowdoin College in 1963. The Paysons were grateful for the care with which Pepperdine professors Wade Ruby and James Smythe (’45) developed John into a scholar of English literature and agreed to help fund the new library at the Malibu campus.
Stauffer Chapel
Stauffer Chapel was constructed during the first academic year on the Malibu campus. The chapel features 3,000 square feet of stained glass designed by Robert and Bette Donovan and created from thousands of pieces of handblown glass in more than 100 hues. After 13 months of work, Stauffer Chapel was dedicated on November 4, 1973, in the name of John and Beverly Stauffer, who had come to appreciate Pepperdine’s citizenship education program and its strong Christian mission.
Firestone Fieldhouse
While the facility opened for student use in the 1973–74 academic year, Firestone Fieldhouse, Pepperdine’s gymnasium, appears here in March 1973, midway through construction. Construction was delayed because classrooms, laboratories, the library, and other academic and residential spaces were given priority. Leonard Firestone, who gave a gift in support of the construction of the fieldhouse, was the son of the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company and had served on Pepperdine’s president’s board.
Phillips Theme Tower
The Malibu campus opened before the completion of the Phillips Theme Tower, president Bill Banowsky’s vision for a clear signal of Pepperdine’s commitment to its Christian mission. Though Pereira drew up the plans for the 125-foot obelisk-shaped structure in early 1972, significant opposition to the tower developed within the Malibu community that halted its progress. Work on the tower ceased for six months, and the campus opened with the tower only half built. By September 1973, the structure was completed and dedicated as the Phillips Theme Tower, named for Benjamin Dwight Phillips and his wife, Mildred, who were deeply rooted in the Stone-Campbell movement and eager to support an institution associated with Churches of Christ.
ALWAYS LOOKING FORWARD
A debilitating accident will not slow down Sam Schmidt (’86, MBA ’87)
BY AMANDA PISANI
Sam Schmidt’s trust in divine providence was never more evident than during his daunting mountain ascent in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, the second-oldest motor sports race in America, held annually on the last Sunday in June. Also known as the Race to the Clouds for its gorgeous panoramic views, the drive up the 14,000-foot mountain in the Colorado Rockies has about 150 switchbacks, sharp turns, and, for the most part, no guard rails. In his 2016 race to the summit, Schmidt made it to the top averaging 50 miles per hour, steering the car only by turning his head.
The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is just one of many races and race car exhibitions Schmidt, a person with quadriplegia, has participated in since he first drove a specially designed car in 2014. The car is outfitted with interior cameras that respond to sensors on Schmidt’s helmet, directing its movement.
“When you’re driving, you’re looking in your mirrors, you’re looking at what you’re passing. I can’t do that,” says Schmidt. “I can’t turn my head prematurely, or else.”
Schmidt’s passion in life has always been racing. As the son of a race car builder and driver, he is hardwired for speed. His parents moved to Southern California shortly after he was born, and family life was centered around the sport. While his friends were learning to ride bikes, Schmidt’s first set of wheels, at age 5, was a motorcycle.
He continued to dabble with racing throughout his youth, but he also knew the lifelong value of a good education. As a high schooler, Schmidt found Pepperdine’s beautiful location irresistible. And while he originally toured 11 schools, he ultimately applied only to Pepperdine. While on campus, Schmidt worked to charter the Psi Upsilon fraternity and in time became its president. Traveling to schools and orphanages in Mexico with the fraternity instilled in the budding leader a sense of purpose and ignited in him a passion for service. “Everybody around Malibu knew our organization, and if they needed something they would know to call us,” he remembers. Four years in Malibu were not quite enough for Schmidt, and he stayed on to earn his MBA at the Graziadio Business School in 1987. The lure of the business world then took hold. Schmidt put his degree to work as a hospital administrator, worked for a car auction service, and even purchased his father’s auto parts company—for a while sharing occupations with University founder George Pepperdine. But he also continued racing cars, and he felt in his heart he would always regret bypassing the chance to make it a career. He couldn’t not race. “My perspective was always to look forward,” says Schmidt.
Photos courtesy of Arrow Electronics
Schmidt was an excellent race car driver; he won the West Coast championship his first year racing and finished third out of 42 cars in the National Championships. “That persuaded me I was pretty good at it,” he says. He then stepped up from the Sports Car Club of America to professional open wheel racing. Schmidt raced in the IndyCar Series for three years, and in 1999 he had a great year, winning the Vegas.com 500 and leading at times in many other races, including the Indy 500. He was determined to win it the following year. But in January 2000 Schmidt crashed into a wall during a routine test drive. Remarkably he survived, but his C3 and C4 vertebrae were destroyed, and he was paralyzed from the neck down.
At the time of the accident, Schmidt had been married for seven years and had two very young children. He had a family to care for, and believing that this journey was God’s plan for his life, Schmidt faced his circumstances head on.
“I meet a lot of people who after their accident ask, ‘Why did God do this to me? How can I have faith when I’m in this situation?’” But giving over to despair would belie Schmidt’s trust in God and his determination to always look to the future. “God makes us a promise,” he says. “Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will act.”
Inspired by this faith, which steeled his gratitude to be alive and to be able to watch his children grow up, he devoted himself to his rehabilitation. Schmidt had seen the effect of physical rehabilitation firsthand, having witnessed his father, who had himself lost the use of his right side in a racing accident at the age of 30, recover the use of his right leg and live a productive, successful life. “For those with paralyzing injuries, intensive rehabilitation is important,” says Schmidt. “You have to give it 120 percent.” In 2013 Arrow Electronics partnered with Schmidt to create a car that he could drive using only his head. They devised the Arrow Corvette, also known as the SAM (semi-autonomous mobility) car, which is controlled by a combination of head motion, breath, and, for street driving, voice. Schmidt’s helmet and sunglasses contain sensors that are tracked by four infrared cameras facing him from the windshield of the car. The beams from the cameras monitor the movement of the sensors, calculate the turn’s degree and direction, and relay that information to the wheels.
“Thousands of customers have driven the car in exhibitions, and you need to give them a big parking lot, because they want to turn their head too early,” Schmidt notes.
Schmidt directs the speed of the car with a straw in his mouth. He blows out to move forward—his top speed to date is 201 miles per hour—and sucks in to slow down and brake. He keeps the car in motion by biting on the straw to retain the pressure inside it. It takes practice to control the speed well.
“If I whisper a breath, it is like coming upon a stop light; if I blow hard, the car’s going to do donuts,” he says.
When not racing, Schmidt controls features such as turn signals and lights with voice commands, not unlike Amazon’s Alexa technology. The car’s engineering is under constant development; a recent innovation is the creation of a right-side driver’s seat for Schmidt, which is easier for him to access than the left.
The technology used in the SAM car has allowed Schmidt to be a race car driver again. He recently returned from a tour of England where he raced in a similarly converted McLaren 720S, a road car that reaches a speed of 225 miles per hour. “It’s an amazing feeling to be in control of the car. I’m steering it, I’m driving it,” he says.
But what is even more powerful is the twofold potential this technology has for changing lives. Its tangible uses for people with disabilities are almost limitless. “This technology can help someone get back to work, whether it’s a farmer harvesting a farm or someone driving a train or driving a forklift,” Schmidt says. In addition, the potential for self-sufficiency and the purposefulness that Schmidt demonstrates as a race car driver serve as a great inspiration to others. His personal tenacity attracts people to the DRIVEN Neuro Recovery Center, the rehabilitation arm of his research foundation, Conquer Paralysis Now (CPN). “At the foundation, we get emails and texts from people every day who are motivated to get off the couch and get back to work and get something of their life back,” he says.
Although motivating others became a theme of Schmidt’s life by default, he has decided to make it a mission. The intensive rehabilitation program offered at his rehabilitation center requires clients to commit to a lot of hard work, and Schmidt admits his limited patience for people who give up easily. “I enjoy kicking people back to life,” he says.
Schmidt’s arguably aggressive stance to motivation was an outgrowth of his own experience. As his father had regained the use of his leg after his accident, Schmidt was determined to recover the use of his arms. “I was working out two to three hours a day just to get my arms back, just to be able to hug my kids.” But his efforts didn’t work, and it eventually occurred to him that he was not meant to regain the use of his limbs. “I can look anyone who has a lesser injury in the eye and say, ‘What are you waiting for? I have nothing. You have the use of your arms, or you have the use of your left side.’ I’ve given that speech hundreds of times.”
Schmidt has found ways to bring the worlds of car racing and disability recovery together through CPN and other organizations that have brought great meaning to his life. Arrow McLaren SP, Schmidt’s IndyCar race team, hosts “days at the races” programs for veterans and individuals with spinal cord injuries, both for fun and to offer visions of active, meaningful lives post-injury. More broadly, the motorsports community gives significant financial support to the foundation and to further the development of vehicles for people with disabilities.
“Helping others is my true purpose in life,” he says. “While my dreams and goals were important forces in my life, I know that serving others is why I was placed on this earth.”
Schmidt’s work has successfully given many people with disabilities the will, confidence, and, through the Neuro Recovery Center, the physical ability to live fully and productively. He relates the story of a teenager he met through the center who had earned a scholarship to Duke University. He became a person with quadriplegia after an accident, and the young man’s family asked Schmidt for his help. With a year of physical rehabilitation, the teen attended Duke unescorted, thereafter earned a Rhodes scholarship, and started his own foundation providing academic scholarships for those with disabilities. “He’s a force of nature,” says Schmidt, “but I wouldn’t have had the authority to empower people like him if I had the use of my arms.”
When it comes to himself, Schmidt always looks forward, but he never stops looking back at the support of his family. His parents, having undergone paralysis and illnesses, are living proof of the strength that comes from faith. His wife of nearly 30 years, Sheila (’87), has been his unwavering partner, and he says he would not be alive if it were not for her.
“Our family just grows stronger and stronger, and if we didn’t have faith, I don’t think we would still be here together,” he says. Together, they are also very much a Pepperdine clan. The couple met as students at Seaver College, and both of their children, Savannah (’19) and Spencer (’22), the latter of whom now resides in Indianapolis and is pursuing a race car driving career, attended Seaver as well. Along with Schmidt’s parents, they were all at Alumni Park in April of last year when he received an honorary doctorate at Spencer’s graduation. But, Schmidt says, even more significant to him than his many deep ties to the school is the understanding of himself and his purpose that Pepperdine instilled in him. It was in Malibu that his faith and his commitment to serve were deepened. “I came to Pepperdine already having received Christ as my savior, but the University experience taught me how to have a relationship with God that transcends everything in my personal and business life,” he says. “I would not be the father or businessman that I am today without having attended Pepperdine.”
EQUAL
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the passage of TITLE IX, female student-athletes past and present share how they have been shaped by Pepperdine Athletics
FOOTING By Amanda Pisani
It’s not quite boot camp, but the daily life of a student-athlete is extremely rigorous. For golfer Kaleiya Romero, a Seaver College junior, workouts start at 6:30 am, a sort of precursor to a four-hour stretch of classes that is followed by five hours of practice before a night of homework. Although this type of schedule may be routine for student-athletes at all colleges, what’s less typical is Pepperdine’s focus on building the skills that will help the women athletes thrive long after their playing days are over. “Confidence and leadership are part of being an athlete,” says associate director of athletics for academics and compliance and senior woman administrator Amanda Kurtz, “and fostering these qualities is built into the school’s mission and everything we do at Pepperdine.”
The world of women’s sports on college campuses nationwide reflects the enormous impact of Title IX, the federal law requiring that male and female athletes be rewarded equally in higher education. Passed 50 years ago, the law is expansive, requiring that scholarship funding be proportionate for male and female athletes and that athletes of both sexes receive comparable services and benefits.
With the wide scope of Title IX’s provisions, implementing it proved challenging for colleges across the country. Pepperdine was at a disadvantage structurally when compared with other schools—the brand-new campus in Malibu opened without a completed gymnasium in 1972—but by 1975 the school had women’s teams in basketball, tennis, and volleyball. By the end of the 1970s the Waves added women’s soccer, swimming, golf, and cross country to their roster. Becci Roehl (’98), a former volleyball player for the Waves, relates that in the ’90s, most colleges didn’t treat men’s and women’s athletics equally. At Pepperdine, it was different. “We had the exact same resources that the men’s volleyball program had,” says Roehl. The school’s efforts continue, and today, Kurtz assists in ensuring that the school meets the Title IX standards, including the important provision that the athletics participation figures are proportionate to the student body. Title IX, however, is only one factor in the story of the University’s commitment to women’s sports and to empowering its female students, and that commitment has unfolded in myriad ways.
Learning to LEAD and developing CONFIDENCE is part of being an athlete, and fostering those qualities is built into EVERYTHING we do at Pepperdine.
AMANDA KURTZ
A senior on the cross country team, runner Olivia Miller has transformed from a shy teenager to an advocate for mental health awareness. During her first year on campus, Miller felt overwhelmed and alone. With the assistance of Kurtz and Steve Potts (JD ’82), director of athletics, Miller started a chapter of the Hidden Opponent, a nationwide studentathlete mental health group, at the school. As the organization’s representative, she has offered advice at student-athlete orientation and worked with the counseling center to let other student-athletes know what mental health resources are available to them. She also makes sure they know they’re not alone. “Olivia has been instrumental in helping break the stigma of mental health concerns among our student-athletes,” says Kurtz. “She’s found her voice and what she was passionate about.” Kurtz and Potts have furthered Miller’s opportunities outside the campus as well, inviting her to the West Coast Conference (WCC) Executive Council meeting this year, where she learned about council members’ ideas for making men’s and women’s sports more equitable in the NCAA. “I think that Pepperdine has done a really good job of being ahead of that curve, similar to what they’ve done with mental health,” Miller says. She plans to go to law school next year, ready to apply her developing advocacy skills and grateful for the leadership opportunities that she’s had. “I’m excited for the next chapter because I know that I’ll step into it with confidence,” says Miller.
A member of both the WCC Diversity and Inclusion Committee and the Waves Leadership Council, sophomore and first-generation student Savannah Broadus is motivated by her desire to be a role model. On the committee, she represents the University’s students and, as a person of color, the diverse population of
KELSEY BROCKWAY (’16)
student-athletes in the conference. She feels that the ways in which she’s been able to grow at the University have been truly exceptional and that her Pepperdine experience has furthered her passion to be an exemplar for other female tennis players. “I hope I can inspire other girls to have big dreams and know that they are achievable,” she says.
The big dreams nurtured by Pepperdine may also emerge for students along the way. Former Waves basketball player Kelsey Brockway (’16) became one of the school’s first sport administration majors at the suggestion of the Athletics staff. “The way the school expressed its mission reinforced for me that I was there to find my purpose,” says Brockway.
Brockway, an ESPN top-ranked recruit at the time, points out that Pepperdine’s recruiter, the late Maurice Hilliard, was determined she find the perfect home for her unique talent—even if it wasn’t at Pepperdine. “He genuinely wanted to find the right place for me,” says Brockway. “Many universities want student-athletes to attend because it will make the school look better,” she says. “But Pepperdine was always trying to make me happy, make me better.”
Now the director of global partnerships for the Los Angeles Lakers, Brockway leads the team’s international partnership expansion strategy, finding commercial opportunities to grow the Lakers brand. The communication skills she learned at Pepperdine help her build relationships with those outside the team’s direct sphere.
After Brockway graduated, the University continued to contribute to her development, giving her the chance to hone her marketing skills as a corporate partnership and sales intern for Pepperdine Athletics. While an intern, Brockway was accepted into the Los Angeles Sport and Entertainment Committee Professional Development Program and began her career with the Lakers shortly thereafter to help launch the team’s first Naming Rights Training Center partnership with UCLA Health. “Pepperdine allowed me to understand my purpose in life and gave me the tools to pursue it,” says Brockway. While the University empowers women to succeed as professionals, Kurtz relates that it also provides a springboard for student-athletes to turn pro. Lynn Williams (’15), a player for the Kansas City Current in the National Women’s Soccer League and a 2020 Olympic bronze medalist, is among the country’s 2 percent of college athletes who have professional careers. Williams’ Pepperdine coaches saw her potential and helped her improve her athletic skills significantly.
“Assistant coach Twila Kaufman saw something in me that I don’t know if I saw in myself,” says Williams. “She encouraged me to be a better soccer player and also to be a leader.” Williams is very much that leader, serving as a key advocate for equal pay for the US national soccer team. Due in part to her efforts, women soccer players won a $24 million collective bargaining settlement this year and the promise to bring pay rates for women players into alignment with the US men’s team.
Fifty years after the passage of Title IX, Pepperdine’s rising leaders are emerging as the game changers of tomorrow, bolstered by both implicit and explicit manifestations of the law’s commitment to maintaining a level playing field for all studentathletes and the University’s exceptional strides to support its community as they discover their endless potential. And while the athletic success of student-athletes is desired, school is the first priority. “We want these women to succeed,” Kurtz says, “as athletes and as people.” At this year’s commencement ceremony, swimmer Lindsey Marian (’22) and fellow student-athlete beach volleyball player Peyton Lewis (’22) demonstrated the outcome of the support they received as students when they were presented as the co-valedictorians of their graduating class for earning the highest grade point averages—4.0—among their peers.
“So many doors have been opened by the passing of Title IX,” reflects Brockway. “It gave my mom the opportunity to develop her love for athletics, and she passed on that love to me. It laid the groundwork for my passion to lead by example and encourage other women to pursue their dreams.”
“Title IX and our experiences as student-athletes have made such a difference for all of us, whether we’re learning in the classroom or playing on the field,” adds Miller. “No matter where I go next, I’ll know what it’s like to face challenges and to overcome them because of the support I’ve had at Pepperdine.”
A
STUDY IN CONTEXT
Far from home, Seaver College students experience life in a different context through a new pilot program in Uganda By Gareen Darakjian
In June of this year, 20 Seaver College students departed Malibu for Kampala, Uganda, to join faculty members and Caruso School of Law students working with the Sudreau Global Justice Institute (SGJI) for a pilot program that would initiate opportunities for Pepperdine to expand its international footprint.
Pepperdine’s presence in Africa has long been a highlight of the University’s global experience offerings. SGJI, continuing the nearly two-decades-long work of president Jim Gash (JD ’93) and vice president Danny DeWalt in Uganda, has made a deep and transformative impact on access to justice and criminal justice reforms in the country by providing critical legal resources for imprisoned individuals awaiting due process and has shaped its justice system in tremendous ways. Made in the Streets, a local partner program in Kenya, sends Seaver College biology students, alongside faculty, to provide education, vocational classes, and sustainable living practices to the underserved children of the city of Kamulu through relationships, academic learning, and hands-on training each year.
Unlike many service and educational opportunities in developing countries, this pilot program emphasized how Ugandans support themselves and the different ways they care for each other by immersing students in the vast landscape of Ugandan life. Traveling to government operations and NGOs as well as churches and schools, students walked alongside the Ugandan people, learned about their history and religions, and observed the ways in which their own lives in the United States both aligned with and differed from that of the Ugandans.
The program began in Malibu, where students spent two weeks steeped in two courses that would prepare them for their journey. The first, Faith and Advocacy, taught by the program’s codirector, former dean of international programs Charles Hall, introduced students to the practice of evaluating their lives and circumstances in relation to the circumstances they may face in a different context or setting. The second, Practicing Incarnation: Uganda, examined the role of Christianity in Ugandans’ response to recent conflict and its aftermath and emphasized the incarnation of Jesus as a model for advocacy. Taught by the program’s other codirector, Ron Cox (MDiv ’96), interim dean of international programs and Seaver College professor of religion, the lesson plan also explored the ways in which these social aspects influence Christian life and faith in Uganda.
A group of students stands with members of the Ugandan government at a leadership conference.
Less than a week after students arrived in Kampala, they traveled to Gulu to meet with President Gash, Vice President DeWalt, Caruso Law students, and American and Ugandan lawyers participating in SGJI programming. The next day, the students found themselves in Gulu Main Prison, where they observed the work being done by SGJI to help the imprisoned individuals understand whether their various cases were eligible for immediate access to justice. Alongside Caruso Law students, Seaver students evaluated cases and learned Uganda’s complex judicial process that had prevented incarcerated Ugandans from accessing justice for generations. At the prison, Seaver first-year Faith
Chang understood the significance of context and the lessons she learned in Cox’s class as she surrendered her cell phone and entered the guarded facility.
In close quarters, Chang, along with Ugandan and US lawyers, Ugandan and Caruso Law students, and prison guards sat with people accused of crimes ranging from minor to heinous.
Despite her assumption that the prison would be a place of despair and devastation, Chang instead found glimpses of peace, hope, and even joy and was grateful that the Ugandans allowed her and her fellow students to be part of a deeply vulnerable passage in their lives.
“For the most part,” she says, “despite their situation and the crimes they committed, there wasn’t an attitude of bitterness, but hope and responsibility. That speaks greatly to the character of their culture and their people and their resilience and sense of justice in its truest form.”
Emma Rydholm, a transfer student who had been considering pursuing law school after her undergraduate studies, described the experience as a test and reinforcement of her faith and confirmation of her career calling.
“These people had committed the most atrocious crimes, and we were supposed to fight for their rights?” she recalls wondering. “I believed they didn’t deserve us. I believed they didn’t deserve the lesser sentence we were there to get them. But Jesus died to forgive me of my sins, and Jesus died for them too. Who was I to think they had committed sins worse than I had? Who was I to think I deserved Jesus more than they did or that they were past the point of God’s redemptive powers? If I claimed to love God and his people, that meant loving the prisoners on remand just as much as the friends and professors beside me.”
Still reeling from the poignant experience the next day, students and faculty were scheduled to visit Restore Leadership Academy, a secondary school in Gulu, Uganda, founded by Bob Goff, whose students were previously child soldiers, rescued from lives of forced sex trafficking, orphans, or from backgrounds of extreme poverty.
“Our students dealt with distressing criminal cases on Thursday and encountered these beautiful and active young minds on Friday,” says Cox. “They were confronted with not only the differences between life in the US and life in Uganda but also the commonality of humanity. The International Programs office often uses the language of transformation, but we can also use the language of discovery or self-discovery. You truly find yourself and become yourself more through these experiences. It awakens things in students they don’t know are there.” Beyond an opportunity to supplement Pepperdine’s international programs, University leadership was clear about involving students in the development and advancement of such experiences where they may engage in and be a part of world solutions. Traveling abroad, discovering the joy of learning a new culture, and engaging with that culture in the emerging world has been a significant driver of DeWalt’s life’s investment and calling. DeWalt, who serves as the executive director of the SGJI in addition to his roles as vice president and chief of staff, has visited Uganda nearly 30 times himself in the last 16 years. He shares that people who have traveled to the emerging world typically experience a sense of purpose when invited to partner with other countries to support their needs and help them develop their own ability to overcome the challenges they face. He holds closely the practice of training and equipping
You truly find the people of Uganda with humility to learn from them YOURSELF and and collaborate on tangible solutions. become yourself “We are not trying to rescue people or save the
MORE through day,” he continues. “We walk alongside them and walk these experiences. that path with them, building friendships around the
It AWAKENS world and seeing humanity thrive with justice as the things in students they foundation.” As Pepperdine considers don’t know are there. its position as a top national university, University
Ron Cox (MDiv ’96) leadership continues to prioritize providing students with powerful service opportunities and global experiences that will give them new perspectives and insights into their life’s purpose. “This provides a broader, deeper, and richer experience than the classroom alone,” says DeWalt. “This work connects to our faith, connects us to serving our world, and connects us with leadership around the world to discover even more opportunities to learn and serve.”
More Than a STORY
An Academy Award—winning alumnus and a screen arts professor lead two Pepperdine students on a documentary project in purposeful storytelling
By Abigail Ramsey
BATHED IN THE GLOW OF A NORTHERN ARIZONA SUNSET
radiating from the burnt-orange mountain landscape dotting the desert skyline, a group of students from the Holbrook Indian School pedal up a winding trail. The sound of loose earth crunches beneath their bicycle tires while filmmakers Terry Benedict (’81) and Paul Kim, with the help of Pepperdine students Dane Bruhahn and Nadine Borum, capture their journey up the rocky path. As they reach the summit, they survey their progress, recognizing the inner strength that pushed them to the top of the mountain.
In 2014, Benedict, the producer of the two-time Academy Award–winning film Hacksaw Ridge, launched Shae Foundation, a nonprofit that supports other nonprofits and influences global humanitarian change through high-quality media productions. Empowered by the confidence instilled in him by his own academic and spiritual life mentors as an undergraduate at Pepperdine and beyond, Benedict positioned the foundation to also focus on mentoring young people as they pursued their deepest passions within their craft.
When Kim, Benedict’s mentee-turnedcolleague, joined Pepperdine as a professor of screen arts in 2021, the two filmmakers devised a unique screen arts internship program that brought Shae and Pepperdine together to inspire Pepperdine students to create mission-driven, humanitarian storytelling that honors their personal values and convictions.
“Our hope was to create an environment within the safety net of their education that also pushed them outside of their comfort zones and exposed them to the real and actual challenges people are facing around the world every day,” says Benedict.
Throughout nearly two decades of experience in filmmaking, Kim’s work has centered, like Benedict’s, on supporting mission-driven organizations in telling their powerful stories. They also share a deeper motivation of mentoring young students and artists in their pursuit of unlocking their own value system and purpose in their artistry.
“This partnership and program allow us to demonstrate to students, particularly in creative classes, that they aren’t limited to just the entertainment and advertisement industries,” says Kim. “Instead, they are seeing how they can provide a unique service to the world that fulfills their own personal value-driven goals and life mission. Giving students opportunities to explore the connection between their values and their career is a uniquely Pepperdine experience.”
In May 2022, with the support of Seaver College dean Michael Feltner, protégés Bruhahn and Borum, alongside mentors Benedict and Kim, commenced a weeklong, hands-on production for the inaugural Pepperdine and Shae documentary collaboration. Their subject was the Holbrook Indian School located in a small town in Navajo County about 100 miles east of Flagstaff, Arizona. Their focus was on illuminating the school’s unique approach to supporting and advancing Native American students’ education, mental and physical health, and spirituality.
For more than 75 years, the Holbrook Indian School has provided a safe educational environment for Native American youth. In order to allow students to flourish academically, Holbrook staff members believe in a holistic approach to students’ well-being.
“I have worked with Holbrook for nearly a decade, and I am always amazed by the student stories,” says Benedict. “They are all a testament to the power of Holbrook’s emphasis on healing and nurturing students first and foremost.”
As Native American students discover and learn how to navigate their own ethnic and cultural history, Holbrook incorporates Indigenous traditions into each level of the student experience, especially in art classes and agricultural studies. A majority of Holbrook’s students are from the Navajo and Diné tribes yet are largely unable to speak to their elderly family members due to the diminished use of Native languages. To enable and reinforce their relationships with their families and heritage, Holbrook students receive rigorous language education and are provided with mental health care, physical health and nutritional support, spiritual mentorship, and outdoor excursions that focus on connecting them to their cultural heritage, personal strength, resilience, and leadership skills. Informed and inspired by Benedict and Kim’s vision for the documentary, Borum and Bruhahn quickly went to work to capture Holbrook’s unique story. The students took active roles alongside their mentors behind the camera and in the field to bring the production—featuring moving student testimonials of Holbrook’s impact on their lives and the healing effects of outdoor excursions such as the mountain biking experience—to completion. The team captured authentic student life at Holbrook, showing how the school’s multifaceted treatment of student well-being is put into tangible action. “In documentary filmmaking, all ego is stripped away,” says Kim. “It’s an intimate experience, and Nadine and Dane really jumped in to facilitate each element of the project while adding in their own expertise and personal flavor.” With a unique blend of studies in education and screen arts, Borum soaked up as much as she could from the school staff and, especially, from the Holbrook students. Following the advice of her mentors, she worked closely with the student subjects to break down the power dynamics between interviewer and subject. Her empathetic, human-centered style of storytelling and her deep care for the students’ success allowed them to beam with radiant confidence and tell their stories in front of the camera with ease. “I can’t quite put into words what this experience meant to me as a future educator and as a filmmaker,” says Borum. “It was surreal to learn so much about Holbrook’s pedagogy while also learning how to be gentle and patient in nonfiction storytelling.”
Bruhahn was able to put his keen eye for beautiful production and cinematography into spontaneous yet remarkably well-composed shots. He masterfully piloted a drone to capture spectacular aerial views of students mountain-biking their way up the trail. Encouraged by Benedict and Kim, he instinctually composed scenes depicting the authentic Holbrook experience, most notably capturing a break from the hot sun in a nearby stream during their outdoor excursion.
“We were treated like professionals, which I think allowed us to really flourish and take so much away from this experience,” reflects Bruhahn. “Plus, seeing Paul and Terry work through their intuition and instincts to create a powerful story—something not formulaic— was really amazing.”
Kim believed that the two Pepperdine students were instrumental in supporting the Holbrook subjects in trusting their own abilities and feeling empowered to speak honestly and openly, an experience that would stay with Holbrook students long after their project wrapped. “Dane and Nadine were able to see firsthand and in real time how their talents make a tremendous impact on communities and the lives around them,” says Benedict, who is now in the midst of the project’s postproduction. Once completed, the documentary will live on Holbrook’s website, communicating the school’s mission to prospective students, donors, staff, and supporters across the nation.
The week-long experience was just the first of many documentary productions Kim and Benedict are eager to facilitate. Through the annual internship program and with the continued support of the Seaver College dean and the Shae Foundation, they hope to encourage more students to cultivate their talents and artistry with their hands-on field work on humanitarian, mission-driven projects that highlight storytelling as a way to influence global change.
“The most sacred gift our creator gave us is creativity,” says Benedict. “We must do whatever we can to facilitate and protect it so we may contribute authentic and sincere work to this world and pass on to the next generation all that we have received from our mentors before us.”
TERRY BENEDICT (’81)
their VALUES and their CAREER
is a uniquely Pepperdine experience.
PAUL KIM
ཁWatch the documentary on the
How Run
to the World
Foreign policy scholar KIRON SKINNER brings her commitment to the value of a liberal arts education to the School of Public Policy
By Amanda Pisani
At age 14, Kiron Skinner,
the recently appointed Taube Professor of International Relations and Politics at the School of Public Policy (SPP), was already pondering how to run the world. Having landed an internship with congressperson Pete McCloskey, the teenager drew the attention of a local reporter. In response to a question about her career goals, Skinner recalls telling him that she wanted to be an ambassador, although at the time she didn’t really know what an ambassador did. “I knew I was interested in a wider world,” she says, “realizing that what happens locally is connected to the far-flung parts of the world. Foreign policy was something I was thinking about for a long time.”
As a renowned policy scholar and an advisor in the complex machinery of the federal government, Skinner has continued to think about foreign policy ever since, and now the students at SPP—and the entire Pepperdine community—have the good fortune to share in the insights she’s gained from her decades of experience. Skinner was raised in the San Francisco Bay area, but then spent much of her life on the other side of the country. After completing her PhD at Harvard University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles, she taught for 22 years at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There she founded and directed the school’s Center for International Relations and Politics, Institute for Strategic Analysis, and Institute for Politics and Strategy, the latter of which is Carnegie Mellon’s first intellectual home for the study of political science. She also served as a humanities and social sciences faculty member and as the Taube Professor for International Relations and Politics at the university’s Institute for Politics and Strategy.
Concurrently, Skinner held the role of special government employee in the Department of Defense, where she was a member of the Defense Policy Board and Defense Business Board, the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel, and the National Security Education Board. She also served on the National Academies Committee on Behavioral and Social Science Research to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security. From 2012 to 2015, Skinner served on Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett’s Advisory Commission on African American Affairs. During the Trump administration, she was director of the Office of Policy Planning at the State Department and senior advisor to the Secretary of State.
As a trainer of future policy makers, Skinner is clear that sound foreign policy on behalf of the United States can be devised and implemented by only those with a robust education in US history and US government. “You can’t go to Washington and defend the West if you don’t know what the West is in the first place,” she says. Skinner advocates that students obtain a strong background in economics and political, diplomatic, and military history, and she unequivocally supports SPP’s Great Books approach to its curriculum. Noting that this liberal arts foundation is unique among policy schools, the use of this traditional Western canon provides a solid framework of the premises on which the country was founded. “When students are introduced to enduring ideas, the core philosophy of Western civilization, they’re equipped with the intellectual tool kit to be highly effective policy analysts or statesmen,” she says.
While Skinner endorses a deep exploration of the roots of Western thought, she also insists on the importance of a wide understanding of many disciplines for success in any field. Her years at Carnegie Mellon—a school best known for its excellence in the sciences and engineering—provided her with a great laboratory in which to practice academic outreach. “It made me a lot more of an intellectual entrepreneur,” she says. Rather than succumb to the expectation that she would find ways to make the social sciences relevant to the university’s scientists, Skinner stood her ground on the importance of her and her colleagues’ fields, advising them to “take humanities and social sciences on their own terms and have the technologists jump rope with us.”
Her strategy worked. One such effort, which Skinner is particularly proud of, is her leadership in the creation of an undergraduate minor in international conflict and cybersecurity. At first, she says, students majoring in political science and social science selected the minor, but it is now also a destination for engineering and computer science students. The latter discovered that in addition to skill in coding and solving problem sets, knowledge of the coding practices in international organizations, the cyber norms of different governments, and the ways in which autocratic regimes are different from more representative systems gave their expertise context and meaning. “It was a joy to watch,” says Skinner. She finds that as a rule, many academicians claim to take a multidisciplinary approach to education, but in practice, most do not follow through. “That is a way in which the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine stands out,” she says. “Its liberal arts approach means perforce that you look at problems from a range of disciplinary perspectives.” She’s eager to put this commitment to a breadth of viewpoints to work in her classes at SPP and will be teaching a course presently called How to Run the World.
Skinner plans to introduce students to thought leaders in different sectors, such as the media, politics, government service, business, and the academy, and engage them in conversations about the passion and purpose that drives their lives and careers. Supplemented by an analysis of pertinent writings, she will explore with students the common threads among their insights and actions. For example, What are the tech firm CEO and the classics professor doing that is having a positive impact?
As SPP graduates will, in fact, be among those running the world in the years to come, Skinner’s multidisciplinary approach is meant to ensure that students see specific situations from a variety of viewpoints. For example, in presenting an international conflict, journalists who have been on the ground in the midst of a battle and advisors who have served in the White House situation room during the same event might be asked to share their perspectives. “Those making policy need to be considering both the granular experience of the people involved and how to move governments and leaders,” she says. “I think that running the world is really about being a multidimensional person who knows that one’s job requires a multidisciplinary understanding of what is happening around them.”
