>>by Laurie Babinski>>

Image is everything.

Begin with the flashy catalogue.  Flip open the glacier blue cover, and shining out from the glossy pages is the image of Pepperdine. The 830 acres of well-manicured lawns overlooking 16 miles of pristine Malibu coastline, a recently renovated fountain surrounded by country club green umbrellas, tanned faces with 100-watt grins, all luring in prospective students.

But leave those images, and read the writing on the facing pages.  An academic institution ranked 48th in the nation by U.S. News & World Reports. NCAA division I athletic teams. A strong affiliation with the Church of Christ.

The image begins to blur. Where does the real Pepperdine lay, in the pictures or in the words?

“Pepperdine is a Christian university committed to the highest standards of academic excellence,” the university mission statement affirms.

Founded in 1937, Pepperdine has soared to 48 on the U.S. News 2002 best colleges scale. The category “National Universities – Doctoral” includes 249 institutions “offering a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master’s and Ph.D. degrees, and emphasizes faculty research.”

Academic strength is further reflected in incoming freshmen SAT and ACT scores, which are among the top 40 in the nation. With only 100 to 200 SAT points average behind the Ivy Leagues, Pepperdine oozes of academia. 

But images of the suntan surfer and the astute academic collide. What is the real academic image of Pepperdine?

Junior Breton Phillips knew the scholarly expectations when he came in, but they weren’t as stringent as university statistics would lead him to believe.

“In the end, I think Pepperdine’s as strong as any school out there,” Phillips said. “It’s very competitive for a really young school.  But it’s not the Ivy League kind of demanding. When I came in, I thought it would be a place where I could challenge myself if I wanted to,” said Phillips, a business administration major.  “I wasn’t going to be challenged by the (professors) or anything like that, but if I wanted to push myself I could.

“Now, there’s maybe one class where I feel like I do everything and I have to do it well,” Phillips continued.  “It’s really easy to get a B in a class here.”

And Pepperdine is not oblivious to Phillips’ point of view.  The administration waged a war on grade inflation last year when reports were publicized that the UC Berkley Law School ranked Pepperdine 106 out of 120 undergraduate programs in 1999 because of grade inflation.

The battle lines were drawn when Seaver Dean Dr. David Baird congratulated the Natural Science Division for the lowest grade point average in the college, 2.71.  

But while the war to improve the strictest definition of academic achievement continues, other Pepperdine academic advantages remain indisputable.

Class size and student/teacher ratios are a key selling point to lure incoming freshman. Roughly 70 percent of Seaver classes have less than 20 students, according to the Office of Planning and Assessment. As of 2000, the student-to-faculty ratio was 12 to 1, 31st in the country according to U.S. News.

“There’s nothing like going in a classroom when your teacher knows your name,” junior Kathy Yi said.

Pepperdine is not a sea of people as the title waves may lead one to believe. Roughly 3,000 students are enrolled at Seaver College, bringing the university total to 8,000 including the law school, school of educational psychology, business school and school of public policy.

The administration continues to augment the advantages of Pepperdine’s small size with the construction of new facilities. 

The university dedicated the four-story Keck Science Center in October. The building boasts a lecture hall and unprecedented technology hook-ups for easier access to Ethernet, the schools cable Internet system.

The Drescher Graduate Campus, slated for completion in 2003, will house programs of the Graziadio School of Business and Management and the Graduate School of Education and Psychology and will also become the permanent home of the School of Public Policy. Plans also include an executive conference center, academic support facilities, faculty/staff housing and parking areas.

Academic exploits reach farther and deeper than the walls of a building. 

At the University of Idaho, where her brother and sister are both alumni, Yi is sure her academic learning would have been limited in the classroom and never would have gone beyond the bare white walls.

“Only about 50 percent of my education is actually done reading books,” Yi said. “In a bigger school, I never would have gotten the other half of the education I’m paying for.” Yi says that she never would have pledged a sorority or been involved in student government if she had attended a larger university either. More than 25 percent of Seaver students have pledged a sorority or fraternity, and organizations like SGA and clubs in the ICC pervade the atmosphere of the campus.

Education often goes so far outside the classrooms it finds itself on the other side of the world.  The Seaver curriculum emphasizes semester- and year-long international opportunities in Heidelberg, Germany; London, England; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Florence, Italy. Summer programs include journeys to Asia; Edinburgh, Scotland; Paris, France; Madrid, Spain; Costa Rica; Honduras; the Middle East; and Thailand. More than fifty percent of undergraduate students spend a semester or more abroad in international programs.

“International programs are one of the reasons I came here,” said senior international studies major Beverly Haro, who has participated in the Buenos Aires, Florence and Madrid programs. “I wanted to do one program—I just didn’t know I’d end up doing three.

“When you’re on the Pepperdine campus and studying in a book, nothing relates to you,” Haro continued. “(International programs) just makes it more real.”

In expelling the lackadaisical image of Pepperdine academics, reality seeps through the sunshine.  The selective school may want students to believe they are entering the Ivy Leagues, but the academic interests are found not just in the grades, but in other highly regarded facets of the university.

“…and Christian values,” the mission statement continues.

While academic opportunities flourish, Junior Priya Samuel, a communications and Spanish major, finds that the focus on academics only provides a glimpse into the Pepperdine persona. 

“Some people complain that they’re not challenged enough,” Samuel said. “But Pepperdine’s not all about academics. The Christian aspect and the social aspect are just as important.”

Pepperdine’s founding church, the Church of Christ, attracts 20.8 percent of students while 16.7 percent claims Catholicism and 10.5 percent are defined simply as members of the Christian church.

“I know kids who’ve come here not knowing or caring that it’s a Christian school,” Phillips said. “It’s like, ‘Did you miss the cross on the way up the hill or did you just interpret that as some artsy piece?’”

Religion isn’t only a peripheral aspect of the image; it is woven to the fiber of the school.

“Our roots determine who we are—they define us as an institution,” said Dr. Andrew K. Benton in his 2000 Inauguration address. “Just as we find a large number of Catholics at Notre Dame or Jews at the University of Judaism, it should not surprise anyone to find a significant number of members of the religious body to which Pepperdine is related—the Churches of Christ—as faculty, staff, and students here. Since the University is not controlled by a church and has no organic link with any external organization, Pepperdine remains connected with its heritage through individual members of the Churches of Christ.

“…This is an uncommon university filling a unique role, and its character is grounded solidly in the first line of our Affirmation Statement: ‘We affirm that God is and that God is revealed uniquely in Christ,’” Benton continued.

And students may be taking the mission seriously. Princeton Review recently ranked Pepperdine fifth in students who pray on a regular basis.

“America and the world need Christianity,” George Pepperdine said in his 1937 dedicatory address. “Yes, they need knowledge, culture, education, but they need Christ even more…An educated man without religion is like a ship without a rudder or a powerful automobile without a steering gear. There is no life so much worthwhile in this world as the Christian life because it promotes the most happiness and contentment and the greatest promise of life hereafter.”

But while some students are dedicated to Pepperdine’s Christian mission, not all students model their lives after the religious code.

“I like it because it is a Christian school but not a Christian school, because it isn’t a place where everyone has to be a Christian to come here,” junior Tabatha Laws said.  “For someone who is a Christian it is important not to shield (himself) too far away form the world. It’s not a social club to me and not a part of the real world.”

Other students feel that as the university claims religion as such and integral part of the school, the reality is that it doesn’t live up to its Christian claim.

“Pepperdine is very effective in portraying the image that it is a strong school both academically and religiously,” senior economics major Will Johnson said. “When I tell people I go to Pepperdine, they are impressed and think of it like it is an Ivy League school.

“But the marriage of religion and academics here creates a contradiction in the pursuit of truth,” Johnson continued. “So although it appears to work, it really doesn’t.”

But like academics, the Christian mission of the university does not dominate.  It holds a balance that few schools have managed to retain as they grow.

“The dilemmas arising from being a Christian university related to a particular church (all of those terms carrying their own weight of perceived contradiction) are heightened rather than reduced as we continue to seek our place in the national higher education conversation,” Benton said.

But Laws contends that Pepperdine doesn’t have to go the way of its predecessors.

“It has a good marriage right now,” Laws said. “If you focus on (Christianity or academics) too much, the other suffers.”

“…Where students are strengthened for lives of purpose, service and leadership.”

Taking learning out into the community has been a goal of the university since the beginning.  The Pepperdine Volunteer Center has paired with teachers to promote service learning, a program that fosters social change in both the community and the student.

Women's studies minor Katrina Scott founded Definitions, a newsletter that provides "a safe and comfortable environment for women to express themselves for who they are" to fulfill her service-learning requirement.

Classes from business administration to Spanish and psychology all require students to enter the community and effect change. The idea even takes on an international scale during summer programs in Thailand and Honduras.

And while students are strengthened through hands-on learning, others choose to strengthen their mind and body through a different method: sports.

The university sponsors 14 NCAA Division 1 athletic teams who have won more than 64 percent of their contests in the last 24 years. Although Pepperdine gives numerous scholarships for athletic excellence, athletes are still responsible for maintaining academic excellence as well.

“Intercollegiate athletes representing Pepperdine will be bona fide students pursuing degree programs of their choice who enjoy the opportunity to develop athletic abilities consistent with the high standards of academic scholarship, sportsmanship, leadership and institutional tradition,” said George Pepperdine, in his dedicatory address.

Most athletes feel the pressure to maintain a positive image to represent Pepperdine in the best light possible.

“The administration expects us to uphold a respectable and important image,” said Simon Ferrar, a senior communications major on the baseball team.

“Some of our players have been caught drinking in the past, and the administration keeps us in line because we have an image to uphold,” he continued. “We have to be examples for the rest of the school, and we do a lot of community service.”

Athletes do break the rules, just like other students do, but the administration punishes them accordingly. This year, Glen McGowan, Pepperdine’s star center/forward, was suspended for a semester because he allegedly initiated an altercation in the library.

“Sometimes athletes punishments are greater than the average student because they are not only suspended from school, they lose their eligibility to compete and sometimes their athletic scholarships,” said Bob White, Seaver college’s dean of students.

And the image crumbles.

There are countless images of Pepperdine. The beach-going surfers outsiders see. The pious Ivy League image the administration pushes. The athletic excellence that exudes Pepperdine’s strength.

One student defines the reality of Pepperdine by her own image.

“At first I was so caught up in trying to keep up with the people I thought, or maybe just assumed, were cool,” Yi said.  “Now, I think it’s hilarious that you read these magazines like Abercrombie and Fitch, then I look at myself and know I’m not that.  I’m not stick skinny, I don’t have a car, I’m not spoiled, and I have tons of loans.”

The administration defines it by its delicate balance of academics and Christianity.

“America has benefited from the dualism of its fine public and private institutions, and from pluralism in approach to quality and emphasis,” said Benton in his inaugural address. “I believe Pepperdine has the right and the mandate to be distinctive.”

And as each person or entity defines it differently, its identity lays in those collective views. The Princeton Review ranked Pepperdine students as the eleventh happiest in the nation. More than 60,000 students have passed through the doors because of the reality, not the image.

“It was hard, but that was just part of discovering Pepperdine,” Samuel said. “Finding out that are so many sides that go way beyond the Abercrombie image. I wouldn’t pay almost $33,000 to go somewhere only that had that beachfront image. I would have been out of here a long time ago.”

The reality?  The images blur, clouding the sunshine. The definition of Pepperdine’s reality depends on who defines it, proving that image is nothing.

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