Pepperdine Graphic 4-15-2021

THE PEPPERDINE GRAPHIC VOLUME L

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ISSUE 18 |

April 15, 2021

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HRL rehouses students AFTER COVID-19 outbreaks on campus

photo BY Beth Gonzales Drescher Life | Drescher Apartments’ capacity shrinks to single occupancy April 11.

HRL moved students after a COVID-19 outbreak in late March.

ASHL EY MO W R EADER new s EDI T O R Pepperdine moved 65 students receiving hardship housing in Drescher Campus Apartments on Sunday, April 11, following three COVID-19 outbreaks on campus.

Drescher has housed students who qualified for hardship housing for the 2021 academic year — two students lived in each apartment, allowing students to have their own bedrooms. Due to the outbreak, Housing and Residence Life moved randomly selected residents to first-year residence halls in an attempt to reduce capacity and allow for single-occupancy apartments and suites.

“Out of an abundance of caution, and because of this uptick in positive cases in students living in this residential area, we are moving students to one per apartment or suite proactively as an additional infection control measure,” according to the April 11 email sent to students living in Drescher. “We anticipate this relocation to last for a duration of approximately 2 weeks. However, this could continue for a longer period of time dependent upon additional cases.”

Between March 25 and April 7, 36 Pepperdine community members tested positive, including several student-athletes — the first epidemiologically linked outbreaks to date, according to an April 7 Public Relations

email. The three campus outbreaks linked student-athletes, Lovernich Residential Complex residents and Drescher residents.

The University has recorded 118 COVID-19 cases for spring 2021 as of April 13, 92 of which were on campus.

In an April 7 President’s Briefing recap provided by Public Relations, the University provided control measures to further reduce COVID-19 risk on the Malibu campus, including reducing the capacity of Lovernich to one student per room. Randomly selected Lovernich students moved into Seaside over Pepperdine’s four-day weekend April 2-5, following a visit by LA County Department of Health on April 2.

The decision to rehouse Dre-

scher students came Sunday, April 11, following an uptick in cases in that hall following a COVID-19 screening testing of all students living on campus, said Chief Business Officer Nicolle Taylor.

“The decisions we’ve made this week are due to what the county health has asked of us,” wrote Drescher Resident Director Katy Flinn in the Drescher residents “New Drescher Spring 2021” GroupMe chat on April 11. “They required we get the testing and then when a certain number of people can back positive they said we needed to go to single occupancy.”

The decision to move students was not based on LA County Department of Public Health

regulations but rather preventative guidance and proactive measures on the part of the University, Taylor said.

The Drescher residents received an email around 8:15 a.m., informing them of the potential move and 65 randomly selected students received new housing assignment around noon and instructions to relocate that same day.

“Failure to comply may result in referral to Community Standards,” according to the April 11 email sent to relocated students.

“Additionally, failure to comply may impact the ability for Pepperdine to continue housing residential students on our campus.”

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Students consider the future of Convocation AB BY W ILT NEW S ASS I S TA N T It’s been over a year since COVID-19 forced Pepperdine to suspend Convocation, and the usual spiritual life requirement now has an uncertain future. But what do students think about Convocation?

In a March 30 anonymous survey organized by the Graphic of roughly 50 Pepperdine students, 54% said they would not be upset if there wasn’t Convocation next year, and 58% said they don’t think Convocation is a necessary part of a Christian university.

News

Wh at ’s AH E AD

Facing Pressure to Practice Religion

“I think that when you force students to go to chapel, it kind of gives that force of religion down somebody’s throat, which is something that I hear a lot at Pepperdine,” said Launnie Phillips, junior and president of Word Up. “Not everybody at Pepperdine, although it’s a Christian campus, is religious.”

At the same time, 67% of surveyed students said spiritual life at Pepperdine drew them to the University. Phillips said that while she appreciates the religious aspect of the University, she doesn’t think students want to feel forced to practice their faith.

Assistant A2- News Annabelle Childers

shares her perspective on future plans.

Typically, the University requires students to attend 14 Convocation events per semester to complete the Convocation credit, which is 0.5 units.

The University offers Wednesday morning Convocation, Friday Celebration Chapel, Club Convocations and numerous weekly events to complete the requirement. Some students, like sophomore Harper Tramm, said they enjoy Convocation but wish it wasn’t a requirement.

“It should be less about a grade and feeling forced [to go]

L if e & A r t s

Pe r s pe ct iv e s of color must B1A6- Students prioritize their mental health.

the COVID-19 Lisa A7- Why A8- Pepperdine’s vaccine should be Wengler Center for the Arts reopens.

the the waves waves report report

required for students.

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and more as an opportunity to grow,” said sophomore Harper Tramm.

At the same time, students, including Phillips and Tramm, said they liked Club Convocation and University Church of Christ House Church, since those events were small settings and opportunities to get to know students personally and connect with others over their faith.

“I think encouraging students to find groups that they connect with is more important and impactful than forcing them to go to a chapel that they may not even understand or be able to handle,” Phillips said.

introducing

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Alumna Julia Donlan B4- Women’s Volleyball preps for the NCAA sparks conversation over tournament. coffee.

Meet some of the fresh faces of Pepperdine.

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Tennis beats B5- Men’s Loyola Marymount and St. Mary’s.

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Phillips has led Word Up, usually a Club Convocation, on Zoom for the past year. Word Up attracts roughly 30 students per week, and it aims to create an inclusive space where students feel comfortable to worship.

“We are not church, and we are not trying to be church,” Phillips said. “We’re just trying to create dialogue and discussion around the Bible. We all have different perspectives that are important and should be heard; we can all learn from each other.”

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RE: CONNECT Join host Misha Semenov in RE: Connecting with alumni Austin Hurwitz (class of 1997.

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Good News: Holding the future loosely

THE DPS REPORTS Check out pepperdine.edu/publicsafety for the DPS Reports every week

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4/1/21 16:44 p.m.

Crime: Possession of marijuana Location: Drescher student housing appartments

This week in SGA

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A n n a b e l l e ch ild e rs N e w s a s s i s tant

ANNABELLE.CHILDERS@PEPPERDINE.EDU

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PRESIDENT’S BRIEFING & OTHER NEWS YOU MISSED P epper di n e suspe n d s a ll 2021 summer i nte rn ationa l progr ams fo r Jun e a nd July. The Was hing ton , D.C., in ternship pr og r am is the on ly summer pr og r am that will take p l ace .

Pe p p e r d i ne U ni v e r s i t y a nd S e av e r co lle ge e xp e ct t o d e li v e r a ll cla s s e s i n p e r s o n fo r t he 2 0 2 1 -2 0 2 2 s cho o l y e a r . S e ave r C o lle ge a ls o e xpe ct s to d e li ve r a ll cl as s e s i n pe r s o n at a ll s i x i nt e r nat i o na l pr o gr a m ca m pu s e s .

Se ave r c olle ge will d e lay a fin a l d e c ision for th e c la ss of 2020 a n d 2021 c omme n c eme n t c e re monie s until A pril 26. Administration awaits guidance from the state for outdoor gatherin g re strictions.

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SGA is prepping for elections, which will take place April 21.

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SGA discussed a resolution regarding a new multicultural center on campus.

v i r tu al e ve n ts f or the upc o m in g w e e k THURS WHAT: Coffee with the PVC WHEN: 10 A.m. PDT HOSTED BY: PEpperdine Volunteer Center

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Covid-19 by the numbers

“Because if I take two years to work as a journalist before going to law school, then I could potentially…”

I trailed off and looked over at my mom, realizing I had lost her at some point along the way, perhaps when discussing my plan to become the next Rebecca Jarvis, somewhere on Highway 40 in New Mexico, or maybe Arizona.

It was April 2, and my mom and I were on day two of our trek from my home in Little Rock, Ark., to Malibu, where I was moving to complete the semester. We had just finished listening to the podcast series, “The Dropout,” hosted by Jarvis, which chronicles Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes’ rise and fall from grace. I was in awe of the hard-hitting investigative work done to bring the unethical practices of the company to light, and my mind was spinning, attempting to calculate how I could do something similarly impactful.

The verbal processing of the podcast soon lent itself to a verbal processing of my future, a recurring monologue my mom had been privy to for the previous 12 months I had spent at home.

I had shown her my spreadsheets full of law school admissions statistics, discussed a trajectory for becoming an agent in the FBI, briefly mentioned a career in the Foreign Service and gone down a plethora of other career plan rabbit trails.

In this moment, after noting her silence, I asked my mom what she was thinking. My mom laughed and repeated a sentiment she had recited during my months at home.

In essence, she said, “Annabelle, you get set on a future plan and go so far down that path, only to reverse and set your sights on a different path. I’ve learned to limit my emotional investment in your dreaming stage because I know there’s a good chance the plan will change.”

My mom was not claiming to be apathetic, but she had determined she would hold her expectations loosely because my future was something she could not control and my planning had proven apt to change.

Analyzing the conversation, I realized there was truth in her statement that I could apply to life as I knew it.

This year has taught me it is possible to be hopeful for the future while allowing room for plans to change, that holding dreams loosely does not translate to a lack of passion or drive to make them come true.

I have seen so much good come from what I initially perceived as an endless string of COVID-19related disappointments. My semesters at home allowed for more memories made with high school friends, a newfound love of running and even the time to dream big. By relinquishing my tight hold on the future, I became more joyful and intentional in the present.

So, as I look into the years ahead, I may yet be the next Rebecca Jarvis or Gloria Allred, or I might not! Regardless, I am grateful for a period of refining and learning to take the future in stride.

S G A r es c hedu l ed t he S eaver Tow n Hal l t o F r iday, 4 /1 6 at 3 P. M . , P D T.

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DRESCHER: Students Move to slow COVID-19 Outbreak on campus F R OM A 1 Drescher resident and junior Miller said they woke up Sunday morning to a frenzied GroupMe chat with the other Drescher residents reacting to the news.

They seem to make it out like when you complain about this whole process that you’re being ungrateful.

They really emphasized how they’re making an exception for us, but people asked for these exceptions for a reason.

Miller, Drescher resident and Junior Miller’s roommate was selected to move out of their apartment, but because she was out of town, unable to make the move on Sunday or Monday and was not granted extra time to complete the move later, Miller volunteered to move in her place.

“I don’t know what would have happened if they hadn’t let me move instead,” Miller said. “I don’t know if they would have just locked Courtney out of the room and kept her stuff hostage until there could be a disciplinary hear-

ing or what.”

Students had access to their old room and new room from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and lost access to their old apartment after 10 p.m., HRL encouraged students to maintain social distancing and wear a mask while moving and did not allow visitors to help. HRL did not provide students with resources to assist them in the move, Drescher resident and senior Alexa Ray said.

“Everyone was left on their own,” Ray said. “The RDs and RAs were like ‘sorry! We can’t really do much, if you need help, email Housing or leave them a voice mail.’”

Having to move again after moving to Malibu on March 30 and completing a 10-day quarantine in their apartment on April 9 put Miller in an awkward situation as a student receiving a hardship housing exemption.

“They seem to make it out like when you complain about this whole process that you’re being ungrateful,” Miller said. “They really emphasized how they’re making an exception for us, but people asked for these exceptions for a reason.”

Miller said students living on campus understood their situation with hardship housing exemption made it necessary for them to follow certain standards regarding COVID-19 protocols, but the timing felt rushed and stressful.

“I’ve moved enough over the past couple years, I was done with it and now I have to move again and, unless I move this move permanent, I’ll have to move again maybe in two weeks,” Miller said.

Seaside and the first-year residence halls are suite-style housing with a shared bathroom and common space in the suite. The suites normally house up to eight students, but for the next two weeks — or permanently if the student chooses to remain in their new assignment — the suite will house one student.

The suite-style residence halls

Photos Courtesy of Alexa Ray COVID-19 Communication| A health notice from LA County Department of Public Health hangs outside of Drescher Apartments.. The University faced three linked outbreaks on campus from student-athletes, Lovernich and Drescher residence halls. also lack kitchens for student use; none of the first-year halls have kitchens and Seaside’s communal kitchen is closed per county public health regulations.

Relocated students received a 300 meal point credit to their student account to be used at the Waves Café, which will only become available to them after exceeding their current meal point balance.

HRL wrote if students chose to remain in the suite for the re-

mainder of the school year, their housing rate would be prorated at a lower cost. The email did not indicate if students would receive a discounted rate for living in suitestyle housing for the next two weeks.

Miller said they don’t mind living in E. Pengilly House because of its proximity to main campus, as being without a car and living in Drescher presented them with challenges getting around campus. However, Miller said they are

unsure if they will make the move permanent for the rest of the semester.

While Pepperdine strives to prioritize students in all things, the health of the community remains a priority, Taylor said.

“The truth is, a small amount of inconvenience in the short run will be so much better for all of us in the long run,” Taylor said.

ASHL EY.M OW R EADER @PEPPER DINE.EDU

CONVO: Pepperdine to make a decision about academic convocation credit for 2022 FR OM A 1 Whether it’s Word Up, Surf Chapel or Club Convos within Fraternity and Sorority Life, 76% of students said they attended a Club Convo during their time at Pepperdine. In addition, 70% of students said they attended UCC House Church, a gathering of students in a professor’s home to gather and connect over their faith.

Incoming Students’ Opinions on Convocation Not only is Convocation a question for current students but also for incoming students who don’t know if they are committing to a school that requires involvement in spiritual life. Jayden Hanson, a prospective student, and Jade Gonzalez, a committed student, both said they haven’t heard anything from the Office of Admissions about Convocation next year.

“Convocation has not been described or advertised much from

what I picked up in a virtual aspect,” Hanson said. “To my knowledge, Convocation has just been very briefly hinted or dropped in sentences in regards to the religious aspects of Pepperdine.”

Even though Hanson hasn’t committed to Pepperdine yet, he said the spiritual factors draw him to the school, especially programs like Convocation.

“One of the reasons I’d be willing to pay more for Pepperdine is it has a good spiritual life and good religious aspect, but also as such high education,” Hanson said.

At the same time, Hanson said if he does decide to go to Pepperdine, he doesn’t want to feel forced to attend church.

“I feel like you really can’t assign a grade point average to your relationship with Christ,” Hanson said. “It’s honestly your choice if you want to pursue a relationship with Christ, and it’s your choice to come to Pepperdine to grow in your education and faith.”

At this time, Pepperdine has not announced a decision about the future of Convocation. On Feb. 6, the University laid off Gus Peterson and Anneliese Graf, leaving the office without any full-time staff members. But spiritual life remains important to the University, as it was outlined in the 2030 Strategic Plan that Seaver College “seeks to remain true to the most profound insights of the Churches of Christ, which constitutes its heritage.”

In a March 29 interview with the Graphic, Provost Rick Marrs said the decision to make Convocation an academic requirement for the fall will be decided by his office, prior to the transition of the next provost Aug. 1.

The decision is expected to be announced in roughly mid-May, Public Relations Manager Alex Forero wrote in a March 31 email to the Graphic.

Abby wilt| News Assistant

The Future of Convocation A B BY.W I LT @P E P P E RD I N E . E D U

Going to the Chapel | Stauffer Chapel stands empty April 2021. Pepperdine suspended the Convocation program in March 2020 and fired staff February 2021.

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A P R IL 1 5 , 2 0 2 1 | N E W S | P E P P E R DIN E GR A P H I C ME D I A

Pepp students chase faith and community via church at home sam ant ha t orre new s ass i s tan t Worship looks different today from February 2020.

After a year of virtual services and COVID-19 regulations requiring social distance, members of the Pepperdine community continue to struggle with feeling isolated from their faith communities. Students chase connection with their faiths and others to better face the challenges of COVID-19. Most said they are jumping at opportunities to worship in person.

“It’s people first, relationships first, and that’s what the pandemic has taught me is that my relationship with God is really important,” said Isabelle Armstrong, sophomore and non-denominational Christian. “But there are so many aspects of that that can be bolstered by the relationships that I have with other Christians in my life. And those are completely indispensable.”

Students said they recognize the effects of virtual services and the benefits of in-person service as worship centers begin to open their doors. Pepperdine members said they believe the pandemic will continue to shape religious practice.

Poll Results Show Students’ Situations at Home Approximately 76% of adults said they feel safe attending a religious service, according to a March 22 Pew Research Center report. Roughly 64% said their congregation was open with restrictions in place.

In the Pepperdine community, a Pepp Post poll of 59 students found roughly 56% of students attended in-person services in their home congregation, while about 44% could not attend in person.

The poll skewed female and firstyear.

The poll also found roughly 79% of students preferred in-person worship, and approximately 64% of students attend either in-person services, or both in-person and virtual services.

Worshipers Consider Effects of Virtual Service

the

Of the students surveyed, about 48% indicated the ability to worship in-person had a large impact on their faith, roughly 10% indicated it had a massive impact and roughly 24% indicated it had a moderate impact. The poll found only about 17% of students said the inability to worship in person had a small or no effect on their faith.

One of the students who has attended both virtual and in-person services, Raymond Rider, a junior Eastern Orthodox Christian from Lubbock, Texas, said he did not attend a virtual service before COVID-19. When his church, St. Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Church, went virtual, he attended every Sunday via Facebook Live.

One of the biggest challenges of remote worship, Rider said, was the absence of communion.

For Eastern Orthodox Christians, communion tradition involves the congregation sharing the same cup of wine, dropping in the bread and then using a shared spoon to scoop the bread out, Rider said.

Communion must be done in the presence of a priest and a chanter, who leads the sung liturgy, Rider said.

“If there is no communion there is no liturgy because that’s what the liturgy builds up to,” Rider said. “But the Orthodox liturgy is really, really important. It culminates in the Eucharist and communion, where we believe that Christ is truly present.”

Christopher Russell, a junior and Roman Catholic from Richmond, Ky., said virtual service was challenging for him because

he prefers the in-person liturgy in a Latin service. His home church, St. Peter Parish in Lexington, did not offer virtual service, so he watched an international recording.

Roman Catholics believe communion during the Mass is the body and blood of Jesus Christ as poured out on Calvary and imparts real grace, Russell said.

“So when you have that on Zoom it’s not the same, quite physical location,” Russell said.

“That’s what I like about going to church in person.”

Ari Schwarzberg, rabbi-in-residence at Pepperdine and a follower of Orthodox Judaism, said a virtual service makes it harder to create a loving space and reach out to others.

“When you put yourself on mute and you’re listening to one person speak and then you’re praying to yourself, that is a different quality of prayer than when you’re praying in community,” Schwarzberg said. “And as good as the technology may be, I don’t think it can replace the power and the transcendence of a community of prayers in person with one another.”

A rule of Orthodox Judaism is individuals cannot use electricity on the Sabbath, Schwarzberg said, meaning his community cannot participate in virtual services on Sabbath days.

In Schwarzberg’s neighborhood in Los Angeles, there is a large Orthodox Jewish community, and small groups of people gather in each other’s backyards to read the service.

“It actually shows people’s incredible commitment to their religious community and worship,” Schwarzberg said. “That even without their synagogues running this in an official capacity on a screen, people have taken it into their own hands to create kind of mini synagogues outdoors in people’s backyards.”

Worship Centers Return to In-person Services

photo courtesy Serah Hodson Getting Crafty | Sophomore Serah Hodson poses in front of a craft table for a Bible study she leads on Sundays at her church in Santa Barbara, Calif. Hodson said because of her church’s small size, the community has been able to gather outside for different events.

The Supreme Court ruled Feb. 5, that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ban on indoor worship was unconstitutional, Tim Blodgett wrote in a Feb. 7 CBS8 news article. The court found in favor of South Bay United Pentecostal Church. They filed suit in May 2020.

The court upheld California’s restrictions on chanting or singing indoors and the capacity cap limiting attendance to 25% of building capacity.

When Serah Hodson, a sophomore and non-denominational Christian, first attended outdoor, in-person services at her hometown church, Veronica Springs Church in Santa Barbara, Calif., she said she had anxiety about returning. But, since Hodson’s return in early summer 2020, she is now more comfortable.

“I’ve been really blessed to be a part of such a small church community because there’s so many things that it’s safe for us to do, or at least comparatively safe for us to do, that pretty much any other church that I know of wouldn’t be able to,” Hodson said.

photo courtesy Isabella armstrong To-Go Body and Blood | Sophomore Isabella Armstrong holds a pre-packaged cup her church gave her containing grape juice and a wafer in her living room April 1. Her church provide these communion cups for in-person and at-home congregation members.

On Sundays, Hodson said she leads a Bible study group. She grew up with members of her congregation, and returning to in-person services allowed her to reconnect with them.

In her hometown, Abilene, Texas, Armstrong said she is happy to attend in-person services with her congregation at Oldham Lane Church of Christ, following COVID-19 regulations.

“It’s just been really nice to go back to in-person worship because the fellowship is different, the spontaneity that comes with getting to worship in the same place and talk together afterward and go out to eat and all that kind of stuff,” Armstrong said.

Daniel Rodriguez is divisional dean of the Religion and Philosophy Division at Seaver College and a servant leader and member of the preaching team at Hollywood Church of Christ. Rodriguez said his congregation transitioned to hybrid services in mid-March.

To keep members of his congregation safe, Rodriguez’s church will distribute communion using separate tables with small cups containing bread and wine. Rodriguez said it will be some time before his congregation returns to passing trays where members break and then share the unleavened bread.

“There are other churches that I think would say, ‘no, the most important thing is our religious rights, our religious liberties,’” Rodriguez said. “And I don’t disagree with them fundamentally, but I think our ‘religious liberties’ are not as important as our people’s safety.”

Eric Wilson, preaching minister for the University Church of Christ located on Pepperdine’s campus, said it is important to minimize both the spiritual and physical risk people face when attending in-person service.

“Are the leaders of that church healthy people, are they spiritually healthy?” Wilson said. “What is that place you are trying to lead us to? They’ve got to have an answer to that question. And I hope that answer is rooted in Scripture, and it is relevant to the lives that we are living today.”

Religious Officials Look to the Future Many community members raised questions regarding what a post-COVID-19 religious community will look like. As people adjust to this new version of worship, there is a question of whether people will return to the traditional rabbi-led Sabbath, or stay with the decentralized version, Schwarzberg said.

“That’s a concern that the type of community that has existed and been the lifeblood of our community for so long, is that something that we could see a little bit diluted?” Schwarzberg said. “And how will that return and how much time will it take for that to return?”

As people become more comfortable with both the technology and returning to in-person services, Schwarzberg said, there is a possibility hybrid options will exist.

“Where people who may feel that they don’t have the time to drive that morning, or they want to be able to do two things at once, there’s going to be an expectation, I think for better and for worse, that institutions provide both an in-person option and a virtual option,” Schwarzberg said.

Wilson said he is concerned about the return to in-person services and the realization that reopening has not solved of the problems COVID-19 exposed.

“Because my sense is that after the shine wears off, the real sort of interior work is exposed,” Wilson said. “And then what are people going to do when they realize ‘Wow, we’ve been away from each other, and I’ve been super lonely.’”

The challenges people face, Rodriguez said, allow people to learn about the core of their personal faiths.

“This whole pandemic has helped them identify some fundamental flaws [in their faith],” Rodriguez said. “For other people, this has been a time to thrive. In fact, I would say that’s been the most exciting thing at our church.”

SAM ANTHA.TOR R EE@PEPPER DINE.EDU

A P R IL 1 5 , 2 0 2 1 | N E W S | P E P P E R DIN E GR A P H I C ME D I A

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Pepp duo’s study aims to turn single-use plastic repulsion into greater discussion Ali L ev en s P hoto Edi t or From home delivery to curbside drop-off, Americans live in the time of takeout. No dishes, no cross-contamination, no problem, right? Wrong.

Research partners Sarah Fischbach, assistant professor of Integrated Marketing Communication, and Eesha Tripathi, senior Business Administration major and Marketing minor, pioneered a two-part educational survey that measures the level of disgust people associate with single-use plastic waste during COVID-19.

“It’s not that plastic is bad, it’s that we are in this disposable society of throwing things away,” Fischbach said. “We need to make small changes that will hopefully make big effects.”

As an incentive, Tripathi said environmental thank you packages — featuring a card and a reusable patch — will be mailed to each participant.

Since her Pepperdine tenure began, Fischbach said she has worked on research projects surrounding single-use plastic for three years. A “Green Dreamer” podcast featuring the Plastic Pollution Coalition and the absurd amounts of Amazon packing waste sparked her interest in reducing plastic waste.

Fischbach’s first partnership with then-students Timothy Good (2019) and Elizabeth MacCoy (2019) was a call to action for on-campus students, published in the Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research in April 2019. Taking the research “one step further,” Fischbach began working alongside senior Sofia Lauraya in 2020. The pair had a non-Pepperdine population watch

a video and then answer questions about perception toward sustainability.

Alumna Grace Dryer (2020) brought in the topic of disgust when considering reusable cotton swabs, which was then followed by Fischbach’s partnership with Tripathi concerning plastic waste from COVID-19. Through three years of research, Fischbach acquired data about perception changes about plastic and sustainability before, during and after COVID-19.

Fischbach wrote the pair are studying the variables of disgust, sustainable consumers and student transformative learning.

“We’re hoping that we see shifts in peoples’ thought process towards sustainability,” Fischbach said. “We want to use that measure of disgust to see if it’s gotten better or worse.”

Beyond the university, Fiscbach said she and her team aim to publish their research by the end of April in the Journal of Consumer Research and present at the Association of Consumer Researchers conference in the fall. Fischbach’s team collected four different groups of data and is in the process of collecting a fifth.

In an effort to curb plastic pollution, Tripathi said she hopes the research will show that not using single-use plastic packaging is “perfectly hygienic, perfectly safe, perfectly clean.”

“It’s just excessive, excessive levels of packaging in the name of safety,” Tripathi said. “That really ties into the survey, like, ‘Why do we perceive things that have been wrapped in plastic as so much more safe?’”

Tripathi has observed large misconceptions surrounding the health and safety of plastics for humans, like ingesting microplastics

ALi Levens | Photo Editor Trashy Behavior|Recycled and thrown away plastic waste lay strewn across a table.

To help reduce plastic waste, a Pepperdine professor and student researched the level of disgust people associate with single-use plastic waste, such as cotton swabs. and chemicals in plastics.

“It’s not about litter,” Tripathi said. “It’s about this twofold, threefold impact on a lot of our environment.”

For the future, Tripathi said she wants more worldwide education, especially teaching geared toward children, about environmentalism since bad practices have led to a “dramatic effect on our health and on our environment.”

“It is a habit,” Tripathi said.

“Once you start using plastic water bottles, it can be hard to switch back to drinking from the tap or getting a Britta.”

While working with other faculty worldwide, Fischbach said it was “sad” that some members of other countries thought this issue was “an American thing.” Fischbach is a part of the University of California San Diego, Scripps

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Institution of Oceanography solutions program to further educate transnationally.

“We need to make it [applicable] everywhere so everybody might care about what’s going into the ocean,” Fischbach said.

AL I.L EV ENS@PEPPER DINE.EDU

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APR IL 1 5 , 2 0 2 1 | PE RS PE C TIVE S | P E P P E R DIN E G RA P H I C ME D I A

*The Perspectives section is meant to showcase a variety of opinion and encourage discussion that is respectful and accurate.

MISSION STATEMENT

Madeline Duvall|staff artist

Students of color need to pr ior itize mental health in light of racial trauma

CHristian Parham p e r s p e c t i v e s a s s i s ta n t editor

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020 and 2021 were years filled with racial attacks and pain. Because of this, students of color need to address and honor their mental health more than ever.

On March 17, a domestic terrorist purposefully targeted three spas in Atlanta. Nearly all of his eight victims were Asian women.

On May 25, a police officer in charge of protecting citizens abused his power and killed an innocent man named George Floyd. A subsequent trial is currently underway, intensifying the deep-rooted pain from this summer.

In 2020, hate crimes against the Hispanic community reached an 11-year high.

Combined, all of these incidents point to one fact — being a person of color in the United States is not only dangerous but also extremely heart-wrenching.

Therefore, it's imperative that students of color take care of their mental health.

In a technology-driven world, racial trauma is only magnified through social media. It is already traumatizing to hear of these events, but now videos of attacks on innocent Black, Asian and Hispanic people circulate through social media and the news.

Exposure to prejudice and discrimination causes severe psychosocial impairments, according to the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Even more heartbreaking, exposure to hate crimes can lead to symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety and substance abuse.

In communities of color, open dialogue about mental health receives little to no support.

For example, mental illness can be stigmatized and seen as a burden or weakness within some parts of the Asian American community, according to Psychiatry.org. Therefore, some Asian Americans may feel fearful of speaking up.

Within the Black community, there is a strong sentiment of medical distrust. Throughout American history, scientists would frequently conduct unethical experiments on Black bodies, creating generational trauma still seen today.

An example of this is the Tuskegee Study, where scientists studied the effects of syphilis in 600 Black men from 1932 to 1972. Once these scientists found the cure for syphilis, they refused to offer it to the men who were dying or going blind as a result of not being treated.

This trauma contributes to fear of doctors and mental health professionals, which ultimately leads to mental health issues being studied less frequently in Black people than white people.

Additionally, mental health resources may be inaccessible to many communities of color.

Only one in three African Americans who need mental health support receive it — and when they do, they are less likely to receive psychotherapy or med-

icine, according to Psychiatry. org. Lack of insurance covering mental health treatments and culturally incompetent providers further leads to this inaccessibility.

Despite these barriers, students of color must consider seeking resources at their schools, checking in with themselves and validating their own mental health struggles.

Across the United States, many college campuses offer counseling services. At Pepperdine, students of color have a variety of options.

For Pepperdine students living in California, the Counseling Center offers individual virtual appointments available at no cost with a counselor after an intake appointment. For those outside of California, group counseling is offered at no cost, including Black and international student support groups.

For those who aren’t comfortable with counseling, Pepperdine offers a free premium subscription to the app Sanvello. Sanvello is based on the principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy and mindfulness meditation, which have strategies shown to provide effective relief for mental health concerns including anxiety and depression, according to its website. Students can find mental health resources ranging from guided meditations to writing prompts.

Furthermore, on a nationwide scale, there needs to be a greater effort made to recruit POC counselors who acknowledge and understand the effects of racial trauma on the human mind.

Seeing a therapist with similar life experiences as oneself can increase the likelihood of beginning

counseling sessions.

In addition, students of color must check in with themselves.

The stress of school cultivates an environment where it is easy to live life on “auto-pilot" without truly acknowledging how one is feeling. Sitting in silence, writing out thoughts or talking to a friend are all ways to understand where one is mentally, especially in light of recent events. If someone realizes they are struggling to process what emotions racist events stir up, then it may be time to reach out for outside help.

Finally, students of color must validate their own mental health struggles. Being in environments that value remaining silent about these issues may internally cause some students to ignore their own pain and try to overlook it.

Instead, students should practice giving themselves gentle reminders that it is OK to struggle and be vulnerable. This can foster a space of self-compassion rather than self-criticism.

Students of colors' mental health struggles are valid and justified. Most importantly, they need to be honored. These perspectives and pain are an important part of America coming together to build a more unified society, and it is up to every individual to create communities where these voices are uplifted and celebrated.

“Pepperdine Graphic Media (PGM) is an editorially independent student news organization that focuses on Pepperdine University and the surrounding communities. PGM consists of the digital and print Graphic, a variety of special publications, GNews, Currents Magazine, social media platforms and an Advertising Department.

These platforms serve the community with news, opinion, contemporary information and a public forum for discussion. PGM strengthens students for purpose, service and leadership by developing their skills in writing, editing and publication production, by providing a vehicle to integrate and implement their liberal arts education, and by developing students’ critical thinking through independent editorial judgment. PGM participates in Pepperdine’s Christian mission and affirmations, especially the pursuit of truth, excellence and freedom in a context of public service. Although PGM reports about Pepperdine University and coordinates with curricula in journalism and other disciplines, it is a student (not a University) news organization. Views expressed are diverse and, of course, do not correspond to all views of any University board, administration, faculty, staff, student or other constituency.”

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters to the Editor must bear the writer’s name, signature, class standing, major, address and phone number (except in some circumstances determined appropriate by the Graphic). Letters must be fewer than 300 words and will be edited for syntax, grammar and brevity. Letters can be mailed to student publications or emailed to peppgraphicmedia@gmail.com

CONTACT US Email: peppgraphicmedia@gmail.com peppgraphicadvertising@gmail. com

Phone: 310-506-4311

Address: Graphic Pepperdine University 24255 Pacific Coast Hwy. Malibu, CA 90263

C HR ISTIAN.PAR HAM @PEPPER DINE.EDU

STAFF LIST Executive Editor Makena Huey Managing Editor Rowan Toke Digital Editor Brianna Willis Copy Chief Tiffany Hall Pixel Editor Emily Shaw Video Producer Marisa Dragos Head Podcast Producer Kaelin Mendez Business Director Hadley Biggs Advertising Director Sahej Bhasin Photo Editor Allison Levens News Editor Ashley Mowreader News Assistant Editors Natalie Hardt Kyle McCabe

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COVID-19 Vaccine should be required for all students

sarah best s ta f f w r i t e r

Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendation, preadmission immunizations are a typical requirement at many colleges nationwide, Pepperdine included. With the campus having already commenced its initial reopening, Pepperdine must add the COVID-19 vaccine to its required immunization list.

Herd immunity is defined by Harvard Health Publishing as occurring after the majority of the population has slowed the spread of disease by becoming immune to it. This can only be achieved through widespread acceptance and administration of the vaccine, according to a report from the American College Health Association.

Pepperdine is located in a county that comprised a third of California’s confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to the government tracking of COVID-19 in California.

Mandatory vaccination for all students prior to returning to campus should be implemented right away.

Beginning April 15, all individuals 16 years of age or older in California will now be eligible to receive the vaccine, according to a statement from the Office of Governor Gavin Newsom.

This recent development in vaccine eligibility allows for a wider range of collegeage students to obtain the vaccine and inherently minimize the spread of the

virus on Pepperdine’s campus as reopening plans continue to move forward. This development should be taken as the green light to require a COVID-19 vaccine for all of its students.

Vaccine information from the CDC explains that all available vaccines in the United States have high levels of effectiveness. Large-scale studies found vaccines not only prevented most recipients from contracting COVID-19 but lessened the intensity of the sickness if contracted.

Being up-to-date with immunizations for other preventable diseases like measles and tuberculosis is highly recommended on college campuses thanks to the ACHA's 1985 suggestion per the Pre-admission Immunization Policy, according to the CDC. By accessing the "Immunizations" window in their Student Health Center accounts, students can view an extensive list of mandatory immunizations. Currently, Pepperdine requires five different immunizations, most of which require multiple doses, in addition to a tuberculosis screening test.

This plethora of required vaccines would not be required if vaccines and immunizations weren’t proven to slow the spread of germs and preventable diseases.

If Pepperdine can require students to show proof of an exhaustive number of preadmission immunizations, then it can require all students returning to campus to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Even though the campus is only operating at 25% capacity, students and staff are still living on campus in addition to those visiting campus from off-campus housing. With

Pepperdine’s implementation of the Daily Wellness Check, a required “green dot” must be obtained after filling out a questionnaire concerning a student's exposure to COVID-19, or lack thereof, prior to gaining clearance to safely visit campus.

This wellness check operates on the honor system and trusts students are truthful in their assessment of symptoms.

What’s stopping someone who went to a large, crowded party from lying on the wellness check if their desire to visit campus overcomes their consideration for the safety of others?

The circumstance of being a college student in a pandemic comes with unprecedented health concerns that warrant a school-wide vaccine mandate.

On April 5, LA County transitioned from the Red Tier to Orange Tier status along with most of California, characterizing the county as no longer being a “widespread” county for COVID-19 cases.

Regardless of this change in tier hierarchy, LA County has experienced over 1,220,000 positive cases of the virus with a weekly average of more than 40,000 positive cases, according to a report from the LA County of Public Health.

More than 23,000 people in LA County alone have died from COVID-19, according to the same report. The

The Need for Timely Communication The University delivering important updates sporadically puts students in a difficult position when it comes to planning for the upcoming semester. The University should consider the effect these changes have on students when deciding when to release information.

In a July 22 email to the Pepperdine community, President Jim Gash announced the University would conduct the fall 2020 semester online, less than a month before the start of the semester.

This decision left students with little time to plan alternative living arrangements.

So far, the University and Housing and Residence Life plan for the fall 2021 semester is to be in person. While these plans provide hope, the University should remain realistic.

In the event of continued closure, or partial reopening, the University should release the announcement as soon as possible before the fall semester to give students the time to make financial and academic decisions accordingly.

Students who rely on

leah bae | staff artist communication from Pepperdine to make financial decisions include those who may want to sign apartment leases or find other living accommodations for the upcoming academic year.

In addition, in an April 12 email to the Pepperdine community, Dean Michael Feltner announced that the University would not give a final decision on the status of commencement until April 26, giving students less than a month to plan. The longer the University waits to announce a decision, the harder it will be for students to make accommodations to travel to Malibu.

The Need for Clear Communication Not only does the University need to emphasize providing prompt communication, but also practice intentional communication.

On Feb. 6, the University laid off its two full-time Convocation employees, Gus Peterson and Annelise Graf, without an explanation or clear information regarding the future of Spiritual Life at Pepperdine. At this point, students do not know what the Convocation requirements will be next year.

When attending a University known for its Christian culture and religious life, students deserve to know what the religious aspect of

PETTY PERSPECTIVE:

Acknowledge the Cultural Significance of the DTR Bench

by Ashley Mowreader

Madeline Duvall | staff artist Pepperdine community has experienced 109 confirmed cases since Jan. 3, and over 200 total reported since March 16, 2020.

There has been a surge of 36 new positive cases since March 25, some of which are linked to one another. So, why would school officials not require students to get the COVID-19 vaccine to ensure the highest level of safety and protection of their students?

Requiring students to obtain any version of the COVID-19 vaccine prior to coming to campus will not only increase herd immunity but will ensure that students are still protecting themselves and others by receiving a vaccine, even if they are dishonest in filling out the Daily Wellness Check.

All students who are able should receive the vaccine.

With the entire eligible Pepperdine community vaccinated, students can feel safer returning to campus knowing the people sitting next to them in class are protected and helping stop the spread of COVID-19.

SAR AH.BEST@PEPPER DINE.EDU

Staff Editorial: The University needs to practice transparent communication Since March 2020, Pepperdine University has communicated in an unclear manner regarding COVID-19 updates, staffing changes, International Program updates and the future of the University. In a remote setting, it is vital for the University to provide transparent and timely information.

This is not a new conversation in the Pepperdine community, and the Graphic staff has addressed the issue before. With all communication being conducted online, we are bringing it to the table again, to call for clear, timely communication.

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the school will look like, rather than suddenly hearing that the full-time staff members in the Convocation office are no longer employed by the University without further information.

In addition, Pepperdine announced the closure of the Shanghai international program in a March 10 email to the Pepperdine community. The reasoning behind the closure was unclear and left many students upset.

Furthermore, the IP Office is encouraging students who aspire to participate in study abroad programs to make financial and academic plans for the upcoming year.

Instead of acting as if there will be a traditional study abroad experience, the University should be realistic about challenges for the upcoming year so students will know whether it is worth their time and money to even go abroad.

It is also important for the University to have active communication regarding the number of COVID-19 cases within the Pepperdine community.

Within the past month, there was a COVID-19 outbreak among athletes on campus, forcing four sports teams to shut down. The University did not communicate that with the whole community.

Instead, President Gash announced in an April 7 President's Briefing that the University was proud to partially reopen campus after

managing cases well.

“This is the final stretch of a very long race we’ve been running together, but the finish line is near,” Gash said.

Not only does this imply a better condition of campus than reality, but it is also grossly insensitive to the struggles of the Cross Country/ Track team after the recent termination of their coach.

On April 11, HRL announced in an email to students living in the Drescher Campus Apartments that 65 residents had to move out of their apartments and to first-year housing due to an outbreak on campus. Again, this information was not communicated with the whole Pepperdine community.

From the University's social media, the Malibu campus looks to be open, causing students and faculty to likely feel comfortable visiting campus for classes or to use the facilities, without knowing that COVID-19 is spreading within the community.

The University should provide clear, weekly updates to faculty and students in an email about where outbreaks are happening and what the University is doing to address the situation. In addition, Pepperdine should provide clear data for students and faculty to assess before assuming the campus is safe and ready to visit.

It can be tempting to say “the pandemic is almost over,” however, COVID-19 has no time stamp. There are still people struggling financially, emotionally, physically and mentally. While the optimism is appreciated, it also gets students' hopes up, only to be let down one more time.

Improved communication from the University about honest, upfront updates regarding campus life at Pepperdine would help mitigate disappointment and allow students to make better judgments when considering life on campus.

Petty Perspective is a column highlighting the rants and thoughts everyone thinks but never gets a chance to put into words. This time, we hear from Ashley Mowreader, who believes the DTR bench is a Pepperdine symbol we cannot forget.

Ally armstrong | Art Editor

If you asked a first-year Pepperdine student to show you the APC, the CCB stairs or the best part of the Caf — Oasis Pizza Bar — they could probably point you in the right direction after a few weeks on campus.

Due to remote instruction, the class of 2024 has yet to discover much of the beauty of Pepperdine's acronyms and the DTR bench is one they must learn now; there's no time to lose in the transition back to inperson life.

The DTR bench, full name Define the Relationship Bench, is the swinging bench located on Lower Dorm road outside of Darnell house.

"Hang on, Ashley," you protest. “There are multiple wooden swings like that on campus, including outside Banowsky and on Upper Dorm somewhere."

Reporter's Note: I honestly couldn't tell you where the bench is on Upper Dorm. This message was brought to you by Lower Dorm Gang.

But the bench outside of Darnell is different — it is THE DTR bench, and the only spot one can truly understand their interpersonal relationships through direct communication.

Over the summer, President Jim Gash shared a video of himself sitting on the Banowsky DTR bench on his thirty-ninth day of waiting for students to return to campus, providing further evidence of the DTR bench's rich heritage.

We all know Pepperdine as a "ring-by-spring" Christian school with a wacky dating culture — that's a no-brainer.

What underclass students fail to realize is that the DTR bench is an essential step in establishing a relationship.

I'll make the caveat here that you can DTR with any individual; I've DTRed with friends on the bench, and it is perfectly suitable to have any kind of conversation about your connection with a fellow Wave in an organized and safe manner.

But when sitting on the DTR bench with another person, the mood shifts as both parties recognize the space they have entered and what they must do next. This is the place where romance begins, flourishes and sometimes dies. This can be the start of something beautiful or of something tragic — and only the DTR has the power to contain this energy.

As we eagerly await the newest Waves' arrival to Malibu, we cannot forget the quirky features which contribute to the rich heritage of campus, from the Dolores statue on the main campus to the dirt hill by Drescher. But the most important of them all is the DTR bench, and the Pepperdine community must continue to affirm this cultural icon.

ASHELY.M OW R EADER @PEPPER DINE.EDU

Apr i l 15, 2021

The Graphic

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Alumna creates connections over cups of coffee Addiso n W h iten Staf f W r i te r “Take the time to have coffee with someone new!” is the motto of 2019 Pepperdine alumna Julia Donlon’s online social project, Coffee Monday, which she started in 2017.

Each installment of Coffee Monday consists of Donlon interviewing her guests, whether they’re a Pepperdine student, a coworker or someone else she reaches out to, over a cup of coffee. She shares her guest’s responses, coffee order and a photo of them on the Coffee Monday Instagram page each Monday.

Donlon is a former Graphic staff member and wrote a Coffee Monday column during the spring of 2019. Donlon said Coffee Monday is all about the power of people getting together and communicating.

“It’s to promote being inclusive and getting to know people, and showcasing how everyone is so interesting and just how great people are,” Donlon said.

Donlon noticed Pepperdine students lacked genuine connections with each other, which she said inspired her to begin Coffee Monday.

“I was really frustrated with the social climate of Pepperdine and just life in general, of how everything’s very surface level,” Donlon said. “You always try to make plans, you’re like, ‘Yeah, we can hang out, let’s grab coffee, let’s get dinner,’ and then you just never talk to that person again.”

When she was a student, many people, including Donlon, tended to stick with their friend group and not branch out and talk to other people. She said she started interviewing fellow Pepperdine students to combat this and make connections outside of her friend group.

“When I had conversations with people, I tried to remember things so when I saw them again I could be like, ‘oh hey, how was that test you were talking about?’ or ‘how’s your mom? I know you went to see her last weekend,’ that type of thing,” Donlon said. “So it’s not just being like, ‘hi, how are you? Good, OK, see you later.’ It’s just making the effort to be about others, to be outside of yourself.”

While she was a Pepperdine student, Donlon met her interviewees at the Starbucks on the Malibu campus, where she would ask each person the same set of questions.

Donlon said those interviews could last anywhere from 30 minutes to over two hours, depending on how comfortable she and her guest were with each other.

The medium she interviews people over changed due to the pandemic, but Donlon said the motto of Coffee Monday remains the same. In early 2020, Donlon began conducting Coffee Monday interviews over FaceTime, as COVID-19 forced most coffee shops across the country to close their doors. For now, she doesn’t meet her guests in person, but the weekly interviews and her intention to get to know someone haven’t changed.

“It’s the simplest thing,” Donlon said. “It could be half an hour, it could be a 20 minute FaceTime.

Grabbing a coffee with someone, that’s all it takes to break the barrier and make a connection and make someone feel like they matter.”

After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Production Design in the spring of 2019, Donlon took a job working backstage for a theater production aboard a cruise ship that traveled around Australia and New Zealand. While she was aboard the ship, Donlon said she continued doing Coffee Monday with the crew, interviewing people from all over the world, and even got to experiment with a new way of presenting her interviews.

“I kind of started this thing on [the ship] where I would record the interviews and they would put it on the TV for the crewmates to watch, like my own little TV show, and that was really cool,” Donlon said.

Donlon said in the future, she doesn’t plan to make Coffee Monday her full-time career, as it serves her best as a passion project. She considered turning Coffee Monday into a program to take to schools to teach kids about making connections, doing a partnership with Starbucks or creating a talk show or podcast out of her concept, but none of these plans are in the works as of right now.

Donlon has to think carefully about how she moves forward with Coffee Monday beyond its Instagram page or website.

Photo Courtesy of Julia Donlon Coffee Chat| Alumna Julia Donlon smiles with a coffee outside of Starbucks on campus in Malibu during her last semester in spring 2019. Donlon said she spent a lot of time at this Starbucks while she was at Seaver.

“I think I haven’t put it into motion because I really want whatever it is to be fueled by the message and by the people, and not me just trying to make it a thing,” Donlon said. “I’m trying to figure out the best way to do it without me looking like a sellout.”

Donlon moved to West Hollywood, Calif., last year, and she said she’s waiting for the entertainment industry to open back up so she can get back to her professional goals in theater. In the meantime, she works as a barista at Starbucks, and the irony is not lost on her.

“I’m making connections every day with people, so it’s kind of a more corporate way of doing Coffee Monday, because I’m giving people coffee and also sort of in-

terviewing them when they come in,” Donlon said.

As Donlon considers the future of Coffee Monday and waits to be able to resume her traditional, in-person interviews, she said the message of Coffee Monday remains at the core of everything she does.

“We’re all kind of in this together,” Donlon said. “We’re all going through life, we’re all, at the very end of the day, a human being, so I think it’s just super important to reach out to people to ask how they are.”

ADDIE.W HITEN@PEPPER DINE.EDU

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Justin Bieber’s sixth studio album, “Justice,” is a reflective pop album that finds Bieber at a variety of moods and production styles.

The 27-year-old pop icon released the album March 19, under Def Jam Recordings, followed by a deluxe version with six additional tracks just a week later.

“Justice: Triple Chucks Deluxe” weighs in at a hearty 22 songs, providing listeners just over an hour of music, compared to 16 tracks on the original.

Bieber’s sound is hard to nail down on this album. The music on “Justice” ranges from Christian-inspired ballads, true-to-form Bieber pop anthems, Afro-pop dancehall bops and radio-friendly hip-hop tracks, featuring everyone from Tori Kelly to Skrillex to DaBaby. While many of the collaborations are fun and dynamic, the mood of the album shifts so drastically from track to track that “Justice” as a whole feels disjointed to listeners.

Bieber said there are a few reasons why this album is called “Justice.” In an interview with Vogue, Bieber shared that his first name “Justin” actually means “justice” in Latin, which he felt was an appropriate album title in a year filled with so much pain and racial discrimination. For these reasons, Bieber said he decided to include two Martin Luther King Jr. sound bites in the record.

The first song on the album, “2 Much,” opens with the wellknown 1963 King quote: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The placement of this bite feels jarring given the rest of the same track is a heartfelt falsetto tribute to Bieber’s wife,

Hailey Baldwin Bieber, who he references as his “biggest blessing.” Where listeners expect to hear Bieber crooning about the broken state of the world and the racial injustice plaguing the country, they instead hear a loving piano track that might be played during a first dance at a wedding.

A similar theme emerges on the seventh song, aptly titled “MLK Interlude,” when Bieber includes an excerpt from a sermon King gave at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta in 1967.

The sermon is moving and powerful but feels misplaced given its position before one of the album’s most upbeat love songs, “Die For You,” featuring Dominic Fike.

It seems like Bieber’s decision to include the King snippets came from an earnest place. In an interview with the “Zach Sang Show,” Bieber said his reasoning for including the sound bites was that he wanted to amplify King’s voice to his younger audience. However, because King’s words are lacking context and do not relate to the subject matter of the rest of the record, their inclusion feels performative at best and inconsistent with “Justice” as a whole.

Lyrically, Bieber’s Christian faith largely influenced “Justice.”

Since being re-baptized in 2015 and publicly attending Churchome in Los Angeles, Bieber’s “Justice” feels like his most faith-centered album yet. Many tracks on the record include biblical references, most notably on the Chance The Rapper-assisted banger, “Holy.”

The collaboration between the two Christian artists feels natural, and the song is the perfect marriage of top 40-friendly R&B and upbeat gospel. In “Holy,” Bieber describes himself “Runnin’ to the altar like a track star,” which likely represents the singer’s eagerness

f ten to ou

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Album Review: Justin Bieber’s ‘Justice’ presents consistent spiritual message but muddled sound

Nathan Huang | Life & Arts Design assistant to rededicate his life to God as well as his fast-tracked marriage to Baldwin, whom he proposed to in 2018 after the couple dated for six months.

Many tracks on “Justice” find Bieber in an introspective mindset. On “Deserve You” and “As I Am,” Bieber reflects on past struggles and grapples with self-doubt. On the former, Bieber sings, “When I’m in my thoughts sometimes/ It’s hard to believe I’m the person you think I am/ […] I’m prayin’ that I don’t go back to who I was.” These lyrics reference a dark time in Bieber’s past that included a battle with drug addiction and a 2014 DUI before the singer got clean under the mentorship of former Hillsong Church Pastor Carl Lentz.

“Deserve You” and “As I Am” take an upbeat turn both musically and lyrically as a buoyant pop groove supplements Bieber’s words on the latter: “Take me with the good and the ugly/ Say, “I’m not goin’ anywhere”/ You were there for me when I was actin’ selfish/ And you prayed for me when I was out of faith.” These lyrics reflect the most overarching theme of “Justice”: Bieber’s love and gratitude for his wife.

Interestingly, the many collaborations on “Justice” represent

Photo Courtesy of Def Jam Recordings Justice Served | The cover of Justin Bieber’s sixth studio album “Justice” shows the pop singer sitting in a highway tunnel. The deluxe version of the album, released March 26, features 22 songs and includes collaborations with Khalid, Daniel Caesar, Quavo and many others. both the best and worst parts of the album. Independently, the partnerships serve their given purposes. “Peaches” featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon is a summery party anthem, “Lonely” with benny blanco is a dramatic piano ballad detailing Bieber’s experience of becoming a mega-popstar at 16 and “There She Go” featuring Lil Uzi Vert is a quintessential Bieber bop that’s unmistakably Tik Tok-friendly.

These collaborations work best independently, though, and therein lies the problem.

In simple terms, none of these features sound like they go together. Acoustic guitar-driven tracks like “Name” featuring Tori Kelly feel worlds away from the

dancehall-inspired “Loved By You” featuring Nigerian powerhouse Burna Boy. While much of the music on “Justice” revolves around the same themes of love, faith and thankfulness, it is still sonically disjointed.

“Justice” has strong moments where poignant, often-spiritual lyrics blend seamlessly with pop beats, but the overall product is erratic and reflects an artist who is trying to do too much on one record.

Listeners can stream “Justice” and “Justice: Triple Chucks Deluxe” on Spotify, Apple Music and SoundCloud.

GR AC E.W OOD@PEPPER DINE.EDU

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Musician dreams of future in ministry li n ds ay m a s e staf f wr i t e r

Fresh Faces features first-year and transfer students to unite Pepperdine students and build community, regardless of where they are.

IMC major gets cooking gr ac e w o od s taf f w r i te r First-year Integrated Marketing Communication major Ellie Duvall is cooking up something good.

The Longview, Texas native lives with her sister, senior Madeline Duvall who is a staff artist for the Graphic, in the Drescher Apartments on the Malibu campus. Equipped with her own kitchen for the first time, Ellie Duvall took up cooking — making everything from shrimp fried rice, lemon crostata and dumplings all from her dorm.

“Being responsible for my own apartment and for my own food, I feel like I’ve grown up a lot,” Duvall said. “Now that I live on my own, I can make anything I want.”

Duvall said she always had an interest in cooking growing up, but since moving into her own space in Drescher, she is able to advance her skills and experiment more with food.

Upon her arrival on campus, learning to cook more recipes felt necessary for Duvall as a way to connect with her sister and strengthen friendships. Duvall purposefully makes large portions of her food not only for leftovers, but also to deliver safely to friends.

“I want to do things for myself and my sister,” Duvall said. “Even though we’re tired, we’ll still make something that’s nice, and then it feels like a home-cooked meal.

People like food, and I feel like it’s my way to make people feel welcome.”

Using Pinterest as her main source of recipe inspiration, Duvall and her sister find recipes that intrigue them and then go to Ralphs to buy the ingredients.

photo courtesy of ellie duvall

Top Chef | First-year IMC major Ellie Duvall bakes cookies

in her home in Longview, Texas, in 2019. Duvall said she uses her kitchen in Drescher to hone her culinary skills.

Duvall said making bagels from scratch is one of her proudest culinary accomplishments.

“Most of the stuff I [cook] is just stuff that I’m like, ‘Hm, I really want this but I don’t want to go buy it, and instead, I’m going to make it,’” Duvall said. “Me and my sister never have nothing in the fridge. There’s always something I can eat.”

In high school, Duvall said she considered applying to culinary school rather than traditional colleges but ultimately felt she belonged at Pepperdine because of her Church of Christ faith and familial connection to the school.

Duvall grew up visiting the campus to see her older sister as well as her older brother, Ross Duvall, who graduated from Seaver College in May. “I just wanted to go to a Christian college or place where I could practice my faith, and I would feel like other people around me were also practicing their faith,” Duvall said. “I’m happy that Pepperdine is

like, ‘yeah we’re a Church of Christ school. And we’re not ashamed of being Church of Christ.’”

Looking ahead, Duvall said she wants to add an Art minor to her IMC major, so she can pursue her love for painting and creating digital portraits. Duvall plans to spend her sophomore year in Germany with the Heidelberg program, where she hopes to reconnect with a German exchange student who lived with her family when Duvall was in sixth grade.

“Germany is so beautiful, especially Heidelberg,” Duvall said.

“Europe as a whole is not doing super well with COVID right now, so I hope that if I get there, I’ll at least be able to just live in Germany. If I can’t travel a ton, I understand, but I just want to get there.”

Duvall said she wants to keep developing her cooking skills as a hobby, and she is grateful to have access to a kitchen her first year of college.

G RA CE .W O O D @P E P P E RD I N E . E D U

First-year Integrated Marketing Communication major — soon to be Religion major — Colin Wiese said he realized he wanted to pursue a career in ministry after moving from Livermore, Calif., to the Malibu campus this semester after qualifying for a hardship exemption. Since fall 2020, he found ways to unite his fellow classmates while pursuing his faith.

Wiese is involved with worship at Vintage Church in Malibu and the Well at Pepperdine, in addition to leading his own Bible study. He said these experiences and his firstyear seminar class, “Living a Life of Purpose, Service, and Leadership,” taught by Dean of Students Professor Mark Davis, are parts of the reason he is changing his major from IMC to Religion.

“I wanted a church when I came down here that I could plug into and serve as opposed to just going as a consumer,” Wiese said. “And so I think I’ve been really lucky to have that at Vintage advantage because it’s such a family, communal atmosphere there.”

Wiese said his first-year seminar was the best class he’s ever taken, largely due to the close-knit environment Davis fostered.

“It was kind of an outlet for us to just be with each other and get through the struggles of the semester together and become such a family,” Wiese said. “Davis is so good at making people feel welcome, and making it an environment full of inclusion and appreciation for each other and love.”

While Wiese found a great community within his first-year seminar, he said he realized that many of his classmates did not share his experience. The most difficult thing about the pandemic, Wiese noticed, is the feeling of loneliness people are experiencing.

Wiese said he tried to remedy this in a small way by creating a Google form for the Class of 2024 that collected the names, ages and locations of his classmates. He posted it on the Pepperdine Class of 2024 Facebook page during the first semester.

He received hundreds of responses and compiled a spreadsheet of the information so people could see who lived near them.

Wiese said first-years in Nashville, Tenn., met up with each other because of it, and another person met their current roommate from the spreadsheet.

“That was really encouraging to know that even amidst all of this, that we’re still a family,” Wiese said. “And we can still, if we put an effort forth, take this step to be a community with each other.

He also built a community by creating a local Bible study through the YouVersion Bible App. It started as a weekly meeting with

photos courtesy of colin wiese Purpose at Pepp | (Above)

First-year Colin Wiese poses for an impromptu photoshoot on Pepperdine’s Malibu campus in March. He lived at home during the fall semester, so he said he was ready to take the next step and come to Pepperdine to start finding out his purpose. (Below) Wiese poses with a Bible on campus in March. The soonto-be Religion major said he loves that he has been given the privilege of leading a Bible study and serving on worship teams, but he wants God to be glorified through his efforts rather than himself.

five or six friends, but grew to 15 to 18 people regularly, Wiese said.

“It just kind of felt like church camp where we’re always meeting and having deep conversations about life and how to love each other better and about the Bible and adding worship,” Wiese said. “We’re not just bonding, but we’re bonding through Christ and there’s so much purpose in that.”

The Bible study meets safely just behind Urban Outfitters in the Malibu Country Mart. The group grew so accustomed to meeting weekly that they feel noticeably different when they don’t meet for a socially-distanced gathering. He said he is proud of the community that resulted from this and the reliance they developed on the Bible.

“Praying over people and going to church and having these conversations about what we’re made to do and actually being able to live that out and study the word together — I want that for the rest of my life,” Wiese said.

L INDSAY.M ASE@PEPPER DINE.EDU

Faithful student finds community through church l indsay m a se s taf f w r i te r First-year Integrated Marketing and Communication major Sydney Jean-Simon is from Boston, but she found a community remotely in Malibu through the International Churches of Christ.

Jean-Simon said she went on a service trip to Hawai’i during her senior year of high school with a Churches of Christ group, which introduced her to students she would be going to school with at Pepperdine.

“It’s kind of cool to see people that I knew years prior to going to Pepperdine and seeing them be in the same campus ministry as me and also being able to just meet new people,” Jean-Simon said. “I do love that.”

On her service trip to Hawai’i,

Jean-Simon said they were able to evangelize on the University of Hawaii campus. Her group cleaned off paths at some of the sacred locations, worked with kids at homeless shelters and supplied food and water. The trip indirectly led her to Pepperdine because she met a good friend, Megan Elias, who introduced Simon to someone attending Pepperdine on the trip.

“I probably wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my connections with the church,” Jean-Simon said.

Jean-Simon participated in another service trip in 2018 to Dallas, where she said she worked as a mentor at a center for kids who lived in unstable households.

“It’s fulfilling and also it’s just nice to be able to get to know people especially on the trips. I do like volunteering,” Jean-Simon

said.

Jean-Simon is involved with Alpha Omega Campus Ministry and formed a group of first-year friends from Alpha Omega across the country — one is from New York, another is from Maryland and one is from Colorado. She and her group of friends visited Malibu over Easter for Spring Recess.

“I am Christian and so being able to grow in my relationship with God as I am growing in my friendships with them is awesome,” Jean-Simon said.

Everything aligned perfectly for Jean-Simon to be able to attend Pepperdine, she said. She applied to the University after the service trip to Hawai’i, and then came out to Los Angeles for her senior gift — a trip with her father for graduation — right be-

photo courtesy of sydney jean-simon Faithful Friend | First-year IMC major Sydney Jean-Si-

mon goes for a drive with her friends to the ocean for a day in Marblehead, Mass., in January. She said she is passionate about her faith, family and friends. fore COVID-19 and was able to tour campus.

“I definitely can feel that sense of community with the professors and the students,” Jean-Simon said. “And also just everything else lining up financially, and for

my church too, just having the great campus ministry, it all kind of lined up.”

L INDSAY.M ASE@PEPPER DINE.EDU

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Prof Profile: Hispanic Studies prof loves Pepp’s community addiso n w hiten Staf f W r i te r April Marshall, a professor of Hispanic Studies, is in her 18th year of working at Pepperdine.

While at Pepperdine, she has worked as a professor and a divisional dean of International Studies and Languages.

Marshall, a Louisville, Ky., native, completed her bachelor’s and master’s programs at the University of Louisville before going to New York University to earn her doctorate. She specializes in 20th century Latin American literature, particularly literature that uses diseases as metaphors for problems in society. She said studying other cultures is a way to see how all people are connected, and to showcase the “magnitude and glory of God.” Why did you want to become a professor?

April Marshall: I became a professor because I wanted to share how I feel about our world with other people, and I wanted to engage how other people feel about the world — I wanted to have that exchange. I don’t know any more exciting, exhilarating feeling than learning something new, and to get to do that all the time, to get to do that as a job. I learn from the discussions I have, I learn as I prepare classes, I learn from the assignments people turn into me, I learn as much as I share with people. To get to do that as a job, as a career, it felt so right. It was a calling, and so that’s why: Because I wanted to share how I see the world with people and wanted to receive how they see the world.

How did you end up teaching at Pepperdine?

AM: When I was in gradu-

Photo courtesy of April Marshall Island Getaway | Hispanic Studies Professor April Marshall smiles while on a trip to the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador in May 2019. Marshall said traveling to the Galápagos Islands was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. ate school — I went to graduate school at NYU — NYU had a program in Madrid, and Pepperdine has a program in Madrid. So when I was in Madrid with NYU, I met one of the Spanish professors at the time doing the Pepperdine program in Madrid, and we connected at church, at the Church of Christ in Madrid. So I go to this church, being in Madrid, and, you know, the church the congregation, they’re like, ‘oh you’re a professor! Oh there’s another professor here too,’ and they introduced us. So we connected, and we actually had lunch while we were both in Madrid, and he happened to mention that he thought they would be hiring at Pepperdine, and so we stayed in touch, and one thing led to another and they were hiring. We reached back out when we came back, I just sent an email after I

got back to New York, you know, telling him it was nice to meet him and all that, and he said, ‘You know what? We are hiring, why don’t you apply,’ and here I am.

Why are you passionate about your field of expertise?

AM: It is this fascinating peek into how other people are the humans they are, and how we are so connected, so worried about the same things, how we value the same things, how we struggle with the same things, how we love the same things, how we mourn the same things. And to be able to do that in a different language is humbling. It’s fascinating. It reveals more about, I think, often, me and what I believe and what I think, than the culture I’m studying. I tell students part of why I teach what I teach and do what I

do is I think the world is a really big place, and I want to know all about it. But at the same time, by doing that, by learning more about it, I realize it’s also a very small place.

What is your favorite part of being a Pepp professor?

AM: The dimensions of community that we get to engage together. That’s intellectual and academic community, that’s the co-curricular community, you know, doing different things: eating together, events, sports, volunteering, service. The human community, walking together, but also that we engage the spiritual community in the process of learning to look at what does all this mean as children of God. If we believe we’re created in the image of God, what do we need to

do with what we’re learning? How do we apply that in a way that would please God, that would bring us closer to God, that would make the world more unified in the way that God would like it to be unified? And to be in all those communities simultaneously, it’s a beautiful way to exist. It’s a really beautiful thing to do at work.

And so I think that we have all these dimensions of community that come into play and that we try to engage while we do what we do.

ADDIE.W HITEN@PEPPER DINE.EDU

Movie Review: ‘42’ promotes equality on and off the field xiny un jessie wang staf f w r i te r The film “42” is a historical biographic drama about baseball legend Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) who played in Major League Baseball. The film, released in 2013, broke the record for the highest ticket sales on an opening weekend of a baseball movie, according to IMDb. Only 7.8% of athletes, or 80 players, in the MLB were Black in 2020, according to USA Today.

There were only three Black players in the MLB before Robinson, according to The Washington Post. Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, wanted to challenge that, so he signed Robinson in 1947.

The film “42” delivers the message that people should stand up for and support each other regardless of race or social class.

At first, most of Robinson’s teammates did not want to play with him. Dixie Walker (Ryan Merriman) creates a petition to ban Robinson from the field.

The coach refuses and tells the other players who do not want to play with Robinson that he is the future of the MLB. Rickey tells Walker that if he cannot stand playing with Robinson, he can leave the team. Rickey trades Walker to their rival team, the Philadelphia Phillies. Walker then realizes he should not have created the petition because he wants to stay with the Dodgers.

More people in the Black community start to watch Robinson train and pick up baseballs for him. Robinson, as he inspires more people to come to the field and watch him practice, opens up opportunities for Black athletes to play sports and pursue professional careers. Ford gives an

Photos courtesy of legendary pictures New Team Member | Jackie Robinson, played by the late Chadwick Boseman, sits alone on a locker room bench in front of his official Dodgers jersey. Unlike his teammates who had lockers, he only had a hook in the corner. outstanding performance that depicts a businessman with a caring heart. Rickey is also a legend and mentor to Robinson. When Philadelphia’s coach Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk) insults Robinson on the field, Rickey shows his support for Robinson.

After Chapman hurls racist insults at Robinson, Robinson can hardly bear it and runs off the field. Rickey encourages Robinson by pointing out how he can help the team win and inspire others even off the field. Rickey says to Robinson, “We need you, everybody needs you. You’re medicine, Jack!”

Robinson’s legacy is an example of how and why people should treat each other equally. With the

support of his teammates, his coach and Rickey, Robinson’s confidence grows. He felt like he is no different from others.

The MLB players eventually accept Robinson and his story inspires generation after generation across different sports. No matter the background, all people should accept each other.

The film “42” shows how people with different backgrounds can work together and even be friends. Robinson inspired other Black athletes to join the MLB, such as the right-handed hitter from Kansas City Athletics and New York Mets, Ed Charles. Later in 1973, the Robinson family started a foundation called “The Jackie Robinson Foundation” to

Time to Talk | Dodgers owner Branch Rickey encourages Robinson after a Philadelphia coach insulted Robinson. Rickey signed Robinson to the Dodgers. support minority students to go to college.

For Jackie Robinson Day, take time to honor this legendary player by watching “42.” The film is available for streaming on

Amazon, Apple TV +, Fandango and VUDU.

X INYUN.WANG@PEPPER DINE.EDU

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PhotoS Courtesy of ALI LEVENS Who’s Next | Junior libero Madison Shields high-fives her teammates prior to a Feb. 23 match against BYU in Firestone Fieldhouse. The Waves defeated the Cougars that day, one of their strongest wins to date as they enter the NCAA Tournament that will be played in Omaha, Neb.

Women’s Vball primed for NCAA Tournament run Karl Winter Staff Writer Pepperdine Women's Volleyball arrived in Omaha, Neb., ready to make some noise, and they will open the NCAA Tournament with a first-round match Wednesday morning, April 14.

The 20th-ranked Waves celebrated their 24th NCAA Tournament selection in program history, their second in three seasons, having advanced to the second round in 2018.

The Waves cheered loudly in the trophy room in Heritage Hall on April 4, relieved to be selected for the tournament. Nonetheless, the Waves are not content with simply making it to Omaha.

"We've been telling our girls, 'Don't pack for two days. We're planning to be there for a little while,'" Head Coach Scott Wong said. "We're going to have some work to do. There's some good teams, but we feel like we're one of the great ones."

Pepperdine enters the tournament led by a host of West Coast Conference honorees, including four All-WCC First Team players: junior outside hitter Rachel Ahrens, senior outside hitter Shannon Scully, sophomore setter Isabel Zelaya and freshman middle blocker Meg Brown.

The WCC named Brown its Freshman of the Year, and Waves

junior Madison Shields earned the top defensive accolade in the conference: Libero of the Year.

Road to Omaha In a season where only 48 teams made the NCAA Tournament, as opposed to the usual 64, at-large bids were more limited. Thirty conference champions earned an automatic ticket, but Pepperdine did not win the WCC despite going 16-2 in conference play.

“We felt like we were a shoo-in, but you just never know until it pops up,” Wong said.

Fellow WCC teams No. 14 BYU and No. 21 San Diego also made the tournament. The Waves split the season series with the Cougars and Toreros, but BYU won the conference because it swept San Diego in their two matchups.

“This year is just pretty interesting in the way that not a lot of teams have played out of conference,” Brown said. “There’s a really good opportunity for some teams to shock some of these big top-10 teams that haven’t really had much experience outside of their conference. We’re looking to be one of those teams that can do that.”

In 2021, the Waves swept the Cougars in a match for the first time since 1976, and beat San Diego on the road for the first time since 2011.

The Pepperdine team that lost in the second round of the tour-

Wong Served | Head Coach Scott Wong speaks to his team during a match Feb. 23, against BYU. In his sixth season at the helm, Wong led the Waves to their second NCAA Tournament appearance in three seasons.

nament was also balanced with young and experienced players, but Shields said the 2021 Waves may be even better.

“The chemistry that we have with each other, regardless of the year, freshman through senior, is definitely a lot stronger,” Shields said. “Everyone’s willing to make a sacrifice, do what they can to win.”

One of those sacrifices was taking extreme care to follow COVID-19 safety precautions.

The team endured a long fall offseason, but once matches began, the Waves did not have a single match postponed or canceled for COVID-19-related reasons.

“Everyone is very disciplined about how they went about things,” Shields said. “It’s definitely paying off, even though we have to take these kind of precautions now, we still get to compete.”

Pepperdine Athletics arranged for the team to be placed in quarantine housing to keep them safe prior to their departure, due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the athletic department.

On short notice, some members of the team moved into the Villa Graziadio Executive Center on campus, while two student-athletes and the coaches were housed in an off-campus hotel. They stayed in the quarantine bubble for four nights before flying out of LAX on April 11.

Opponent and Potential Opponents The entire tournament will take place in Omaha, Neb., with the top 16 seeds earning a first-round bye and arriving in Nebraska a day later (Monday, April 12, rather than Sunday, April 11). The University of Nebraska is hosting the entire tournament.

Waves players and coaches said they felt good about their slot on the bracket and opening matchup.

Pepperdine will take on UMBC in the first round of the bracket, Wednesday at 9 a.m., PDT. The coaches in the America East Conference picked the Retrievers to finish fifth of seven teams in their February preseason poll, so their conference title and trip to Omaha is somewhat of a Cinderella story. UMBC is 10-3

overall and making its first NCAA appearance since 1998, and its roster features 11 players, 7 of whom are underclassmen.

“Whoever we play out of the other 47 teams, it’s going to be tough,” Wong said. “UMBC had a great season.They’re doing some really good things to make teams a little uncomfortable.”

Should the Waves defeat the Retrievers, they’ll take on No. 12 Baylor, a potential rematch of the five-set thriller between the Waves and Bears in Waco, Texas, in February.

The Waves’ match against thenNo. 6 Baylor was not on the docket at the beginning of the season, but Wong scheduled it to give the Waves a chance to test themselves against a top team.

“We were saying Scott was like a wizard,” Brown said. “The fact that he was able to schedule that game and get us that really cool opportunity to play a top-10 team and us coming really close — just really instilled in us that we are good enough to be at the top.”

The Waves’ potential second-round match against Baylor would take place Thursday at 9 a.m., PDT, and if Pepperdine advanced further, they would not play again until Sunday, April 18.

Itinerary in Omaha Practices and matches for all 48 teams will take place in the same building — the CHI Health Center Omaha, which includes both an arena and a large Convention Center. The Convention Center includes eight practice courts and four game courts, which will host the first three rounds of the tournament.

The NCAA allots each team 90 minutes of practice time per day on a practice court and 30 minutes on the game court, so the Waves practiced for two hours Tuesday morning after undergoing COVID-19 testing.

The Waves will attend class virtually as often as they can while on the road, and will be in their hotel rooms by 10 p.m., each night to acclimatize to the time change and prepare for their early match Wednesday.

“It’s not going to be a full bub-

ble; it’ll be more of a controlled environment,” Wong said. “We’ve been doing things the right way.

There’s not going to be a lot of change, but just maybe not a lot of flexibility in the structure that we’ve been given with practice times and testing.”

The NCAA and the venue will allow limited amounts of spectators, up to 80 per match, at the first three rounds of the tournament.

The abnormal format, which includes two game courts in the same room, separated only by a divider, reminded Wong and Shields of a club volleyball setup.

Though several NCAA coaches expressed outrage over the flooring, lack of locker rooms and lack of broadcast commentators at the tournament, Shields said she was not concerned.

“It’s really cool that all the teams are going to be there at one time, as opposed to meeting at one place in the Final Four,” Shields said. “It’s going to be interesting.

A lot of us haven’t played club or high school in a while, but we’ve done that our whole lives, so I don’t think anyone’s too concerned.”

The NCAA later clarified the concerns, and ESPN added commentators for the tournament’s opening two rounds, which will be streamed live on ESPN3.

NCAA.com named Pepperdine an unseeded team to watch in the tournament, and the Waves say they are confident that they will remain in Omaha for several more days.

“I definitely feel we have a good shot at making a good run in this tournament, so I’m excited,” Shields said.

A season that began in the fall of 2020 with only three athletes allowed to practice, outside, on grass, with the sun in their eyes will end on the biggest stage in collegiate volleyball — the big dance.

Karl.winter@pepperdine.edu

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Waves win back-to-back conference matches just in t o uhey s taf f w r i t e r The No. 30 Pepperdine Men’s Tennis team continued its dominant WCC play with victories over Saint Mary’s and LMU. The victories gave the Waves a 4-0 WCC record, and they have yet to lose a set against WCC teams this season.

On April 9, the Waves were forceful against the Gaels, starting off strong by winning the doubles point.

The No. 62 doubles pair of Graduate Student Adrian Oetzbach and freshman Guy Den Ouden won their match easily 6-1, followed by Junior Corrado Summaria and Junior Tim Zeitvogel winning their match 6-1 as well.

“I think that Guy and I are a good combination and we accompany each other’s game well,” Oetzbach said. “I feel like the depth of our doubles squad has been a strength for us all year.”

Summaria was the first to finish his singles match, defeating Boris Rackow 6-2, 6-1. Sophomore Pietro Fellin was the next victor, winning his match against Karlo Divkovic 6-0, 6-1. Den Ouden, the reigning WCC Player of the Week, clinched the dual point with a 6-2, 6-4 win over James Watt.

Oetzbach credited his teammates for giving him a jolt of ener-

gy as the match was going on.

“I am more of an introverted person when it comes to my play; I am relatively quiet,” Oetzbach said. “When I hear the guys on the sidelines or on other courts it gives me confidence and motivation.

We have been doing a great job of keeping the energy high throughout our matches.”

The Waves continued their electric weekend with a win against LMU in Malibu on April 11, which ended the Lions’ undefeated record in the WCC. Pepperdine swept the doubles point again, as Oetzbach and Den Ouden won 6-3, followed by a Summaria and Zeitvogel 6-2 win.

“Tim [Zeitvogel] and I have great synergy and we played together last semester before COVID-19 cancelled our season,” Summaria said. “We got back together after Tim had COVID-19 and everything started to click again once we started to develop similar strategies to the ones we had last year.”

In singles, the dual was close in the early stages, but the Waves pulled ahead of the Lions to win every singles match.

Den Ouden was the first to win his match, defeating Diego Nava 6-1, 6-1 on court two. Summaria then won his match on court five against Thien Nguyen 6-2, 6-3.

“The last month I have become more confident every match that I

play, and I am applying more straegies that my coaches have been telling me,” Summaria said. “Being attentive to the details and learning from each match has allowed me to play well so far this season.”

Soon after, Zeitvogel made easy work of his opponent, Ethan Prost, winning 6-2, 6-2, and Oetzbach defeated Daniel Moreno 6-2, 6-2 as well to solidify the Waves’ win.

“I had a COVID-19 infection back in December, so I am still recovering from that,” Zeitvogel said.

“I am excited to be heading in the right direction and I am excited to grow as a player for this team.”

Oetzbach said his improvement and confidence is due to a summer of intense training.

“I had the opportunity to improve my game in Germany as there were few restrictions for training during lockdowns,” Oetzbach said.

“The coaches have trusted me on court one the entire season, even when I am not playing well, that has instilled a lot of confidence in the way I approach my matches.’”

Dane Bruhahn | staff photographer

J U S T I N .T O U H E Y @P E P P E RD I N E . E D U

Sweet Swing | Junior Tim Zeitvogel returns the ball April 11, at Pepperdine. Zeitvogel has battled back from COVID-19 and is returning to top form.

Get Low| Junior Corrado Summaria gets ready for the opposing team’s serve April Eyes Up | Freshman Guy Den Ouden gets ready to 11, at Pepperdine. Summaria was solid against the Lions, winning 6-2, 6-3 and put- serve April 9, against Saint Mary’s at Pepperdine. Oudting the Waves in a position to win. en won his match against the Gaels 6-2, 6-4.

Where are they Now?: Deahna Kraft changes school and sport aust in hall staf f w r i te r Deahna Kraft spent three seasons on the sand for Pepperdine Beach Volleyball, but she knew her heart was somewhere else.

In Malibu, Kraft amassed 67 career victories (11th highest in school history), was a two time AllWCC selection and an AVCA honorable mention All-American.

After her stay at Pepperdine, Kraft decided to use her extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 shutdown to transfer to her dream school, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and finish her career on the hardwood instead of the sand. The Badgers are ranked No. 1 in the country heading into the NCAA Women’s Volleyball Tournament, and Kraft is excited to be a key contributor on the team.

“Whenever I get these gut feelings, I have to listen to them,” Kraft said. “Wisconsin has an insane culture, they’re historically awesome and I’ve watched them since high school. I felt like I wanted to be around greatness.”

In the sixth installment of the “Where Are They Now?” series featuring former Pepperdine student-athletes, the Graphic spoke to Kraft, the beach volleyball star turned rotation player for the undefeated Badgers. Previous installments covered Stacy Davis, Kelley Larsen, Quincy McAfee, Dave Wieczorek and Mayar Sherif.

Kraft, originally an outside hitter from Garfield High School in Seattle, Wash., she always entertained the possibility of playing

for the Badgers. Wisconsin was the top school she looked into during her junior and senior year of high school. Nonetheless, Kraft only had the option of joining the team as a walk-on.

It wasn’t until Kraft traveled to Malibu when she decided playing beach instead of indoor was a possibility.

“The first time I went to Pepperdine, it was really just for fun,” Kraft said. “It was for a beach camp even though I wanted to play indoor like most girls. By the third day, I was on the recruitment court with tons of girls that were already committed to Pepperdine.”

Although the camp was a valuable experience, Kraft said she didn’t consider Pepperdine until she returned home.

“Four months later when they sent me a letter, I took a visit there and loved it,” Kraft said. “The place was down to earth and people can just go to the beach every day. I mean, if you get offered and can go play at the beach every day under one of the best coaching staff in the world, you would almost be dumb to say no.”

Kraft played in 97 career matches for the Waves. She helped Pepperdine finish second in the USA Collegiate Beach Championships as a junior and paired with Brook Bauer. In her senior season, and paired with Bauer once more, the duo went 3-4 before the season paused due to COVID-19.

Before her final season as a Wave was underway, Kraft said she felt a drive to blaze a trail elsewhere.

“I took an official visit to Wisconsin in November before the

season,” Kraft said. “I talked about transferring going back to my sophomore year so I always kind of flirted with it.”

Kraft said Brittany Howard, a 2017 beach volleyball alumna and one of her closest friends, also pushed her to go through with transferring to her dream school.

“It was Brittany that made it a point to say ‘Deahna, you’ve talked about wanting to go to Wisconsin your whole life,’” Kraft said. “Just reach out and then see what happens.”

Kraft said she initially was uneasy about looking at Wisconsin while she was at Pepperdine.

“It almost felt like I was cheating on the Pepperdine team,” Kraft said. “It completely wasn’t my intention but it was before the season and you’re reaching out to coaches thinking about your future. It was a little weird.”

Kraft said she fell in love with the school during her visit and told Head Coach Kelly Sheffield she wanted to transfer. She attributes the emphasis on the sport and competitive environment as some of the reasons she moved from Malibu to Madison.

“The environment is just different here,” Kraft said. “A part of me just knew. They have some of the best players in the nation and I knew they’d bring the best out of me. On my visit I went to a game where they were playing Nebraska and the energy was electric.”

Kraft played in 31 sets in 12 of 13 matches with three starts. Kraft, listed at 6’0”, plays outside hitter and defensive specialist. She’s seventh on the team with 21 kills and

sixth on the team with 41 digs.

Kraft joined a Badgers team that’s no stranger to making noise in the tournament. Wisconsin was the runner-up in both the 2013 and 2019 seasons. The roster boasts incredible depth, including eight seniors, five badgers AVCA All-Regional sections and seven All-Conference selections.

Kraft said depth is easily the strength on the team.

“I couldn’t imagine our team being more deep,” Kraft said. “We have a huge roster, everyone can play and everyone pushes each other. In practice, our A-team will scrimmage our B-team. The B-team could probably beat a handful of teams in the Big Ten they’re so good.

Wisconsin dismantled every team they played this season. Ten of their 13 matches were 3-0 sweeps, and the teams that didn’t get swept never stole more than one set. Wisconsin’s total set record this year is an astounding 39-3.

Despite the dominant regular season, Wisconsin hasn’t been without hiccups off the court. They suffered a two-week shutdown that started Feb. 25, and a three-week shutdown that started March 15.

Kraft said the time off added to the importance of practice.

“It’s been so tough with the stops and cancelations,” Kraft said.

“But we’re still in a good spot because of our crazy competitive practices. Everyone is a weapon on our team, and our offense is hard to stop even if we did have to take two breaks. It speaks to our ballers on the front row.”

Wisconsin has a first-round bye

photo courtesy of Deahna Kraft Fresh Start| Kraft celebrates by picking up RS Sr. outside hitter Molly Haggerty in a Feb. 6 victory against Rutgers. Wisconsin has seven All-Conference players this season. in the tournament and is set to play the winner of Bowling Green and Weber State. Pepperdine Women’s Volleyball received a tournament bid as well. Pepperdine beat UMBC and will play Baylor Thursday.

Our tournament victories for Pepperdine and three for Wisconsin would result in the teams squaring off in the Final Four.

“That would be so fun,” Kraft said. “I’ve rooted for them this whole season and it’s cool they got in the tournament. If we play each other, game on.”

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Women’s soccer misses opportunity versus BYU paxt o n r itchey s por ts edit or Pepperdine Women’s Soccer came into the April 10 matchup versus BYU knowing it was probably its last chance to impress the NCAA Tournament selection committee with a signature win at Tari Frahm Rokus Field.

The No. 25 Waves outshot the No. 16 Cougars 16-8 and were the threatening team for large stretches, but the visitors rode the playmaking of seniors Cameron Tucker and Mikayla Colohan to make the most of their chances and seal a 2-1 victory. It was the first win in Malibu since 2012 for BYU. “We’ve outplayed a lot of teams this year, and I would edge it toward us today,” Head Coach Tim Ward said. “I think we had more shots and clear-cut chances, but they were ruthless. They got two chances and buried it.”

The clearest chance for Pepperdine came less than a minute into the match. A BYU defensive giveaway gifted the Waves a twoon-zero breakaway, with Cougars goalkeeper Cassidy Smith charging off her line. Waves senior midfielder Calista Reyes received the square ball with an empty net in front of her, but she put the shot wide left.

Those wild first 30 seconds were a precursor to a fast and furious opening to the match. Both teams were determined to out-attack one another with open and direct styles of play, which junior winger Leyla McFarland said played into BYU’s strengths.

“We knew they like to run,” Mc-

Farland said. “We were going to try to prevent that as much as possible, but we honestly got into a track meet with them. We were both going so hard.”

Despite the fast-paced start, Pepperdine looked like the stronger team early on. The Waves successfully counter-pressed BYU and forced the Cougars defense into several mistakes in their own half.

In the 14th minute, McFarland dribbled the ball through the legs of a BYU defender and played a through ball into senior midfielder Joelle Anderson. The Houston Dash draft pick muscled off a BYU player and found herself one-onone against Smith but shot it right at the Cougars goalkeeper.

“We should be up 2-0 after the first 15 minutes,” Ward said. “Our girls know it.”

After the first 20 minutes, the pace slowed down significantly, and BYU began to assert itself. In the 26th minute, Tucker brought the ball up the right side and sent a searching pass across goal. Ashton Johnson, a substitute who had only been on the field for three minutes, beat the Pepperdine defender to the ball and hit the back of the net to give BYU a 1-0 lead on their first shot of the day.

The Cougars dominated play up until halftime, forcing saves from Waves redshirt junior goalkeeper Zoe Clevely in the 30th and 42nd minutes, but Pepperdine still took a 6-4 shots advantage into the break.

At the start of the second half, Pepperdine came out on fire, putting pressure on the Cougars immediately. Substitute senior for-

ward Devyn Gilfoy and Anderson forced saves by Smith within the first five minutes of the second half, and freshman Tori Waldeck hit the side netting from a tight angle on the end of a pass from Anderson in the 59th minute.

“When you can rotate girls in midfield and up front, you can press and go after teams a little bit more,” Ward said.

Once again, it was the Cougars who got on the scoresheet by converting their first real chance of the half in the 60th minute. Colohan, the reigning WCC Player of the Year, advanced the ball in transition and played it on to Tucker.

After setting up BYU’s first goal, Tucker was on the receiving end of this one, punching it past Clevely to make it 2-0.

The dynamic duo of Colohan and Tucker have paced the Cougars attack all season. With her goal and assist on Saturday, Tucker has 8 goals and 7 assists in 14 games this season. After scoring 16 goals in 23 games a year ago, Colohan already has 11 this year, and notched her fifth assist setting up Tucker against the Waves. The Orlando Pride selected Colohan with the 14th overall pick in the 2nd round of this year’s NWSL draft, 12 picks ahead of Pepperdine’s Anderson.

The Waves refused to go quietly after falling behind by two goals.

Reyes hit the post from a very tight angle in the 61st minute, and sophomore forward Shelby Little sent a strong shot over the bar in the 63rd.

“I think every game ebbs and flows the way that it did, but I’m really proud of our team for the

ashton bell | staff photographer Sliding Attempt | Sophomore Shelby Little (in orange) attempts a tackle on BYU’s Mikayla Colohan (No. 8) during Saturday’s West Coast Conference match in Malibu.

Colohan, the reigning WCC Player of the Year, provided an assist in BYU’s 2-1 win.

ashton bell | staff photographer Malibu Sendoff | Senior defender Erin Sinai receives the ball during Saturday’s match against BYU. Sinai and the other seniors on the team played their last match at Tari Frahm Rokus Field on Saturday. way they responded and the way we never stopped and never gave up,” senior Laura Ishikawa said.

Pepperdine got a goal back in the 68th minute. Ishikawa, playing as a left back, lifted a ball over the top of the BYU defense for McFarland to run onto. McFarland rounded a defender and fired a shot into the bottom right corner past Smith from six yards out to cut the deficit in half and give some credibility to Pepperdine’s attack.

“Those are, like, my favorite kind of balls to run onto,” McFarland said. “Anything over the defense, just let me run. The defender had a pretty good position, but I saw her slow down a little bit, so I thought this was my time to cut her off.”

Pepperdine searched for the equalizer, but it didn’t come. A scramble after a 74th-minute corner saw the ball squirt out to senior forward Aliyah Satterfield, who hit a first-time volley that forced Smith into a diving save. A giveaway by Smith gifted Anderson a chance in the 81st, but once again the Waves playmaker couldn’t place her shot away from the middle of the goal, and the save was comfortable for the Cougars goalkeeper.

At the other end, Tucker had a one-on-one chance to ice the game in the 83rd minute, but Clevely made a fantastic save on the breakaway.

When the final whistle sounded, Pepperdine was left to dwell on missed opportunities, and faced another instance of coming up just short against a top team.

“Maybe this is what our program needs looking forward, so we don’t forget this,” Ward said.

“We’ve got to take that next step as a program and just bury chances

Spor ting ev en ts thi s week THU

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w. Vo lle y b a l l n ca a ch a mp i on sh ips i n o m a h a , n e b. se c o n d ro u n d vs. N o. 1 2 B ay lor | 9 a.m.

T V: E S P N 3

w. s wim an d di v e p cs c cham pi onsh ip s in irvi ne, cali f.

t r ac k b ryan clay in vitatio n a l in azusa, ca lif.

w. s w i m a n d di v e p csc ch amp ion sh i ps in irvin e , ca lif.

m e n ’s t e n n i s

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beac h volleyball v s. s a in t ma ry ’s | 10 a . m. v s. c a l ifo r n ia | 2 p. m. in pa l o a lto, c a l if.

w. sw i m and d i v e

w o m e n ’s t e n ni s

Pepperdine spring invite | 11 a.m.

vs. portlan d | 1:30 P. M.

vs. gon zaga | 3 p. M.

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17 w omen’s soc c e r

brya n c l ay in v itatio n a l in @ Gonzaga | noo n a zus a , c a l if.

@ Portlan d | 11 A . M.

baseball

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men’s tenni s @ go n zaga | 11 A . M.

w omen’s tenni s vs. gonzaga | noon

baseball vs. gonzaga | 1 p. m .

men’s volleyb al l @ S ta n fo r d | 4 p. m .

when we get them.”

The Waves sit at 6-4-1 overall with a 5-2-1 record in the WCC, trailing Santa Clara and BYU in the conference standings. While Pepperdine has taken care of business against unranked WCC opponents, they are 0-4 against Top-50 NCAA teams, with losses to No. 4 UCLA, No. 13 Santa Clara, Stanford and now the No. 16 Cougars.

With the NCAA Tournament only having 48 teams instead of 64 this season, Ward said he is not optimistic about Pepperdine’s chances of being included.

“I think today was the game,” Ward said. “I’d be shocked if we got an at-large bid. You need a significant result against a tournament team and today was our last chance.”

The Waves have one more regular season match on the road against Gonzaga on April 17, but for seniors like Ishikawa, their Malibu careers are officially over.

“It’s definitely emotional,” Ishikawa said. “I’m disappointed that we weren’t able to end with a win, but I’m also just very grateful for the time I’ve gotten to spend on this field and the ways that it’s changed me and the team that I got to spend this time with. Overall, I’m sad that it’s ending, but I’m really, really grateful that it happened in the first place.”

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TUE 20 b ase bal l v s. u c l a | 3 p. m .