LETTER FROM THE

Dear Class of 2023, we did it!

Since stepping foot on the Malibu campus my senior year of high school, I quickly learned of Pepperdine’s physical beauty. However, the past four years as a digitization assistant in Pepperdine’s Special Collections granted me access to understand our university as a living, breathing institution.

The initial exposure I had to this history was in my first semester when I digitized a great deal of President Emeritus M. Norvel Young’s collection. Then-Chancellor Young is pictured in the 1972 to 2022 collage giving a speech next to comedian Bob Hope and President Emeritus William Banowsky during one of the first commencements at the Malibu Campus on April 12, 1973, which honored nine students.

The Class of 2023’s ceremony is a celebration of 50 years of Malibu commencements. We may feel our time here was a drop in the half-century bucket to make an impact on Pepperdine, yet I look upon this statistic as encouragement knowing that we, as the Class of 2023, made an impact too.

We did what our beloved mascot, Willie, called us to do: Make waves. Through a shortened first year, fully online second year, a restricted third year and a farewell fourth year, I am certain we exemplified our time spent remotely and in Malibu. As our class was the first to be welcomed at Tiner Court by President Jim Gash and First Lady Jolene Gash, we will be the first class to walk across the stage after being under Gash’s leadership for all four years of his presidency. But Pepperdine’s legacy extends beyond a president or a campus — its legacy is its students, and I am proud to say we contributed to that.

Fifty years ago, newly awarded Pepperdine alumni walked across the graduation stage under the same sun on the same campus. As you bask in the sun on our graduation day, I hope you think of the legacy our class will leave for the next 50 years to come.

Ali Levens (Seaver ’23) Senior Edition Designer