Staff Editorial: Save money and go to UW

Dear President Benton,

We at the Graphic have a proposition for you: We receive a refund for the price of our tuition in excess of what University of Washington students pay, and we promise we won’t raise hell.

You see, wrapped into the $37,000 Pepperdine package was the implicit understanding that the weather during the academic year would deliver the kind of gratifying sunshine and expansive blue skies that put “Malibu U” on the map. Nowhere in our student admission process was there any mention of biweekly mudslides, road-closing boulders, torrential monsoons or general doom and gloom. We received no prior warning of misty, drizzly mornings, and we’re sorry, but the cloudless photographs of campus pictured on the catalog and Web site are blatant false advertising for the 2004-2005 school year.

In fact, the total number of legitimate beach days has been abysmal — on average, Graphic staff logged a measly two afternoons at the satellite campus of Zuma Beach this entire year. The only time our legs have touched a towel is after showering. And the rains have compromised surfing days just as badly.

We at Pepperdine University did not choose to attend this academic institution to burrow long afternoons between books in the library or steamed-up coffee shops. Seattle has plenty of Starbucks to keep us entertained if that was our cup of tea or other caffeinated beverage. And since this year we have been forced to engage in such uncharacteristic Malibu behavior, we demand our money back.
Here are a few more critical reasons why:

• For starters, the University of Washington beats us in U.S. News & World Reports’ ranking of national universities by six places (UW at No. 46, Pepperdine at No 52). And more importantly, the Washington Huskies actually have a mascot, and a self-respecting one at that. Saddened though we are that grizzled King Neptune is setting sail, we still don’t understand how our mascot was supposed to intimidate our rivals. And now that it’s politically incorrect to threaten to pummel Loyola Marymount like “tidal waves,” we’re at a complete loss. At least find us a new school mascot that’s not a personified force of nature. Friendly reminder: Midnight Madness was three months ago…

• While the Pacific Northwest’s beast of a university obviously has greater course offerings than our smaller scale (UW offers 1,800 undergraduate courses per quarter), we could probably find our favorite classes, which are currently being buried in Pepperdine’s reallocation graveyard if we traveled the 1,200 miles up I-5. With an art program that helped launch such artists as Dale Chihuly, the creator of the recent blown glass exhibit at Pepperdine’s Weisman Museum of Art, chances are that the UW wouldn’t be so quick to chop off a popular arm of their Fine Arts Division, unlike Pepperdine’s recent deliberations to discontinue the ceramics courses. Likewise, with as many Asian students (nearly 29 percent of 2004 UW freshmen), particularly Japanese (the fourth most represented nationality among international students in 2003), as attend the Washington alma mater, we anticipate that state school would also treat Pepperdine’s soon-to-be-sacrificed the Chado tea program with greater respect than our own university.

• Besides, UW’s men’s basketball team is an overachieving program, unlike our own. The Huskies even made it to the Sweet 16 this year, whereas the Waves just got to the Sweet 17 … 17 total wins that is.

But most importantly, Dr. Benton, we want our justly deserved and rightly anticipated sunshine and deep-bronze tans. Each day we begin to more closely resemble our pasty-white neighbors to the north is a penny lost on Pepperdine’s tuition. And we demand compensation.
As such, you can begin by depositing 16 checks for $21,508 in the student publications office, providing the difference between the UW and Pepperdine’s annual tuition. We anticipate the rest of the Pepperdine population will be contacting you shortly. Thank you for you time and consideration of our modest proposal.

Sincerely,
The Graphic Staff

Submitted 3-31-2005

MALIBU, CA