>>by julianne leupold>>

36”, 18”, 33”.

Long blonde hair. Legs that won’t quit.

She’s every man’s fantasy woman.

Too bad she’s plastic.

Although Pepperdine students don’t regularly have a rib removed to meet the figure of the plastic toy, the warped ideals she represents seem to permeate the campus.

It might come from the overpriced clothes sold in Malibu Colony that are cut to fit a toddler. Or maybe it is the freshman fashion show that regularly happens in the caf around dinner time.  Or maybe it is indefinable, just something that a few students feel without any utterly apparent reason.

“For any student, you definitely have to alter your behavior (at Pepperdine),” junior Frank Reneau said. Reneau grew up in the Bronx, New York, where he said no one cared what you wore or what you said. “The way people are so image oriented here, they aren’t ready to look at you as a person first. They are quick to judge you by what you wear and how you act. Those who refuse to conform end up being alienated.”

This covert force to conform to a nondescript perfect “Pepperdine image” doesn’t originate from some set-in-stone, rich surfer persona that defines a typical Wave. Instead it defaults from the sheer lack of culture and diversity on the Malibu campus.

“There isn’t a lot of diversity, but it is because of what kind of school it is,” said senior Ann Tran, who is a member of Pepperdine Ambassador’s Council and Delta Gamma sorority. “Because it is Church of Christ and because it is in Malibu, that is (the type of people) it attracts, and that is not its fault.”

Tran’s parents escaped from Vietnam in 1980 and lived in a refugee camp in the Phillipines for a year before immigrating to the United States. Although she grew up in the suburbia of Oregon with mainstream American traditions, she still feels connected to her parent’s heritage by speaking Vietnamese and celebrating religious traditions.

“I don’t feel like I do anything that is specifically Vietnamese,” senior Tran said. “Intangible things I do may come from my Vietnamese culture, but they (may) be things that my family does or is specifically Buddhism – so I didn’t know if my way of life was particularly Vietnamese, or if it was just part of my family’s idiosyncrasies. So to me coming to Pepperdine wasn’t a great shock.”

Although Tran didn’t experience any sort of withdrawal coming to an intensely mainstream community, some students struggle to maintain their cultural traditions and heritage in the face of a potentially stifling culture-cloned environment.

“I think (Pepperdine) made me cling to my culture more so,” said Monique Legazcue, a student of the Graduate School of Education and Psychology. Her father grew up in Euskal Erria, Spain, in culturally strong Basque country. “I would often have to go home so I could experience being around my friends of the same culture. I think Pepperdine supports different cultures for the most part, but I don’t see a great representation of multiculturalism.”

Legazcue travels back to Chino, Calif. almost every weekend to feel at home in her strong pocket of Basque culture. Once a year there a huge festival invades the cities cloaking tables with a cultural feast and street corners with gatherings, handball games, mus (card game) tournaments, Basque folk dancing, and a Catholic mass in Spanish.

“My favorite dance is called the warrior dance danced by adult males,” Legazcue said. “My younger nephew, who is 10, just started to learn this dance. They try to show how high they can kick and hit sticks like a sword fighting, but it is a dance. It is in honor of the fallen warrior.”

Although Pepperdine is the most culturally diverse it’s been since 1994, 58.7 percent of its students are white. The nearest representation of culture is Latino, with a small 8.8 percent in comparison. In context, the national demographics, according to Census 2000, measure 77 percent of the U.S. population as white and 13 percent as Latino, not too far from the representation at Pepperdine. However, in the last census California weighed in with an overwhelming Latino representation. Latinos or Hispanics outnumbered whites by more than 57,000,000 people.

“(Pepperdine) doesn’t have any culture at all – it is very, very white-bred,” said senior Julee Bailey, who is black. “There are only so many black girls here. I went to a multicultural high school in Houston – I went from that to a very uncultured school.

“I always get: ‘Why do black people do this?’ It is not malicious and I give props for people wanting to know, but I get tired of being the black encyclopedia,” she added.

Although Bailey is not able to visit her family frequently, she has created a new culture with her diverse group of friends at Pepperdine. She has learned to incorporate her past with her new live experiences, no matter how different they are.

Pepperdine is trying to promote this type of racial understanding and carve a permanent niche for every culture with the new multicultural clubs headed by Tabatha Jones, assistant director of Campus Life. The Black Student Union hosted a basketball tournament and block party. A random conglomeration of all races, including members of the AAA and LSA, joined together in United Colors to bring an energy packed performance to the Songfest stage last year.

“The cultural enrichment program with Tabatha is really good,” Bailey said. “I don’t have the time for the events.”

This rapidly expanding cultural program addresses the visible problems of the “white-bred” world of Pepperdine. Also the large number of international students and programs seek to broaden the horizons of students.

“At Seaver we emphasize the fundamentals: thinking, writing, reading, speaking and counting,” Dr. David Baird, dean of Seaver College, said. “…We also emphasize a broad exposure to the world around us, its history, its variety and its creative and artistic traditions.”

Almost half of all Pepperdine students broaden their horizons on an overseas program. However it is within this white-bred, weird world of the Malibu campus that the greatest Pepperdine stereotypes are derived and still thrive.

There is no one definite picture of a Pepperdine student. But spending four years here will change you as a person, for the good and bad.

“They obviously are looking for a certain image or student—or they wouldn’t ask you to send a picture in with your application,” Reneau said. “I am pretty sure that there are different flavor of kids here. But at any other college there is a diversity in their backgrounds or lifestyles or what they’re family does. Here every student has done the same sort of thing in high school.”

The Admissions Department strives to do just the opposite of what Reneau sees as an indisputable fact. Its mission statement, which gets sent to prospective students around the world, states, “Seaver College is a diverse academic community – religiously, economically, ethnically and culturally.”

Reneau thrives on being one of those “diverse” people – different than the norm at Pepperdine. He said that the sheer fact that he doesn’t care if people see him as different is what makes him cling to those things that make him unique.

“It is really hard to change, depending on where you go things are always going to change,” Reneau said. “In the end you have to be true to yourself. There is a real small underground of people who don’t conform and they just stand out. They are the ones who don’t join certain organizations like fraternities and sororities. I would admire them more because they are taking a risk and stepping out of the norm.”

Those who don’t shop at Planet Blue down in Malibu Colony, where a T-shirt is on sale if it costs $60, aren’t forced to sit in the quad with a scarlet “C” (cheap) on their chest. It might be just a sideways look from a stranger or a feeling of inadequacy when walking past the third Beamer on the way to class that starts the silent pattern of change in a person.

“(Pepperdine) made me a label whore,” said senior Cassy Lamensky, who migrated here from the backwoods of Brenham, Texas. “For two years in high school I never bought anything from a chain store. I either made it myself or bought it from Goodwill. 

“It is just an expectation to look nicer when you are around people who are dressed well,” she continued. “When I first came here I walked into the caf in my pajama pants and it was like a wall of ice. I was thinking, ‘Don’t be hating on the pig pants.’ They are my favorite pair of pants, and I thought I was going to be shot.”

Perhaps it is being on the cusp on the hip Los Angeles club scene or the natural haven for the Hollywood starlet, but wherever this need to be “in the now” comes from, it is undeniably here. And not just in clubbing clothes or that one expensive, favorite outfit. It is everywhere.

“I don’t know if it is the Malibu mindset, how much we stand out if we don’t conform,” Lamensky said. “The crowd we see at Ralph’s, even in church. Church is a fashion show. This little culture bubble we are in, we want to be a part of it so you accept the symbols and think it is normal to pay $500 for a purse.”

Lamensky turned in her battle-scarred green army style backpack for a BCBG bag. She still remembers her country roots with fondness, but she has all but abandoned her previous lifestyle for the Pepperdine image.

Perhaps the high-priced fashion items are a natural outgrowth of a wealthier class of people that attend school here. After all, the total cost to attend Pepperdine full time is $32,570 a year. Since the national median income for family households is $54,292, according to Census 2000, students must have inflated incomes to be able to even afford Pepperdine. Although nearly 75 percent of students have some form of financial aid, almost all packages include loans and very few cover the full cost of tuition.

The pervasiveness of this covert pressure undeniably is part of Pepperdine’s small, close-knit family atmosphere. However, living with this undefined pressure isn’t as bad as it seems. Some feel it is just a small price to pay for the benefits that Pepperdine provides.

“I never compare Pepperdine to normal college because we have a tight community,” Bailey said. “We don’t all get along but we know each other. It is its own little world.

You get to know teachers, you can talk to them and make friends if you want to. I have a teacher I had freshman year that I still talk to and I even babysit for her.”

Pepperdine prides itself on the family atmosphere, strong alumni network, volunteer opportunities and an academic program that actually prepares students for the real world. If the pressure to be a Barbie Doll, plastic body and all, is the trade-off for this unique constructive atmosphere many are more than happy to take it.

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