pepperdine magazine vol. 6, iss. 2 (fall 2014)

McBeard to the RescueClever content crusaders at McBeard Media are a close-knit family where nearly half of the employees are Pepperdine alumni.

Prison BreakPrison inmates helped Mara Leigh Taylor (MA ’03, MA ’06) find freedom and happiness.

Moments of TruthA new book by Graziadio School of Business and Management professor Mark Allen (MBA ‘90) breaks down 13 talent management principles that serve to help corporations unleash greater potential from their employees.

AN ELUSIVE SPECIES OF FISH unique to the California coast has

captured the interest of Seaver College biology professor Karen

Martin, her students, and the entire seaside community.

Volume 6 Issue 2 Fall 2014

PEPPERDINE M

AG

AZIN

E FALL 2014

Malibu • West Los Angeles • Encino • Irvine • Silicon Valley • Westlake Village • Washington, D.C. Heidelberg • London • Florence • Buenos Aires • Lausanne • Shanghai

change lives. give today.pepperdine.edu/campaign

Whose Life Will You Change?

42

FEATURES

14 See How They Run

An elusive species of fish unique to the California coast has captured the interest of Seaver College biology professor Karen Martin, her students, and the entire seaside community.

18 McBeard to the Rescue

Clever content crusaders at McBeard Media are a close-knit family where nearly half of the employees are Pepperdine alumni.

22 Prison Break

Prison inmates helped Mara Leigh Taylor (MA

’03, MA ’06) find freedom and happiness.

26 Moments of Truth

A new book by Graziadio School of Business and Management professor Mark Allen (MBA ‘90) breaks down 13 talent management principles that serve to help corporations unleash greater potential from their employees.

COMMUNITY

32 The Rite Stuff

34 A Balancing Act

36 Blind Ambition

38 Courage on Fire

40 The Game Changer

42 Advantage: Sarkissian

44 The Fervent Fiddler

46 Into the Light

DEPARTMENTS

2 Letters

4 Perspectives

6 News

12 Snapshot

30 Alumni

48 In Focus46

18

14

32

36

34

38

40

44

22 26

Volume 6 Issue 2 Fall 2014

1magazine.pepperdine.edu

L E T T ER FROM T HE ED I TOR

Beyond DNA, what makes a family a family? Perhaps it is the qualities of support, caring, empathy, trust, and loyalty that allow us to create family in many environments.

This issue of Pepperdine Magazine highlights some of those diverse family units that we form in the places where we dedicate our time and abilities. For Alan Beard (’94, MPP ’99) and Alec McNayr (’00) of McBeard Media, family is about creating a close, cooperative environment at work. For Mara Leigh Taylor (MA ’03, MA ’06), family is found in the encouragement among prison inmates as they struggle to alter their actions. For John Standley (’85), family is demonstrated in the thoughtful gift his father gave him and how Standley used that gift to help others through attentive customer service.

We are like family here at Pepperdine Magazine, where it takes a supportive team effort and hard work to produce this meaningful publication. As with any family, changes and shifts occur. I am honored to be serving as the magazine’s new editor, continuing the outstanding tradition set by former editor Megan Huard Boyle, who put her heart into the publication, significantly elevating its quality through her skillful guidance. Megan is continuing to use her talents to serve Pepperdine in other ways, while mentoring me in my new role.

In addition, hard-working senior writer Gareen Darakjian is the magazine’s new assistant editor, and writer Sophia Fischer has joined our staff.

And to you, our reader family, a hearty thank-you for your loyal support and readership. We write for you. So write to us, dear Waves family, at magazine.pepperdine.edu, and let us know what our Pepperdine family stories mean to you.

ALI B. TAGHAVI editor

Celebrating

Saturday, January 24, 2015Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills

310.506.4115pepperdine.edu/associates/dinner

PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATES DINNER

39th Annual

Tell us what you think!

Do you like what you’re reading?

How can we improve?

Visit magazine.pepperdine.edu to tell

us what you think about what you’re

reading and how we’re doing. We’ll

publish your thoughts in the next issue.

With “unforgettable” entertainment by Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter

Natalie Cole

2 P E P P E R D I N E M A G A Z I N E Fall 2014

LETTERS

magazine.pepperdine.edu

Pepperdine Magazine is now available for iOS and Android devices.

Download the app from iTunes and Google Play.

L E T T ERS TO T HE ED I TOR

Saturday, January 24, 2015Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills

310.506.4115pepperdine.edu/associates/dinner

Healing History

I’m so inspired by the positive spiritual principles Daryl has applied in his own life to overcome any misguided ill will towards any man while encouraging a proven process of healing that, if followed, can have a positive and uplifting effect on the nearly 50 million Americans of African descent, as well as our American brethren of all races, in sharing the American dream.

—Kevin Johnson

Thank you, Dr. Rowe, for sharing your grandfather’s story and spirit that I hope will further the healing process for people of African American descent through vehicles such as Emotional Emancipation Circles.

—Dr. Samuel Gordon

I look forward to learning about the effectiveness of the Emotional Emancipation Circles. The concept and intent is very progressive and thought provoking. Great job.

—Shandell Maxwell (BSM ’10, MS ’12)

Thank you for speaking to the method of recovery needed for healing the oppressed black people in America.

—Velma Union

editor Ali B. Taghavi

art director /app developer Keith Lungwitz

assistant editor /senior writer Gareen Darakjian

writer Sophia Fischer

graphic designers Adam Junod, Ryan Kotzin, Samantha Olson (Seaver senior)

photographer Ron Hall (’79)

copy editor Vincent Way

production manager Jill McWilliams

web manager Kyle Dusek (’90, ’97, MS ’99)

web developer Kimberly Robison (’10)

multimedia Anthony LaFleur, Nathan Pang (’07)

PUBLISHED BY THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

chief marketing officer and vice president for public affairs and church relations

Rick Gibson (MBA ’09, PKE 121)

associate vice president for integrated marketing communications

Matt Midura (’97, MA ’05)

executive director, integrated marketing communications

Megan Boyle

creative director

Keith Lungwitz

director of interactive

Ed Wheeler (’97, MA ’99)

director of digital media

Allen Haren (’97, MA ’07)

Pepperdine Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 2, Fall 2014. Pepperdine Magazine is the feature magazine for Pepperdine University and its growing community of alumni, students, faculty, staff, and friends. It is published quarterly by the University ’s Public Affairs division.

Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, California, 90263

Pepperdine Magazine is produced with guidance from an advisory board representing a cross-section of the University community. Send address changes with publication name to:

Office of Advancement Information Management at Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, California 90263

Other information and queries should be directed to the editor.

All material is copyrighted ©2014 by Pepperdine University, Malibu, California 90263.

310.506.4000

Pepperdine is affiliated with Churches of Christ, of which the University ’s founder, George Pepperdine, was a lifelong member.

PA14

0602

7

Connect with Pepperdine

President Benton is now on Twitter

Follow him @PresidentBenton



PERSPECTIVES

he airwaves of contemporary

society currently reverberate

with extended and extensive

noise; however, sadly lacking

is sustained and meaningful

dialogue. Sound bites have

replaced nuanced conversation.

The status and value of higher

education, specifically a liberal

arts education, is one topic on

which talking heads regularly

pontificate. Interestingly,

seldom do pundits differentiate

between intrinsic and extrinsic

value; ironically, quantitative

data is noticeably absent when

discussing the extrinsic values

of higher education degrees.

The presumed value of a degree in any field other than the traditional liberal arts carries a storied mythology. The lore asserts that graduates with degrees in the liberal arts are unemployable, have no marketable skills, and if employed, earn considerably less than their colleagues with professional degrees. This mythology and its underlying assumptions fascinate those trained in the liberal arts, since such premises and biases are precisely what liberal arts majors are trained to assess!

Initially, we might ask why extrinsic value necessarily trumps intrinsic value. From one vantage, those who truly understand the liberal arts argue that a liberal arts education ultimately is less about the content studied than the skills acquired to study that content. The liberal arts historically have engaged topics that are broad and diverse rather than narrow and specialized. While the liberal arts associates with well-known discipline areas (the humanities, the social sciences, the creative arts, and the sciences), more often than not the skills associated with mastering those various disciplines are equally highlighted. A liberal arts

The Value of a Liberal Arts Education

By Rick R. Marrs PROVOST


education fails if after completion one cannot engage in analytical, evaluative, and critical thinking; problem solve; pose meaningful questions; produce compelling and reasoned oral and written arguments; and articulate the ethical implications of the topic studied. We experience daily the challenges and dangers of living in a global environment painfully deficient in awareness, knowledge, and sensitivity to the cultural norms, religious worldviews, and values of diverse societies. The liberal arts disciplines engage such timely and timeless issues. Put differently, a liberal arts education addresses what it means to be a responsible citizen.

To talk of such intrinsic values to higher education often simply confirms to those immersed in the extrinsic values of education and focused upon the pressing economic needs of graduates and their families that advocates of a liberal arts education are naively unaware of the daily realities of life. Interestingly, those focused primarily upon the economic value derived from a higher education degree largely ignore data that counters seeming obvious assumptions (e.g., engineers are more

marketable than historians, a business degree provides the quickest route to corporate executive offices, etc.). While counterintuitive, recent statistical studies note that graduates with liberal arts training are not only employable, but they ultimately “out-earn” colleagues by mid-career. Perhaps more significantly, employers rate liberal arts majors highest in “meeting employers’ desires and expectations.” Corporate executives, when asked what they might do differently if they returned to college, state they would take more liberal arts courses. To quote Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce:

Employers consistently say they want to hire people who have a broad knowledge base and can work together to solve problems, debate, communicate, and think critically … all skills that liberal arts programs aggressively, and perhaps uniquely, strive to teach.

Rarely acknowledged in the public arena, although widely known, is that today’s graduates are entering a rapidly changing

world that statistically affirms they will experience major career changes four or five times during their professional lifetimes. Virtually unstated is that graduates with narrow specialization and training struggle far more significantly with these transitions than liberal arts majors who possess the transportable skills of critical thinking, nuanced analysis, creative synthesis, collaborative problem solving, and persuasive oral and written argumentation.

Finally, advocates of a traditional liberal arts education envision a world, nations, and communities that value not only the skills and intelligence associated with professional degrees, but degrees that value social intelligence, cultural intelligence, and emotional intelligence. In a rapidly changing world, societies desperately need educated citizens who are not only informed but have the skills to interrogate pressing issues, develop cogent and coherent solutions, and persuasively implement those solutions for social and ethical good. To state this in the language of Pepperdine, our world needs graduates whose lives are given to purpose, service, and leadership.

The Value of a Liberal Arts Education While counterintuitive, recent statistical studies note that graduates with liberal arts training are not only employable, but they ultimately “out-earn” colleagues by mid-career.

WEISMAN MUSEUM DISPLAYS PIECES BY LEGENDARY MOVIE POSTER ARTIST BOB PEAK

Several thousand people visited the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art between May 10 and August 3 to experience the inventive, original artwork on display in the exhibit, Bob Peak: the Movie Poster and Beyond - Four Decades of American Illustration.

Known as the “Father of the Modern Hollywood Movie Poster,” Peak (1927-1992) created iconic, memorable illustrations for more than 100 films, such as Apocalypse Now, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Superman, Excalibur, and Rollerball. The display included four of seven paintings Peak created to promote Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and revealed how the director’s ideas about the movie evolved as filming progressed.

Peak’s work also graced the covers of hundreds of national magazines, including 45 covers for Time magazine alone. Among the covers featured in the exhibit were portraits of key political personalities of that

time period including John F. Kennedy, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and then president-elect Jimmy Carter.

The exhibition featured 44 original, hand-painted pieces spanning Peak’s career from his first advertising campaign in 1955 to his late work of the 1990s. Many local entertainment industry artists were among the exhibit visitors, says museum director Michael Zakian.

“Almost everyone who walked in remembered seeing the iconic posters Bob Peak created for famous movies like West Side Story and My Fair Lady,” Zakian says. “A large percentage of animators and illustrators active in Los Angeles today studied Peak’s work while they were in school. The exhibition allowed them to see firsthand the work of a master.”

arts.pepperdine.edu/museum


NEWS

JONATHAN SEE AWARDED CIO OF THE YEAR BY LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL

Jonathan See, Pepperdine University chief information officer, was named 2014 CIO of the Year at the annual Los Angeles Business Journal CIO/CTO Awards on June 11.

The CIO/CTO Awards honor professionals in top information technology positions who help make Los Angeles businesses, institutions, and nonprofit groups successful, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. Their decisions impact business growth, profitability, functionality, and marketplace competitiveness.

“It is a deep honor to be recognized for my work alongside 53 fellow CIOs across various industries in the Los Angeles region,” says See. “To introduce and integrate technology within teaching and learning at a great institution like Pepperdine and produce great value for our students is truly exciting. I cannot do what I do without a great IT team and the support and collaboration I receive from my Pepperdine colleagues.”

Appointed interim CIO of Pepperdine in September 2011, See took the title permanently in January 2012. He provides leadership and support for the advancement and use of technology at the University and a business value perspective and end-user experience focus.

See’s higher education work spans 25 years. At Pepperdine since 2005, See served as senior director for IT administration and client services and deputy CIO. Prior, See served as the Getty Research Institute’s head of administration and at California State University, Los Angeles, where he was deputy executive director for commercial operations.

JOHN RIZZO SPEAKS AT NATIONAL SECURITY LAW SYMPOSIUM

Last spring, over 120 people attended Pepperdine Law Review’s annual symposium in Malibu, California, and dozens more viewed it live via Internet streaming. The event “The Future of National Security Law,” featured multiple panelists with backgrounds in military law, diplomacy, and intelligence. The featured speaker was former general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Rizzo.

Rizzo had a 34-year career as a CIA lawyer, including seven years as chief legal officer. In the post-9/11 era, Rizzo helped create and implement aggressive counterterrorist operations against al-Qaeda. He is the author of Company Man, a look at his years with the agency.

Symposium commentators discussed whether the United States’ separation-of-powers system is under stress after more than a decade of conflict against al-Qaeda and associated forces. On the international front, America’s transnational conflict against non-state actors was observed to have placed significant strain on international human rights law and the law of armed conflict.

The symposium closed with a sweeping look at surveillance, big data, and the evolution of related laws, such as the controversy and challenges that arose from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaking of stolen classified documents.

Rizzo commented on a range of topics, from the CIA interrogation program—“To the extent that [the CIA] got hits, we deserved them”—to Snowden. Rizzo remarked that he sees no evidence that Snowden is a “traitor.”

Read more about John Rizzolaw.pepperdine.edu/news-events/news


WAVES SAND VOLLEYBALL TEAM WINS SECOND AVCA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

For the second time in three seasons, the Pepperdine women’s sand volleyball team raised the AVCA Collegiate Sand Volleyball National Championship trophy after defeating Florida State University (FSU) 3-2 in Gulf Shores, Alabama, last spring.

The Waves relied on Becca Strehlow and Lara Dykstra to clinch the dual in the final match of the afternoon. Tied 2-2, it came down to Strehlow and Dykstra, who beat FSU’s Stephanie and Kristina Pellitteri in straight—albeit painstakingly close—sets.

The team’s top-two pairs, including Kelley Larsen and Kellie Woolever, as well as Strehlow and Dykstra, competed in the pairs championship and reached the quarterfinals of the AVCA National Pairs Championship, earning All-American status.

Pepperdine leads all sand volleyball programs with 12 All-American selections divided amongst eight student-athletes. Dykstra became a two-time All-American, joining first-year Summer Ross, Kim Hill (’12), Lilla Frederick (’13), and Caitlin Racich (’14).

Strehlow now holds a special place in program history, becoming the Waves’ second student-athlete to achieve All-American status in both indoor and sand volleyball in a single season. As an indoor player, the sophomore setter was an honorable mention All-American.

Waves women’s sand volleyball first took the national title in 2012, the team’s inaugural year as part of the athletics program at Pepperdine, becoming the first women’s team at Pepperdine to capture a national title.

That year, after defeating Long Beach State in the finals, 5-0, Pepperdine’s four All-Americans concluded the AVCA Collegiate Sand National Championship with the pairs tournament, where Caitlin Racich and Summer Ross came up with a giant come-from-behind effort in the finals to capture the first-ever national pairs title.

See the women’s sand volleyball team in the AVCA National Championship: magazine.pepperdine.edu/womens-sand-volleyball


NEWS

CAROLYN DAPPER (’14), an English/political science alumna, will concentrate on her passions

of teaching and research focusing on post-communist

society in the Slovak Republic.

STEVEN FLEMING (’14) will pursue his Fulbright

scholarship in Germany to study forest chemical ecology.

In Greece, COURTNEY STABINGAS (’14)

will hone her teaching skills at a K-12 school.

Teaching will also be the focus of SARAH HOUSTON (’14),

who will work at a university in Turkey.

In Ethiopia, JERUSALEM THEODROS

(’14) will study the effects of the migration of Ethiopian-born

medical professionals in the country’s health care sector.

TWO PEPPERDINE PROFESSORS RECEIVE FULBRIGHT RESEARCH GRANTS

Two Pepperdine University faculty members have received research grants through the core Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, which offers teaching and research awards to U.S. faculty and professionals in over 125 countries.

Robert Lloyd, Pepperdine’s Blanche E. Seaver Professor of International Studies and Languages, will teach international relations at a university in New Delhi, India, and conduct research on “formulas and processes related to democracy, security, and terrorism.”

Lloyd is an Academic Fellow with Brandeis University Schusterman Center’s Summer Institute for Israel Studies and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Through the International Republican Institute, Lloyd has observed presidential elections in Nigeria and Liberia, and for the U.S. Department of State and the United Nations during Mozambique’s first multiparty elections following its civil war. He consults with Freedom House on democratization and good governance, and contributes to its “Countries at the Crossroads” project.

Eric Hamilton, professor of education at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology, will conduct research in learning sciences in Kenya and possibly Uganda. He will colead workshops in media and model-making for teachers and students. Supported by the African Regional Program, these workshops contribute to mathematics and science learning, complex reasoning development, intergenerational and international computer-supported collaboration, and the formation of curriculum.

Hamilton conducts research through support from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences.

FIVE SEAVER ALUMNI EARN PRESTIGIOUS FULBRIGHT SCHOLARSHIPS

Five recent Seaver College graduates have joined the elite rank of Fulbright Scholars, sponsored by the United States Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and one of the most prestigious scholarships worldwide.

These recipients of Fulbright awards were selected based on academic or professional achievement and demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. Over the past 19 years, 47 Pepperdine students have been awarded the Fulbright Scholar honor.

Read more about the Pepperdine Fulbright scholars:magazine.pepperdine.edu/fulbright-scholars

Learn more about the new Fulbright research grants:magazine.pepperdine.edu/fulbright-research-grants


PEPPERDINE APPOINTS NEW MEMBERS TO BOARD OF REGENTS

Pepperdine University has added three new members to its Board of Regents, the University’s governing board. New regents Bill Ahmanson, John Lewis (’83), and Dee Anna Smith (’86) will help shape the direction of the University.

William (Bill) H. Ahmanson is president of the Ahmanson Foundation, which funds arts, education, health care, programs for the homeless and low-income, and a wide range of human services. Ahmanson holds leadership roles

with Center Theatre Group, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Loyola Marymount University, and other community organizations, and has been recognized by many groups for his charitable work.

John Lewis is president of Eugene Lewis & Associates, a CPA and financial management firm specializing in services and planning for multigenerational, high-net-worth families and Fortune 500 executives.

A Seaver College graduate, he served on the Pepperdine University Board from 2000 to 2009. He is currently a member of the President’s Campaign Cabinet. Lewis and his wife Deanne (‘84) are Life Members of the Pepperdine Associates.

Dee Anna Smith is chief executive officer of Sarah Cannon, the global cancer enterprise of Hospital Corporation of America. Smith carries out the mission and vision of Sarah Cannon,

which provides physician-led, patient-centric, integrated cancer services, from wellness and screening to diagnostic and treatment options, palliative medicine, and survivor care. A Pepperdine graduate, Smith has received recognition for her contributions to health care on a local and national level.

GRAZIADIO SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT HOSTS MBA DIVERSITY CONFERENCE PANEL

To help incoming full-time MBA students prepare for the fall recruitment season, the Graziadio School of Business and Management Career Management Center hosted an MBA Diversity Conference Panel on August 26.

The speaker panel comprised second-year MBA students who attended the 2013 diversity conferences and successfully landed opportunities with such companies as Bank of America, Deloitte, Pfizer, and Sony. They shared best practices on leveraging these national recruiting events for career advancement and building professional networks.

With a full schedule of diversity conferences taking place throughout the fall season, students have the opportunity to meet recruiters from leading global corporations and compete for their attention with business students from schools nationwide. By attending Peppedine's panel, incoming students gained valuable advice from their peers and became better prepared to make their impact at diversity conferences and throughout their career exploration and Graziadio School experience.

Oliver Chacon (a second-year full-time business major), who served on the panel along with fellow student Gary Tougas, was impressed by the questions asked by event attendees.

“We had a great turnout. The room was completely filled,” Chacon says. “The panel was an excellent opportunity for us to build excitement and prepare candidates for the national diversity conferences in Atlanta and Philadelphia this year.”

Jerry Cox and Terry Giles (JD ‘74), have been given Life Regent status.

Jerry S. Cox has served on the Board of Regents of Pepperdine University since 1997, participating in numerous board committees. Cox has significantly contributed,

along with his wife Kay, to the University’s progress in Christian higher education. The couple’s two children are Seaver College alumni. Cox is cofounder of Cox & Perkins Exploration, an oil and gas exploration company.

Terry M. Giles, a Pepperdine University School of Law graduate, has served in various roles

with the law school and funded several scholarships. Giles founded his own law firm and built a prominent and successful law practice in partnership with his wife, attorney Kalli O’Malley. He has operated a host of businesses under the banner of Giles Enterprises. The couple’s daughter Lauren is a 2014 graduate of Seaver College.

Read more about the new regents: magazine.pepperdine.edu/regents-2014


NEWS

WAVES BASEBALL EARNS MULTIPLE WINS AND HONORS

Pepperdine baseball soared to its best finish in 22 years, earning a number 12 national ranking for the 2014 season after many triumphs.

The Waves finished with a 43-18 record, winning more games than any other season since 1999, and the seventh most in Pepperdine baseball’s 75-year history.

The team won the regular season West Coast Conference Championship and then took home the conference tournament title in Stockton, California. The Waves earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Regional in San Luis Obispo, California, and after going 3-0 there, the team earned a spot in the NCAA Super Regional in Fort Worth, Texas, against Texas Christian University. It was the first time the Waves advanced to the Super Regional since the round was instituted in 1999.

After taking an early lead, Pepperdine lost 6-5 to Texas Christian University in the third and final game of the series. Overall the Waves exceeded expectations and their accomplishments are especially remarkable given that there were 18 first-years on the team.

“The team chemistry was very special,” says head coach Steve Rodriguez. “We had some impressive young men who are excellent athletes who did some great things and I know all of them really enjoyed the success the team had.”

Additionally, the pitching staff had one of the most impressive seasons in Pepperdine history, completing the year with a 2.55 earned run average, which was 10th in the nation and the lowest since 1975.

Ten Pepperdine players earned All-WCC honors, including Pitcher of the Year for Aaron Brown and Coach of the Year for Rodriguez. Seven players picked up postseason honors and five Waves were selected in the MLB draft. Brown earned All-American honors and Aaron Barnett was named a Freshman All-American.

“It was so important to our program, our athletics department, and our university to have a run like we had this year,” Rodriguez says. “It was amazing.”

LIEUTENANT GENERAL FLORA DARPINO GIVES PRESENTATION AT PEPPERDINE

Last spring, United States Army lieutenant general Flora Darpino provided a special presentation at Pepperdine University School of Law.

Darpino, the judge advocate general of the U.S. Army, is the first woman to hold the top lawyer role for the army. Of 431 active duty army generals, only 28 are female. She leads nearly 2,000 full-time judge advocates and civilian attorneys in providing legal services to the military branch.

At Pepperdine, Darpino talked about the diverse role of military lawyers, from advising commanders in combat zones to defending service members in the courtroom. The general also shared her fascinating career and gave advice to students interested in JAG or government service.

After earning her law degree from Rutgers School of Law in New Jersey, Darpino joined the army. Over the years she served in a number of posts including in Iraq and Germany and went on to become a three-star general. In addition to her impressive resume, Darpino has received such military honors as the Bronze Star Medal, the Defense Superior Service Medal, and the Army Commendation Medal.

Watch the baseball post-season recap: magazine.pepperdine.edu/baseball



SNAPSHOT

Surf’s UpStudents gather at 7am on Zuma Beach to participate in Surf Chapel, a new Convocation program that takes place on the Malibu shore. Here Robert Shearer, assistant professor of decision science, leads students in worship before they head out into the water to surf one of God’s majestic creations.

SEE HOW THEY RUN


FEATURE

AN ELUSIVE SPECIES OF FISH UNIQUE TO THE CALIFORNIA COAST HAS CAPTURED

THE INTEREST OF SEAVER COLLEGE BIOLOGY PROFESSOR KAREN MARTIN,

HER STUDENTS, AND THE ENTIRE SEASIDE COMMUNITY.

By Gareen Darakjian Grunion photos courtesy of Dan Harding

The mating “dance” lasts anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more, when females burrow themselves in the sand to deposit their ova, sometimes up to 3,000 at a time. Drawn to their fascinating motion, the males wrap themselves around their mates to fertilize the eggs and quickly return to the surf. While females make the journey to shore only once, males return several times to repeat the process. The eggs, which are buried inches beneath the sand, incubate for 10 to 12 days until the next high tide washes them into the ocean to hatch.

Seaver professor Karen Martin, the region’s best known expert on grunion, has been studying the small and slender fish for about 20 years and first became interested in the species while researching fish that come out of water for her doctoral dissertation.

“I hadn’t planned on looking at grunion when I first started my research as a student,” she says. “I found it difficult, because the timing was all wrong and I couldn’t ever find them, so it took me a while to start looking at them again.”

Grunion are famously elusive and are one of the few species of fishes that come out of water to spawn. Because of their inability to be found when not on shore, they are also difficult to study.

It wasn’t until Martin began teaching at Pepperdine that she revived her

investigation of the beach-spawning fish. Her research now focuses on their early development, the grunion’s most vulnerable period of life.

Grunion eggs, explains Martin, develop on land and don’t hatch until they return to the ocean. “Not only is that an interesting situation in itself, but also, if they are not triggered to hatch, they can stay at the same stage of development for a long period of time: up to two to three weeks after the time that they’re ready to hatch. They stop developing, but stay alert and aware of their surroundings.”

The life span of the grunion is two or three years. Humans pose the greatest threat to their short- and long-term survival.

As the executive director of Grunion Greeters, Martin and colleagues first organized a team of volunteer citizen scientists in 2002 to study the human impact on the fish’s habitat and collect data during spawning runs that is later used for research and management.

The group formed after members of the public became concerned about the way that the beaches were being maintained in San Diego. “A local citizen noticed the way that they were

Each year throngs of California grunion, small, sardine-size fish found only along the southern coast of California and parts of northern Baja California, swim, or “run,” to shore as part of their

unusual spawning ritual. The annual occurrence often lasts through summer and draws curious audiences eager to catch sight of the magnificent fish species that has intrigued both scientists and spectators for centuries. With each new or full moon, a small group of male grunion catches a wave onshore and, swell-after-swell, is joined by as many as thousands of others, males and females, that may eventually blanket the beach with their flopping, luminescent bodies.


ALONG A NARROW STRIP OF THE PACIFIC COAST, SHORTLY AFTER THE EVENING’S HIGHEST TIDE, THE SHORELINE BEGINS TO SPARKLE WITH SILVERY LIGHT EVERY SPRING, HERALDING THE START OF ONE OF MARINE LIFE’S MOST SPECTACULAR PHENOMENA.

Sophomore Emily Pierce takes a closer look at grunion eggs under the microscope.

raking beaches and thought that they were probably going to cause harm to the eggs that were buried in the sand after the grunion had run,” she recalls.

Due to their very small habitat range, and their role near the bottom of the food chain, the grunion population faces a very real threat of depletion. “There is a lot of activity on beaches in the summertime,” she explains. “Grunion eggs are susceptible to the impact of driving, construction, sea walls, and the changing natural supply of sand and natural wave action on the beaches.”

Martin’s work with Grunion Greeters was her first experience involving the public in her research, and the first event was an unexpected success. “We were looking for volunteers to help us watch for the grunion, but I wasn’t sure that anybody would show up to hear about it and help us with that project,” she says. “I was very surprised when several hundred people showed up and were very excited about helping us.”

With the aid of residents, scientists, public agencies including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, California State Parks, the National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, and local governments, and volunteers, the results of the initial study of beach grooming practices prompted significant change in official procedures in San Diego and other cities throughout California.

The Grunion Greeters also make recommendations for the vehicles that patrol the beaches and the ways the beaches are maintained that will protect the areas where grunion nests are located.

A closed season allows the grunion to be able to reproduce without any interference from people onshore. Hunting is prohibited during April and May. To give grunion more of a chance to survive during the open season, restrictions on how they can be hunted were put in place in 1927.

Currently at Pepperdine Martin, along with colleagues from UC Santa Barbara, is establishing a citizen science program called All Ashore, an initiative that will engage students and local volunteers in monitoring sandy beaches and examining their ecology to educate and help the community understand the kinds of organisms that they might find


FEATURE

People tend to be less aware of the

ecology of beaches. They are very aware

of the ecology of tide pools, or

wetlands, or kelp forests, but they don’t think about sandy beaches as

being an ecosystem.

—KAREN MARTIN(Pictured second from right)

there. It will provide a comprehensive look at all the animals and plants, not only grunion, that inhabit the sandy beaches in Southern California and partner with organizations up and down the coast, including aquariums, environmental organizations like the Surfrider Foundation, Heal the Bay, and Santa Barbara Channel Keepers, as well as other groups. Martin and her colleagues are also developing a web-based questionnaire to survey the beaches in preparation for training sessions and workshops for citizen volunteers to collect data.

“People tend to be less aware of the ecology of beaches than they are of other marine environments,” she explains. “They are very aware of the ecology of tide pools, or wetlands, or kelp forests, but they don’t think about sandy beaches as an ecosystem.”

Seaver graduate Vincent Quach (‘14) is helping Martin with this program and junior Emily Pierce, who participated in Pepperdine’s Summer Undergraduate Research in Biology

program, is taking part in researching the hatching process of the grunion to understand how they are able to hatch so quickly.

Pierce’s first experience with grunion took place during a run last summer and reinforced her research pursuits.

“It is incredible to see the natural process happening,” she says. “People will come up and ask us what we’re doing while we’re out on the beach finding grunion eggs.”

Martin’s recently released third book, Beach-Spawning Fishes: Reproduction in an Endangered Ecosystem, takes a closer look at the similarities and differences between grunion and many other fish species that have similar behaviors on beaches all around the world. Her research throughout has been supported by grants and contracts from the National Science Foundation, the National Marine Fisheries Service, SeaGrant, NOAA, the National Parks Service, and the National Geographic Society, among others. In 2010,

along with Seaver journalism professor Michael Murrie, Martin produced Surf, Sand, and Silversides: The California Grunion, an award-winning, short educational film about California grunion that was screened at film festivals and is available for educators.

“Like most areas of science, every question you ask about grunion leads to another question,” she says, “so you just keep going.”

“When I first started looking at grunion, I was working with students and a very small group of collaborators, but now I realize that we have to involve the public and the people who work at beaches and, really, the whole community.”

Learn more about grunion: grunion.pepperdine.edu

Watch a video of a grunion run recorded June 16 near Malibu, California:magazine.pepperdine.edu/grunion



FEATURE


By Sophia Fischer

#SocialMediaSuperheroesSpider-Man and the X-Men overcame tough competition at the box office last spring thanks to the social media superheroes at McBeard Media. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past debuted at number one on their opening weekends, benefiting from inventive online publicity created by the Los Angeles-based social media marketing agency.

McBeard is the dynamic combination of Alan Beard (’94, MPP ’99) and Alec McNayr (’00), who formed the company in 2008 by merging not only their names, but also their talent, entrepreneurial spirit, and Pepperdine experience.

Since then, McBeard has produced more than 200 social media campaigns for well-known film and television brands like 20th Century Fox, Universal, Sony, Disney, ABC, and Warner Bros.

Their firm continues to expand, and currently includes 80 employees of which about half are Pepperdine alumni. Beard and McNayr are proud of McBeard’s supportive family environment despite having no corporate office. Everyone works from home.

How Beard and McNayr came to helm one of the most successful social media companies today is a quest directly linked to Pepperdine.

#PutYourHeadsTogetherNowThe story begins in 1997, years before McBeard was a thought.

Beard was a graduate student working full-time and McNayr was an active sophomore involved in campus groups. They met through Beard’s wife Sharon who knew McNayr because of her role then overseeing the student activities department.

“I had taught myself design and how to code and Sharon suggested I talk to her husband who worked in the Internet world,” McNayr recalls.

After that initial contact, the men saw each other occasionally over the years through their fraternity, Psi Upsilon (formerly Lambda Omega Sigma). The relationship bloomed during McNayr’s senior year when Beard became his mentor, hiring him after graduation at an Internet consulting firm. The men maintained their friendship and

Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.


MCBEARDto the rescue


NEARLY EVERY GOOD THING THAT’S HAPPENED IN MY LIFE IS CONNECTED TO PEPPERDINE. u ALAN BEARD

Pepperdine connection after moving on to other jobs. McNayr worked in Pepperdine’s university communications department, while Beard taught marketing on campus as an adjunct professor.

“What I recognized in Alec early on was that he was smart, super detail-oriented, and motivated by the same things that I am: love for his family, commitment to faith, a love for Pepperdine, and for social media,” Beard says.

McNayr is equally complimentary about his business partner.

“Alan is incredibly smart, insightful, a great writer, and the most well-read person I’ve met, with an incredible memory,” McNayr remarks. “He’s a great conversationalist, salesperson, and motivator.”

In 2008 both men were freelancing independently. McNayr had sold a comedy script to ABC. Beard was doing big-brand marketing strategy and copywriting. During a conversation, they devised a creative idea that launched their future in a bigger way than they ever imagined.

They wondered, “What if Twitter had always existed?” The result was Historical Tweets, a blog they created featuring clever tweets from historical figures.

The blog surged from a few hundred to three million visitors in one weekend. Random House took note and offered a book deal. Beard and McNayr discovered that a Nokia senior marketing executive was a fan.

#FateFearandFaithAt the executive’s invitation, Beard and McNayr flew to San Francisco and were hired to create a marketing plan for Nokia. The partners had their first client but no name for their budding joint venture. Their wives came up with the catchy McBeard moniker.

“Nokia gave us enough runway to get McBeard off the ground. From there we got one movie campaign which led to another,” Beard says. “The way these things happen, especially in Hollywood, is word of mouth.”

Their client list began to slowly build with major studio clients including Fox and Sony and while they specialized in entertainment, McBeard did not start off with that intention.

“There were uncertain times as we built our client base,” Beard comments. “We kept moving forward on the faith that the next client would come.”

Neither man recalls feeling fear.

“We believed in it, had supportive wives, and a desire to work on our own,” Beard continues. “We figured that the entrepreneurial thing is to believe there’s a market, go after it, and it will work out. That’s the leap of faith.”

Beard credits timing, anticipating a specific need, and discovering an untapped niche for the success of McBeard. One success in particular boosted the men’s confidence.


FEATURE

WE WANT TO BE KNOWN FOR BEING HONEST,

CARING, AND HUMBLE BUT

WE ALSO WANT TO BE THE BEST IN THE WORLD.

ALEC McNAYR

The Fault in Our Stars, 2012

For the film Monsters University, McNayr and Beard were invited to Pixar’s Northern California office to pitch an idea for a university website to accompany the film. McNayr tapped into his years of experience in Pepperdine’s communications department where he helped build the University’s website.

“The Pixar people asked a lot of grilling questions and at the end of the two-hour meeting everybody stood up and applauded,” McNayr says. “It was a great creative experience at one of the most creative places on the planet.”

The result can be seen at the still-active monstersuniversity.com.

#PeppPeepsUniteMore work followed and as Beard and McNayr hired staff, they modeled their business culture on the friendly, positive family atmosphere they had experienced at Pepperdine. In the early years, company meetings were held at Beard’s home or in restaurants. As employees were added, meetings shifted to Pepperdine’s Malibu campus.

“That tight-knit community, where people care and want success for each other, from the top of the administration to the teachers and students is the same attitude that exists at McBeard,” McNayr says.

Their Pepperdine connections enabled Beard and McNayr to find their ideal employees: self-starters, positive, hardworking, and driven, who cheer for coworkers.

“I know these people and what they’re all about and they know what I’m all about,” Beard says. “But if you had told me five years ago that we’d have 80 employees, I would’ve been shocked.”

First on board as an intern was Seaver College advertising major Darnell Brisco (’09). Brisco had met McNayr through mutual friends. He met Beard, who managed Pepperdine’s a cappella student gospel group Won by One, when he joined as a student. Beard became a mentor to Brisco, who worked on Historical Tweets and was hired after graduation.

“We were a hungry three-man team wearing every hat imaginable: design, writing, business development, logistical planning, you name it, and figuring out how to fill a void for something that really didn’t exist at the time, a social media agency,” says Brisco who, as creative accounts director, now leads writers and designers in developing social media campaigns.

Kailey Howell (’09), a telecommunications production major, was hired next, after leaving her secure job in Pepperdine’s International Programs office, to join McBeard, still in its infancy.

“It was risky to move from a secure job at Pepperdine to a small startup—there was a good chance I could be unemployed six months later,” Howell says.

What attracted her to the agency was that she could wear many hats. Now, as a creative director, she oversees writing and design teams and works on new systems.

“It’s rare to have creative freedom and a boss that has your back even when you fail,” Howell says. “That’s a testament to the types of people that Pepperdine cultivates and nurtures. Alan and Alec are standup guys—more like family to me than bosses.”

Kate (Pauley) Edwards (’12) also met Beard through Won by One, and interned at McBeard during


Worked at Pepperdine for six years

Married to Katie (Ebeling) McNayr (’02), Songfest director

Mom, JoAnn McNayr, manager, information technology administration

Brother-in-law Matt Ebeling, executive director, alumni affairs, Seaver College and George Pepperdine College; lives on campus with his family

Three grandparents attended Pepperdine

Manager, Won by One a cappella singing group

Marketing strategy consultant and adjunct professor 2002-2011

Recipient, Distinguished Alumnus Award 2009

Married to Sharon (Gates) Beard (’94, MDR ’01), associate dean of students, Judicial Affairs Office

Images courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

her senior year. As creative accounts manager, Edwards now works with clients to craft an overall vision for campaigns.

“Sometimes I forget that I’m working because I’m enjoying it so much,” Edwards says.

Those Pepperdine hires recruited other alumni. McBeard also employs people not affiliated with Pepperdine, but who are drawn to the company as a result of what they learn about the culture McBeard imported from the University.

“They understand that there is something special about the bond we have at McBeard that you can’t find elsewhere,” Beard says.

That family atmosphere might seem difficult to maintain given the lack of a central location and continued growth of McBeard. Employees currently work in small teams that stay connected through video conferencing and instant messaging.

#SwaggerSquadContinuing to create content that people love to share is McBeard’s goal.

“Our job as creators,” McNayr says, “is to know what makes people happy, what their desires and emotions are—to know what fans will share, not only because they love the brand, but also because they love the content you’ve given them.”

Beard and McNayr take pride in the relationships they maintain with clients. Their next step is to capture the tremendous social media opportunity that exists in international brands, McNayr says.

“We are laying down plans to make the right hires and changes in structure to grow to be the most influential creative shop,” McNayr says. “We have humble swagger.”

Although they plan to continue to expand the company, there are no plans to obtain a central office space.

“We will have to find new locations that allow us to meet as teams,” Beard says.“I believe this is the model of the future, especially for creative agencies.”

#ThanksPeppWhile both men hail from different states—Beard from Colorado and McNayr from Washington State—they credit Pepperdine with bringing them together, and preparing them for the upward arc their lives have taken.

“Nothing about our paths would have had us crossing,” Beard says.“Nearly every good thing that’s happened in my life is connected to Pepperdine.”

McNayr agrees that Pepperdine opened up opportunities to him that he would not have had at a different school, and says he will continue to be influenced by the principles instilled in him while at the University.

“We want to make sure people’s voices get heard, we want to maintain a personal touch, and we want to treat everyone with respect,” McNayr says. “We want to be known for being honest, caring, and humble but we also want to be the best in the world.”

ALAN

BEARD

ALEC

MCNAYR

Prison inmates helped Mara Leigh Taylor (MA ’03, MA ’06) find freedom and happiness.


FEATURE

When she walked into federal prison for the first time in 2002, Mara Leigh Taylor instantly felt a strong connection to the inmates and to the confined atmosphere.

“It was like being hit by a lightning bolt of understanding. The prison looked like how I felt,” Taylor recalls. “I did not feel free or happy but I didn’t know why or how to change that.”

A Pepperdine graduate student working toward her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, Taylor was at the prison on a class field trip led by professor Laurie Schoellkopf of the Graduate School of Education and Psychology.

Taylor was also a struggling single parent with what she describes as “no real identifiable career track.” She felt imprisoned.

“My life wasn’t turning out the way I had planned,” Taylor says. “I was miserable.”

The unexpected connection Taylor experienced at the prison inspired her to volunteer at Terminal Island federal prison in San Pedro, California. She led discussions with inmates about being in prison, feeling trapped, and how to change their lives. As she listened to the men she began to understand her own internal prison.

“They’d say, ‘I’m internally free,’ ‘I found God,’ or ‘I found education,’” and I thought, ‘Wow, these men are happier than I have ever been. Why?’ In helping the prisoners, I was really helping myself,” Taylor says. “I remember thinking, ‘Miracles could happen here. There is unlimited potential for healing and to change from the inside out.’ I knew I could help them and I thought they could help me, too.”

Over the next decade, as Taylor listened to inmates discuss how they coped and improved their behavior despite confinement, she discovered her own healing and happiness. Inspired to share with other prisoners what she’d learned, Taylor developed a leadership development/positive reinforcement training curriculum that prisoner participants describe as a “way of life” to help incarcerated men

and women transform themselves into happy, productive citizens of their communities. She called it Getting Out By Going In, or GOGI.

“People are always telling us the answers to our greatest problems, but we often refuse to listen. When we really listen, all of the answers are right there,” Taylor says.

“The prisoners taught me the tools which gave me my freedom and now I am obligated to share them with the men, women, and children who are in jails and prisons throughout the United States.”

A nonprofit fully staffed by volunteers, GOGI helps rehabilitate prisoners through the teaching of 12 core positive decision-making tools in group workshops and self-teaching. Taylor and her team of formerly incarcerated coaches travel to prisons to teach actions like “Five Second Light Switch” (replace old, automatic thoughts with new, positive behavior) and “Positive Actions: The Three Ps” (Is it powerful? Is it productive? Is it positive?).

GOGI is introduced in different ways. Often, one prisoner shares their donor-paid GOGI book with their cellmate. When a significant number of inmates at a prison study GOGI, they often request a workshop, which is also

donor-funded. Workshops are run by Taylor and other volunteers, who

are known as “coaches.”

The GOGI books and training materials have reached tens of thousands of prisoners in 37 states, and counting. The GOGI mailroom receives hundreds of letters each week from prisoners requesting information, or reporting on their weekly GOGI group meetings in their respective facilities.

Taylor wishes GOGI could reach more inmates, but the organization is donation driven and fundraising is limited since much of the support comes from former and current

inmates and their families.

“Coach Taylor is an incredible human being who’s given her whole life to this

cause," says Leigh Erin Carlson, GOGI national director of programs. “She’ll often

say about its success that, ‘It’s not me, it’s because of the prisoners.’”

GOGI has been instrumental in helping thousands of inmates at the Correctional Training Facility (CTF) in Soledad, California, to accept responsibility for their actions, and to make positive changes in their lives as they reenter society, says warden Marion Spearman.

“GOGI has also helped my men exhibit pro-social behavior, thus leading to a positive culture within the walls of the CTF,” Spearman explains. “GOGI has transformed many lives and has instilled hope in many who had no hope.”

Following the principles not only in prison, but also upon release, is the key to success in the outside world. Many continue with GOGI as volunteer facilitators. The goal is for GOGI tools to become a way of life.

Taylor’s idea of empowering prisoners with tools for positive decision making and then letting them create a positive prison culture seems to be working. Two recent studies in California and Utah indicate that GOGI participants have a significantly lower reoffending rate. In Los Angeles County, with one of the nation’s highest overall re-offending


rates at 85 percent, that figure dropped to 35 percent among GOGI participants. In Utah, the figures are even greater, falling from 80 to 11 percent one year after release among former female prisoners involved in GOGI.

“We all know that there’s a prison culture out there that’s a very negative one,” Taylor says. “Where GOGI is introduced, there is an actual shift in the culture of that facility and an option for those men and women who want to be positive. With GOGI they learn that they are accountable to each other. They’ll say, ‘Hey man, you’re not being GOGI right now. Where are your GOGI tools?’”

Maria Fierro and her husband David Merrihue are one of many GOGI success stories. Before GOGI came into their lives, the couple was arrested together at their home for selling drugs. She was sent to prison in Los Angeles and he was incarcerated at Pelican Bay in Northern California. Their child was placed into alternative care, the first stop for many children of incarcerated parents before the child is adopted out or relegated to a life in foster care. It was not the couple’s first arrest.

Born in prison to a woman accused of attempted murder, Fierro was raised by an abusive grandmother. Fierro became a drug addict and alcoholic and was arrested multiple times over the years for trespassing, driving without a license, selling drugs, and other crimes.

“Because of the experiences I had as a child growing up, I was broken and would always go back to the drugs, because I didn’t know how to deal with the hurt,” Fierro says. “I’m learning through GOGI that there is a separation between experiences and the actual person I am today.”

Fierro was a Los Angeles County prison inmate when she met Taylor, who was teaching GOGI lessons there. Fierro initially refused any part of the program.

“I was angry and didn’t want to hear what some lady who was free had to say,” Fierro recalls. “What did she know about me and my

life? But she kept coming back, day after day, week after week. I figured, if nothing else, this lady was sincere.”

That is when things changed for Fierro.

“For the first time in my life I saw someone being truthful with me and not wanting something from me. I was able to tell my story,” Fierro says. “I started releasing all the stuff that I had been holding onto. And I began to feel happier, because I started creating space inside myself.”

She turned her life around, found work, a stable home, and regained custody of her child.

“I’ve been given a second chance to be the mother that I was meant to be,” Fierro comments. “In jail is where I found my freedom, where thousands of inmates are studying GOGI and finding their same freedom.”

Fierro asked Taylor to send the GOGI book to Merrihue, who at first was mystified by the book’s rules and threw it on the ground multiple times over several weeks. Desperate to

change his life, Merrihue picked up the book again. This time the principles became clear.

“The book helped me learn to claim responsibility for my actions and changed my attitude,” says Merrihue, who spent 16 years in and out of county jails and state prison. “This was the first time I was able to cope with life on life’s terms.”

Merrihue now serves as a GOGI facilitator in state prisons and in Los Angeles County men’s jail, leading current inmates in learning GOGI tools. Fierro serves as GOGI Hotline manager answering calls from people requesting books, materials, and programming information. Taylor calls Fierro and Merrihue “GOGI miracles.”

There are critics who oppose helping criminals like Fierro and Merrihue, insists Carlson, but it’s important for society to redirect prisoners

to a more positive lifestyle.

“If you or your family have been victimized by


FEATURE

somebody, it’s understandable that you would have difficulty wanting to assist prisoners,” Carlson comments. “What we’re doing is critical for the community, because 95 percent of people who are incarcerated are going to get out. We ask people, ‘Do you want them to come out and break into your house again or do you want them making positive decisions?’”

The culture shift which is occurring as a result of GOGI has been organic and prisoner driven, confirming Taylor’s commitment to prisoners who want to create a different lifestyle, in or out of prison. Many, Taylor says, are not aware that they can change their lives, because they have only had negative reinforcement. Compounding the issue is the generational component of crime. Parents in prison are four times more likely to have children who end up in prison, too. GOGI teaches that parents in prisons

and jails must learn how to break the cycle of incarceration through positive tools that they can teach their youngsters.

“We create a breeding ground for more criminals, because we are not taking care of the reasons why they are doing it,” Carlson remarks. “If alternatives are provided, then prisoners want to give back upon their release, because they feel they’ve been given so much.”

Taylor credits GOGI’s grassroots beginning with its national expansion. By focusing on listening and permitting the prisoners to develop the tools and materials, GOGI is increasingly endorsed by prisoners as “created by prisoners, for prisoners.”

“But we can’t stop there,” says Taylor. “GOGI will eventually make its way out of the prisons and into the school rooms where these

simple tools can be taught to school- children so they can avoid negative decisions in the first place.”

Her volunteer work over the past decade has been so successful that the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department recently created a paid position specifically for Taylor. She is now the educational development administrator for jail programming for nearly 20,000 men and women.

“We have a long way to go before we introduce positive decision making to every prisoner in the United States,” Taylor says.

Grateful for the direction her life has taken, Taylor continues to credit Pepperdine for presenting her with the first opportunity that opened her eyes to a pervasive problem. “If I didn’t take that class at Pepperdine, I never would have toured that prison,” Taylor says. “I’m living the University mission.”

Hear Maria Castro and others tell their GOGI success stories:gettingoutbygoingin.org

The prisoners taught me the tools which gave me my freedom and now I am obligated to share them with the men, women, and children who

are in jails and prisons throughout the United States.

—Mara Leigh Taylor


MOMENTS OF TRUTH

If you ask any top-level executive what they think is the most valuable asset in their organization, they almost certainly always answer, “It’s our people.”

“They do it almost reflexively as if it’s something they teach them the first day of CEO school,” says Mark Allen, practitioner faculty of organizational theory and management at the Graziadio School of Business and Management. When asked if their organizations behave every day as if they believed that were true, Allen found that most employees confess they do not.

In his latest book, Aha Moments in Talent Management: A Business Fable, the former director of executive education at the Graziadio School and leading expert of organizational behavior, outlines 13 principles to help organizations understand how to manage talented employees in order to maximize their value. The book is told through fables—incidents that take place at a fictional company based on real cases and actual organizational practices he has witnessed or had described to him by colleagues, students, and friends.

FEATURE

A new book by Graziadio School of Business and Management professor Mark Allen (MBA ‘90) breaks down 13 talent management principles that serve to help corporations unleash greater potential from their employees.

By Gareen Darakjian


FEATURE

Talent Management Principle NumberPeople are your organization’s most valuable asset. Behave as if you believe this to be true every day.

While Allen claims that most CEOs actually agree with the first statement, he explains that, in reality, they focus more of their attention on the company’s financials or product. The most literal example is when companies lay off employees.

“They always do it in the spirit of cutting costs, but if you truly believe people are your most valuable asset, you have to acknowledge you’re cutting assets, as well,” he explains. “You hear a lot about downsizing for cost cutting, but you never hear it called asset cutting.”

Allen explains that companies have to acknowledge that there is a cost to employing people, a cost to losing good people, and a cost to losing knowledge and skills, which is what happens when companies lay off valuable employees.

“If [organizations] were to realize that some of their talented people are superstars, and deliver two to four times the value of regular performers, then maybe they would manage them in a way that would ensure they keep them engaged, which would mean they’d keep them employed,” he asserts. “They’re not an asset from an accounting standpoint, which means their companies don’t own them. They’re free to leave. This means that organizations need to do a better job of treating them as if they truly value them to stay.”

Talent Management Principle NumberHaving better people is the best source of competitive advantage, so attracting top talent is a top priority. Be willing to do whatever it takes to bring in top talent. Do not let your own policies prevent you from hiring exceptional people.

Allen developed this principle after hearing stories from employees of a company who became frustrated when rigid, outdated policies stood in the way of an attempted hire that had the potential to make a great difference in the organization.

While the company was enthusiastic about hiring this person, they were restricted by rules about listing the position to the public, going through the lengthy paperwork process to get the position approved, and keeping the position open for a certain number of days. The entire process took many weeks and, by the time they reached the end, the candidate was no longer on the job market. In fact, he had been hired by a direct competitor.

“These policies were put in place for a good reason–you can’t just hire people willy-nilly,” Allen says. But this was a highly experienced person who was well respected in the industry. This new hire would have benefited the organization, and the only thing that prevented that from happening was the company’s own rules.”

Allen calls these “Talent Prevention Rules” that companies create for good reasons, but, in practice, interfere with smart decision-making. He suggests that for each rule and policy in place, a company’s leadership should ask, “Why do we have this rule?” and “Is this helping us or hindering us?”

Furthermore, Allen recommends that organizations give executives the ability to be flexible within the rules. “If a senior executive has a good reason for wanting to make an exception to a rule, there should be some flexibility in the system to permit this.”

Talent Management Principle NumberThe job of manager requires specific skills and abilities. Promotion should be based on the ability to do the next job, not performance in the current job. Good performance should be rewarded appropriately, but promotion should not be a reward for past performance.

1

2

3

Here, Pepperdine Magazine highlights seven of those talent management principles that people at any level of an organization can use to combat ineffective and counterproductive talent practices.


28

FEATURE

Allen explains that companies will often reward their best performers by promoting them to managerial positions. “Promoting someone who doesn’t have managerial skills to a management role is setting them up for failure,” he says.

Allen insists that promotions should not be rewards for performance in the previous job. In addition to creating a manager out of someone who doesn’t have the skills for it, an organization is subtracting their best employee in that particular field.

“You’re taking someone who is performing at a high level at that job and telling him or her to not do that job anymore,” he continues. “You would never hire someone to be an engineer when they don’t have training and experience in engineering. Would you hire someone to be a manager who had no skills or training to be a manager? We do it all the time and every company falls victim to this. We know the skills and competencies that good managers have, and we need to fill our manager jobs with people who possess these skills and competencies.”

Talent Management Principle Number Employees are smart and know how to pursue rewards. If you want to see certain behaviors and results, hold employees accountable. It’s irrational to expect employees to deliver outcomes if we do not hold them accountable.

Allen argues that, while organizations task managers with hiring, developing, engaging, and retaining talent, they are typically held accountable for more traditional business results, such as sales, revenue, profit, and customer satisfaction.

“The best path to achieving those business outcomes is to hire good people,” he says. “We typically don’t hold managers accountable for those vitally important talent principles, because measuring those talent practices is very difficult.”

He explains that organizations need to do a better job at measuring a manager’s ability to hire, develop, engage, and retain talented people. “If we can measure it, we can hold them accountable. If you can, you must provide clearly articulated standards.

There is no accountability without measurement.”

As far as rewards go, the oldest and most common—and most popular—ones employees seek is money. But while research shows that money is an important tool in attracting people to the organization, it’s not one of the most crucial elements in getting them to stay or determining whether they leave. “Employees also value recognition and doing interesting, challenging, and meaningful work. They will stay in your organization for that.” Others include opportunities for development, both in terms of learning and advancement in one’s career, and flexibility in the workplace and around work assignments.

Talent Management Principle Number The wealth of an organization lies in the knowledge and skills residing in its people. The ability to manage, collect, and share that knowledge can be a competitive advantage and an opportunity to leverage value without bringing additional resources into the organization.

During a conversation with a colleague, Allen learned of a company that enlisted the help of an executive search firm to find an employee who possessed highly specific expertise. The good news was that, after an exhaustive search, the firm found the world’s leading expert. The bad news was that he already worked within the company.

Allen explains that most organizations don’t do a very good job of cataloging the knowledge and expertise they already possess, and instead build or buy a database tool to collect, house, and share data about their employees. He goes on to say that while information technology is helpful in classifying information, organizations must learn to value their employees not only for what they know, but also the application of their knowledge. “We need to understand what our people know and motivate them to share their knowledge,” he insists.

Many companies, however, incentivize the hoarding of knowledge, the opposite behavior of what they want. “Employees think that if they know something that no one else knows, they have job security,” says Allen.

His suggestion is for organizations to set up a rewards system through which employees are incentivized to share and not hoard knowledge.

Talent Management Principle NumberPeople tend to resist change, and this resistance is often based more on emotion than reason. Individual conversations can speed the change process more than making a business case. The successful implementation of change initiatives usually takes more time than you originally anticipate.

It is well documented that most change efforts in organizations are met with resistance. Allen claims that much of that resistance stems from emotional rather than logical or rational reasons. “People have an innate fear of the unknown, and when you say something is going to change or be different, that triggers people’s fear of the unknown,” he says. “Employees who have been around for a while have seen change initiatives come and go and the next thing they know, they are laid off or their friends are laid off, so they’ve almost been conditioned to fear change in organizations.”

Other fears include changes in work life, time and place of work, and compensation. In order to successfully facilitate change, Allen says organizations need to acknowledge that their employees have these fears and address both the emotional and rational levels of their concerns.

“It’s going to take time,” he says. “These are not large group interventions, but individual conversations. Most change efforts fail and even those that succeed take a lot longer than we anticipate. It is worth the investment and time if we want our change initiatives to succeed.”

Talent Management Principle Number Being at the top of an organization does not make someone a leader. Positional authority makes you a manager; leaders can be anywhere in an organization. Delivering results makes you a good manager; getting people to willingly follow you makes you a good leader.

4

5

7

6


FEATURE

Talent

Management

EXPERT

Beyond his impressive credentials as an educator and author, Mark Allen is also an internationally recognized speaker and consultant who has published and presented research on corporate universities and nontraditional higher education.

As a private consultant, he provides consulting services to a variety of small, medium, and large corporations in the areas of corporate university creation, corporate university management, leadership, and the evaluation of corporate learning.

At the Human Capital Institute, an organization for talent management leadership, Allen teaches live and online classes providing research and education in the field of human capital management for members and corporate clients of the membership-based organization.

He works with clients to provide services and classes in the areas of leadership, communication, and organizational change at The Kiely Group, a consulting firm specializing in organizational effectiveness.

Allen teaches courses at Vatel University, and is a faculty member at the American Management Association, where he teaches executive leadership courses to national and international audiences.

He also serves on the Board of Regents of the University of Farmers, the award-winning training program at Farmers Insurance Company, and Board of Advisors of the Global Council of Corporate Universities.

“The first key is that we use words like ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ without any thought to what they really mean,” insists Allen. “The terms ‘management’ and ‘leadership’ are not synonymous.” The topic is one that relates directly to Allen’s teachings in his leadership and management courses at the Graziadio School.

Allen says that a person’s ability to be a good leader does not depend on where their position lands on their company’s organizational chart, but on the behaviors that they demonstrate.

“When you talk to people in the organization, they’ll tell you some of the people at the top of the chart are great leaders, some are so-so, and some are poor leaders. Meanwhile, they have some people

at the middle or lower levels who are exemplary leaders.”

Companies can change this pattern by defining what good leadership means in their organization. “It doesn’t necessarily mean delivering the numbers,” he explains. “That’s good management.”

“Good leadership involves the ability to inspire employees, to motivate them, and to get them to care,” he continues. “Once an organization defines what leadership means to them, they can then define what the actual leadership behaviors are that they want to see. Then they can measure whether the people at the top, middle, or bottom of the organization are demonstrating them.”

Employees value recognition and doing interesting, challenging, and meaningful work. They will stay in your organization for that.

Good leadership involves the ability to inspire employees, to motivate them, and to get them to care.

—MARK ALLEN


A week of memories to last a lifetime!

Regardless of how you define family—grandparents, roommates from college or grad school, nieces and nephews, or your best friends— Pepperdine Family Camp is the perfect opportunity to spend quality time with the ones you love.

Pepperdine’s favorite summer program returns for an exciting third year!

ALUMNI

Malibu Dreaming

Surf lessons

Paddleboarding

Guided hikes

Campfires

Beach parties

Museum tours

Kids camp and teen activities

Fun in the Malibu sun and more!

What to Expect �Summer 2015 registration is now open.

Contact us for more information or to register today!

[email protected]

pepperdine.edu/familycamp

ALUMNI

ORANGE SESSION Wednesday, July 29– Sunday, August 2, 2015

BLUE SESSION Wednesday, August 5– Sunday, August 9, 2015

[email protected] • pepperdine.edu/alumni

30 P E P P E R D I N E M A G A Z I N E Spring 2014

ALUMNI

GET CONNECTEDConnect with the local Pepperdine group near you! Socialize with old friends, network with new business contacts, and serve your community by joining your regional Pepperdine alumni chapter or affinity group. Visit pepperdine.edu/alumni/chapters for more information.

Don’t see events in your area? If you would like to have Pepperdine come to your neighborhood, please e-mail us at [email protected].

SHARE YOUR STORYWhether it’s a visit to campus, a reunion with classmates, or a future Wave being born, the Pepperdine community is tweeting, Instagramming, and Facebooking their news. Share your story with your Pepperdine family and add the hashtag #pepperdinestories for a chance to be highlighted in monthly alumni communications and for a chance to win great prizes.

[email protected] • pepperdine.edu/alumni


IN 1982 John Standley’s father submitted an application for his son to attend Pepperdine University. They had just moved back to California from Pennsylvania after Xerox Corporation, where his father worked as a finance executive, had relocated the family. Standley had just completed two years of college at Penn State University and decided to take a break to think about his next steps in life.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after two years of college,” he admits. “I started a painting business and decided I was going to paint houses for a living.”

Five months later, Standley’s father informed him that he had been accepted to Pepperdine and encouraged him to reconsider his path. Entering as a junior in 1983, he signed on as an accounting major at the senior Standley’s persuasion and experienced a different kind of higher education.

Today, Standley is at the helm of Rite Aid Corporation as chairman and chief executive officer, and credits his time forming mentorships with his professors and making connections with his fellow students at Pepperdine as a key ingredient to his success.

“It changed the whole experience for me,” he says. “The Pepperdine experience really helped me figure out what I wanted to do and, as a person who probably needed a bit of direction in my life at that time, it was a great experience for me to develop relationships with many of the people I met at Pepperdine, particularly my professors. They really had an impact on helping me figure out what I wanted to do.”

After graduating, Standley remained in the Los Angeles area and utilized Pepperdine’s connections with the top eight accounting firms at the time to begin working at Arthur Andersen. While at the public accounting firm, he gained his first professional exposure to retailing in the chain store sector.

In 1994, Standley began to move into executive leadership roles and, over the next four years, served in key executive financial positions at various retail and grocery companies, including Smith Food & Drug Centers, Ralph’s Grocery, Fred Meyer, Inc., and Fleming, Inc.


COMMUNITY | SCHOLARSHIP

John Standley with store manager Pat Gillespie

Rite Aid CEO John Standley (’85) has helped revitalize the drugstore giant using the values he gained as a student.By Gareen Darakjian

THE

Standley maintains that retail pharmacy is uniquely positioned to play a big role in how health care delivery evolves in the country over the next several years. His vision for Rite Aid is not only focused on running a convenient front end of the store, but also thinking strategically about the role of pharmacists and pharmacies in communities.

One of Rite Aid’s latest initiatives is building an integrated care model, Rite Aid Health Alliance, which connects physicians, specially trained care coaches, and Rite Aid pharmacists to work together with specially identified patients

Then in December 1999, Standley, along with three of his former associates from Fred Meyer, moved to the East Coast to form a new leadership team at Rite Aid. They were tasked with revitalizing Rite Aid after the prior management team had thrust the company into a significant financial crisis. His job as executive vice president and chief financial officer was to ensure that the company returned to a financially sound state and improved earnings.

After Standley and the team restored Rite Aid back to health, Standley further refined his executive credentials in 2005 by becoming CEO of Pathmark Stores, where he helped orchestrate another turnaround.

While Standley was leading Pathmark, Rite Aid had made a major acquisition by purchasing 1,858 Brooks Eckerd drug stores, a move that was designed to give the company the scale it needed to compete with its larger rivals. However, after a lengthy regulatory review and experiencing snags in the integration process, the company was looking to move forward as it managed significant debt.

That’s when Standley received a call from Mary Sammons, the president and CEO of Rite Aid at the time, asking him to serve as a consultant to the company. He accepted, and his immediate contributions and prior experience soon prompted Sammons and the board to offer him the position of president and COO, which he assumed in September 2008.

That same month, the stock market’s sudden collapse signified the beginning of a tough economic recession that made the drugstore chain’s position even more challenging.

“There was a fair amount of risk associated with the situation when we came into it,” Standley recalls. “Banks weren’t lending a lot of money, and gaining access to capital was

based on the reputations and relationships that we had built previously in our careers to get the company going in the right direction.”

Standley’s role involved putting a key team together to help the company tackle the financial and operational issues that were holding it back. “A lot of the people that I currently work with at Rite Aid are people I’ve worked with in the past,” says Standley. “They are here because their proven track records made them the right people for the job.”

Together, the new leadership team played an instrumental role in leading Rite Aid through

another impressive turnaround; this one fueled by expense control, operational efficiency, key refinancing transactions, and a new wellness-focused brand anchored by the company’s Wellness+ customer loyalty program. The company continued getting stronger as Standley was named CEO in 2010 and chair of the company’s board of directors in 2012. Last year Rite Aid delivered a profitable full-year performance for the first time since 2007.

“Surrounding yourself with the right people so that you can take care of your customers and patients and deliver the right experience is really one of the big keys to success,” Standley says. “It’s about assembling the right team, getting the right resources, and putting together a successful strategy to make sure your employees have what they need to be successful.”

With escalating health care costs and the emergence of the Affordable Care Act,

to help them achieve specific physician-identified wellness goals and improve their overall health and self-management abilities. Rite Aid will also add RediClinics to a large number of stores over the next few years in order to address acute conditions such as flu and strep throat, and also to provide physicals in-house.

As the current chair of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS), he also helps drive the mission of advancing community pharmacies and helping establish opportunities for their expansion and success.

“I hope one of the things that I’m doing is returning those investments,” says Standley. “By putting the effort and energy into helping develop people here at Rite Aid and furthering the cause of community pharmacies, I hope I’m returning, paying forward, what was invested in me as a student at Pepperdine.”

“ Surrounding yourself with the right people so that you can take care of your customers and patients and deliver the right experience is really one of the big keys to success.”—JOHN STANDLEYJohn Standley with store manager Kristen Stewart


Religious Freedom v. United States Law: Michael Helfand champions both sides

A Balancing Act Asked recently how he, an Orthodox Jewish man, feels

about working at a Christian university, Michael Helfand, a

Pepperdine associate professor of law and associate director of

the Diane and Guilford Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies, was

quick with an answer. Helfand had just given a presentation

at Harvard Law School for a conference on “Religious

Accommodation in the Age of Civil Rights.” The audience

included scholars from law schools nationwide.

By Sophia Fischer


COMMUNITY | SCHOLARSHIP

“The woman who asked the question thought it would be challenging for me,” says Helfand, who responded easily and enthusiastically. “The reason somebody like me comes to Pepperdine is because Pepperdine is deeply serious about cultivating a meaningful religious community that comes in the context of higher education.”

The University is sensitive, understanding, supportive, and respectful of him and his goals, says Helfand, who is also a full-time faculty member at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. In fact, the Pepperdine School of Law named Helfand Professor of the Year (2013-2014) and awarded him the inaugural Dean’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship (2013-2014).

Religious belief and what happens when it collides with United States law is a primary focus of Helfand’s work. He has spoken about the topic at multiple law conferences and in media interviews. His related writings have appeared in scholarly publications, in newspapers and magazines including the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek, and he has completed editing a book, Negotiating State and Non-State Law: The Challenges of Global and Local Legal Pluralism, to be published in 2015.

“Pepperdine encourages the type of things I work on because they think it’s important to contribute to a conversation about what religion should be doing within society,” he says.

People have the right to follow the values and laws of their faith, Helfand says. But religion and law conflict because as government grows and increasingly affects citizens’ daily lives, laws are passed that clash with how people choose to live. And, as the U.S. tries to take into account different ways of thinking, believing, and viewing the world, the more difficult it is to create a legal system that meets everyone’s needs. As a result, balancing law and diverse beliefs has become complicated.

“It’s a doubled-edged sword. There are more challenges, but there are greater things we can accomplish,” Helfand says.

Attracting attention to the issue are recent high-profile cases that involved private businesses whose policies were aligned with the company leaders’ religious beliefs rather than with federal law. When companies are up-front and obvious about their religious aspirations, then, explains Helfand, their employees are aware of those beliefs and so should have no basis to object.

However, when conflict does occur, it’s important that government and religious communities act in good faith to balance competing values.

“You have people who have serious needs on both sides of the equation,” Helfand says. “We want to make sure we don’t take the easy way out and that we reconcile different worldviews.”

Law should become a vehicle for understanding others’ needs and those who work in this area must be dedicated to that goal.

“We need to consider how other people view the world and how we can help them live deep, meaningful, and authentic lives,” Helfand remarks. “Anytime we decide we’re going to pass a law that somehow will impinge on that

religious lifestyle, we want to make sure that we really need to.”

Resolving cases through religious arbitration tribunals can enhance people’s religious freedom, Helfand says. The flip side is that certain religious communities may apply pressure and push people to do things they don’t want to do.

“What law needs to do is to find sophisticated ways to differentiate good cases from bad cases,” Helfand says.

Tension between religious liberty and civil rights was the focus of Helfand’s testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in March 2013.

“It’s something striking. Here I am very obviously Jewish, and I get to represent a Christian university before the commission to express the importance of religion,” Helfand says. “That’s a powerful moment for me because it brings together different religions to express the meaning of what religion brings to so many people. ”

At Pepperdine, Helfand enjoys sharing information with fellow faculty members about issues of mutual interest.

“Pepperdine affords me the opportunity to frequently speak to people who are informed on and care about these subjects which makes my work better,” Helfand comments. “I’m grateful to Pepperdine.”

Helfand is particularly proud of his work with the Glazer Institute where he coordinates the Brenden Mann Israel Internship Program and the Glazer Scholars, students interested in pursuing academic and extracurricular interests from Jewish and Christian perspectives.

“We’re a Jewish studies institute at a Christian university,” Helfand says. “We’ve found that it really opens up extraordinary conversations about how religion impacts you and changes the way you think about the world. We’re proud that we can provide insight from the Jewish faith tradition that can help students pursue meaningful lives.”

“ We need to consider how other people view the world and how we can help them live deep, meaningful, and authentic lives.”

—Michael Helfand

Learn more about the Diane and Guilford Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies: pepperdine.edu/glazer-institute


n the long drive from

California to Arkansas to

begin physician assistant

school in 2010, Christine

Tinberg unexpectedly had a

change of heart.

“I literally heard a voice that said, ‘Christine, create a website that matches blind cyclists with sighted bicyclists,’” recalls Tinberg, a lifelong bicycle enthusiast. “I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a great idea.’”

She called the school, told them she wasn’t coming, redirected her car, and began planning the website. Forgoing physician assistant school was a difficult decision, but Tinberg felt excitement about her new path. A physical education teacher at Los Angeles City College since 2002, Tinberg had experience with visually impaired students in her classes and had long wondered how she could assist them.

“You hit periods where you think, ’What am I doing with my life?’” she says. “I was searching for purpose. ”

This new purpose allowed Tinberg to combine her bicycling, service, and health and wellness passions and form the Los Angeles-based nonprofit U.S. Blind Tandem Cycling Connection and its website, BicyclingBlind.org, to help the blind and visually impaired experience the thrill of bicycling.

The website helps match blind and sighted cyclists for tandem bicycling. Visitors create an online profile to be matched to a rider in

Christine Tinberg (’89, MS ’00)

combines passions for athletics and

ministry to help the blind experience

the excitement of bicycling.

By Sophia Fischer


COMMUNITY | SPIRITUAL LIFE

You hit periods

where you think,

’What am I doing

with my life?’

I was searching for

purpose.—Christine Tinberg

their geographic area. BicyclingBlind.org offers resources for cycling clubs, riding opportunities, and tandem riding tutorials involving safety, technique, and etiquette issues such as what to say and how to behave around a visually impaired person.

Tandem technique involves a captain—the sighted person—as the lead rider in the front seat. The stoker—the blind person—sits in the back seat, helping to power the bike through pedaling. Volunteer captains are matched with stokers based on height, weight, and experience.

Tinberg runs the endeavor, which includes a Los Angeles-area bicycling club. She has received e-mails from users worldwide who are utilizing the site.

“Christine funded the website herself,” remarks James Hickey, a captain instrumental in helping Tinberg start the group. “Her desire to share her love of cycling and reach out to people is so giving.”

The local club meets monthly in Southern California communities of Agoura Hills or Westlake for a 20-to-25-mile ride, during which captains describe the scenery and alert stokers to road conditions. Volunteer training and tandem bikes are provided. Ride signups for stokers are on a first-come, first-served basis, because there are not enough captain volunteers to meet the demand, something Tinberg hopes will change.

“I have a waiting list of the blind who want to ride, but we’re limited by the number of volunteer captains we have,” Tinberg said.

Two stokers who ride regularly with the group are Shahrzad Sa and Alexis Chen, both from Simi Valley. Sa loves the speed and is grateful for the opportunity to ride. Chen finds the experience fun and good exercise. Both participants were initially nervous.

“There was excitement and anxiety that first ride, handing over steering control to another person,” Chen says.

Chen enjoys the camaraderie and friendships he’s made. Last year he attended Tinberg’s wedding to Thomas Warne, who volunteers as a captain for Chen.

Serving as a captain and leading the blind has been inspirational for Art Van Noppen, an avid Simi Valley cyclist and captain.

“To see people enjoying the experience gives you a sense of accomplishment, especially on the downhill when you hear them whooping,” Van Noppen comments.

Tinberg has had a lifelong love for bicycling that sprouted during her childhood in Kansas.

“As kids, we rode our bikes all over town. That was our transportation and it was such a feeling of freedom,” Tinberg says. “I also enjoy the speed and exhiliration when going downhill.”

She continued road and mountain riding throughout her Pepperdine years, first as a sports medicine undergraduate, then a ministry graduate student, and during her tenure as a visiting instructor from 1994 to 2002.

“To see Christine translate her passion into serving and helping people is exciting,” says Priscilla Gilliam MacRae, professor of sports medicine at Seaver College, with whom Tinberg maintains a close relationship.

Alone on a bike, Tinberg gets into a zone and cycles and turns automatically. Riding a tandem bike is quite different.

“On a tandem, my alertness is high. I’m always thinking, listening, and looking,” Tinberg says. “I’m doing something that I know so well, but I’m responsible for somebody else’s life and safety.”

Tinberg’s first experience with the visually impaired came through blind students she met as a kinesiology professor at Los Angeles City College.

“They amaze me with what they can do and the courage, guts, and ability to navigate,” Tinberg says. “It made me think, ‘Wow, they’re swimming, they’re weight training. I wonder about bicycling?’”

An answer came during the summer of 2008 at a movie screening about a blind mountain biker. There, Tinberg met Nancy Stevens, three-time world champion triathlete, Paralympic skier, and the

first blind woman to scale the Grand Tetons. The two began chatting about tandem biking.

“Nancy said, ‘Let’s go tomorrow,’ and I said, ‘Are you out of your mind? I’ve never done anything like that,’” Tinberg recalls.

Tinberg enjoyed the ride so much that, at Stevens’ suggestion, she attended a weeklong training camp for blind athletes at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“You’re surrounded by amazing athletes, you receive Olympic training, and there are inspiring people like veterans who lost their eyesight in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Tinberg says. “I wanted to pursue it more.”

Tinberg is grateful for the direction her life has taken and hopes to expand awareness of her website to create more captain/stoker partnerships worldwide.

“God has been so gracious to me to give me this sense of purpose, this passion,” Tinberg says. “It’s been a real gift.”


skateboarding is seen as something that is aggressive and something that only street boys do.”

Through Operation Change, Sawalich and his team partnered with the Lebanese Skateboarding Association and joined local activists, including Ameena, to build a skate park and save an endangered community outlet on the brink of being shut down. The cameras not only captured the efforts of the crew helping to restore the park, but also some of the pervasive issues plaguing a country caught at the crossroads of Eastern tradition and Western progress.

“I was really impressed with the youth movement that’s emerging in Beirut, and the culture and arts that are coming to fruition there,” says Sawalich. “While everyone else is focusing on the bombed-out, bullet-ridden structures and the war that’s going on around them, we’re focusing on the inspiration and the creativity that is happening there that will change everything for their people.”

The episode’s theme of civic activism also followed the team to Haiti, where Sawalich and his team came to the aid of the victims of a devastating earthquake, and Colombia, where the crew worked with local organizations to help communities displaced by violent local militias.

A telecommunications major with an emphasis in TV production at Pepperdine, Sawalich caught the travel bug while studying abroad in the London program. “Pepperdine got me hooked on wanting to learn about different cultures and people from around the world,” he says. “It really helped play into what I’m doing today. Experiencing new things and being abroad and out of my comfort zone allowed my eyes to open up to what the rest of the world was like.”

Sawalich has spent most of his life traveling the world to help people in need. Aside from his role as executive producer of Operation Change, Sawalich is the senior director of global media and philanthropy for Starkey Hearing Technologies, the top supporter of Starkey Hearing Foundation. The foundation, founded

Steven Sawalich (’99) shines a light on organizations around the world through philanthropic docuseries Operation Change.

By Gareen Darakjian

ON A WALL that surrounds the main exit of an industrial neighborhood in northeastern Beirut, Lebanon, is the city’s largest display of graffiti art—a 50-meter stenciled mural that reads, “COURAGE IS CONTAGIOUS.”

In a country that still displays daily reminders of a divisive civil war, and for those citizens who live with the threat of spontaneous uprisings, the message is an ever-present reminder of the continuous impact of a single act.

Operation Change executive producer Steven Sawalich (’99) felt the life-changing effects of this mantra firsthand when he met a local college student named Ameena while on location near the Karantina region of Lebanon’s capital. The spunky teen rued the pressures that society places on women and found her escape through skateboarding, an activity deemed unacceptable for women by Middle Eastern standards.

“Apart from the fact that it’s dangerous, [women] won’t feel comfortable,” explains Ameena in the “Lebanon” episode of the 10-part documentary series that debuted on the OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network on June 23. “They’re constantly being looked at, and

FireCourageon

Phot

o co

urte

sy o

f Jen

nife

r Per

chal

la |

Ope

ratio

n Ch

ange


COMMUNITY | SPIRITUAL LIFE

capacity and doing all that you can do, you must find that drive to be better. What I’ve learned from him is to keep obtaining knowledge, to keep reading, and if you don’t know something, to try to learn it.”

Beyond showing the outcomes of civic activism, Operation Change and its complementary web platform (operationchange.com) encourage viewers to engage in service and provide opportunities to learn more about the regions visited in the series. While the series was on the air, viewers and website visitors were able to enter to win a chance to join the team on a future humanitarian adventure. To date, two of the 11 winners

have traveled with the Operation Change team. As a way to help continue to spread the series message and engage young people, web platform visitors can currently accrue points for viewing and sharing featured content.

“Don’t hesitate,” encourages Sawalich. “Whether you want to volunteer at an organization or if you want to go out by yourself and do something, we’re trying to educate people about the many different ways philanthropy can make a difference.”

“We hope that viewers can learn about the different communities around the world and see what other people are doing to make a difference. Hopefully, that will inspire them to be a part of it.”

over 30 years ago by Bill Austin and Sawalich’s mother Tani, is dedicated to providing free hearing devices and hearing education to people around the world struggling with hearing loss.

His first overseas trip with the foundation was during his junior year at Pepperdine. The journey sent him to Ecuador during Christmastime, when the foundation outfitted 600 locals with hearing aids over the course of a few days.

“I remember one family that lived in a 10-foot square room with a curtain down the middle,” he says. “They had a tiny Christmas tree, but they were healthy and they were all together and that was all they needed. Seeing how happy they were helped me appreciate everything I was able to do and have.”

When the time came to take his philanthropy to the next level with Operation Change, Sawalich opted not to pitch the idea to networks. “Because we were actively out in the world doing this work with the foundation, we decided to formalize bringing a crew along with us to focus on the efforts that we were making in those communities,” he explains. “I never took it to networks until we were actually done shooting. We did it a little in reverse.”

While the foundation has provided invaluable opportunities to establish relationships with organizations and local heroes that serve daily within their communities, the show is not based on the foundation, but its philosophy that, “Alone you can’t do much, but together you can change the world.”

“It was really about bringing the cameras along with us to show these stories of hope and inspiration and positivity in such negatively perceived areas,” says Sawalich.

Operation Change also aims to bring attention to the transformative work being done by organizations worldwide and support them in their endeavors.

“We wanted to work with philanthropists who were engaged in their organizations and foundations and wanted to be part of the solution and help find the answers,” he explains. “Everyone that we’ve worked or partnered with shares our same values and goals, which is trying to make the world as better a place as we can.”

The show counts special guests Sir Elton John, Sir Richard Branson, the Dalai Lama, and former president Bill Clinton as supporters of the Operation Change mission. Sawalich considers the latter as one of his mentors and somebody who challenged the foundation to triple their efforts in three years. It was one particular conversation with Clinton that Sawalich refers to for inspiration—invaluable advice given during a two-hour conversation that transpired at a cafe in Zanzibar, when the plane they were supposed to take to the next country broke down.

“He just encouraged me to do more,” says Sawalich. “When you think you’re at your

Whether you want to volunteer at an organization or if you want to go out by yourself and do something, we’re trying to educate people about the many different ways philanthropy can make a difference. — STEVEN SAWALICH

The WAVES OF SERVICE movement celebrates, supports, and connects Pepperdine alumni committed to volunteerism and careers of service worldwide. Learn more about how you can get involved:

pepperdine.edu/wavesofservice

Phot

o co

urte

sy o

f Ope

ratio

n Ch

ange


With an established career in traditional psychotherapy, Graduate School of Education and Psychology alumna Erin Shannon (MA ’98, PsyD ’01) also treats athletes using energy medicine.

By Gareen Darakjian

The Game Changer

LEGEND HAS IT that Erin Shannon helped the St. Louis Cardinals win the 2011 World Series.

Something funny happened in the dugout that year: players were seen tapping different points on their bodies and wearing necklaces made of curious-looking stones. “I was nervous they were going to figure out it was me,” Shannon says.

Months earlier, an athlete had walked into her very traditional, very Western psychotherapy clinic and said, “I’ve heard about this stuff that you’re doing. This other stuff.” He was a pitcher for the Cardinals and had heard about the healing power of Shannon’s energy medicine from her father, Mike Shannon, a radio broadcaster for the Missouri baseball team.

“I thought, ‘Oh boy, I’m going to get sued.’” Shannon agreed to treat the athlete in the energy medicine room she had recently set up in her St. Louis office and sent him on his way. She didn’t accept payment for what she thought was a one-time favor for a friend.

Her office soon began receiving phone calls from other professional athletes, many of them pitchers, quarterbacks, and goalies. “It spread like wildfire and I was terrified, because this was not psychotherapy and I was very afraid of what this ‘energy stuff’ might do to my nice, Western medicine reputation,” Shannon recalls.


COMMUNITY | ATHLETICS

Because they utilize their bodies for their practice, Shannon explains that athletes are very attuned to the subtle energies in their bodies. “They’re very kinesthetically intelligent and aware of what their energy is doing. They might not know the clinical terms to explain it, but they can definitely feel when I am in their subtle energy field.”

While pursuing an education and career in psychology, Shannon was mostly interested in the study and practice of traditional, Western psychotherapy based on physical, measurable variables. “I had to see it to believe it,” she says.

Then, in 2002, her mother was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a highly aggressive brain tumor that Shannon calls “a death sentence.” Doctors estimated that she would die within the year. The family tried anything and everything that Western medicine provided, but nothing worked.

One year later, in her final days, Shannon’s mother stirred from a comatose state in her hospice bed and grimaced in pain. Twelve hours of pump after pump of morphine proved futile. One more would have ended her life.

“As we were all tearing our hair out trying to figure out what we could do for my mother, a hospice nurse tapped my shoulder and asked, ‘Do you mind if I use Reiki to find the source of your mother’s pain?’ I had no idea what she was talking about. I just said, ‘Lady, I don’t care what you do. If you can tell me what’s wrong, then do it.’”

Thirty seconds later, Shannon’s mother took a deep breath, and the face that once grimaced in pain smoothed over. All of her vital signs soon stabilized.

“My entire world turned right on its side in that moment. I had no idea what that was, I had no idea how to fit that into my understanding of anything,” she says.

Reiki, Shannon would learn, is a form of Eastern medicine developed in Japan that utilizes the power of transferring energy through therapeutic touch to promote the recovery of various illnesses and maladies. Universal energy is believed to be transferred through massages, taps, and strokes over key meridian and energy points of the body that allow for healing and a state of equilibrium.

Her mother passed away three days later, peacefully and painlessly, and Shannon spent the next three years studying everything from healing touch to quantum physics. She woke up before dawn every morning to read, at minimum, one book a day on whatever the hospice nurse had done to reduce her mother’s pain.

Today, Shannon’s practice is very unconventional and treats mostly professional athletes who fly in from all over the country, some Olympic athletes, and some college athletes.

“And then some regular people. Regular human beings. They come in and they really want the ‘energy stuff,’” she explains. Shannon gives patients the choice of a traditional psychotherapy session, which involves a consultation in an office with a couch and chair, or a session in the energy room that is appointed with a massage table, various crystals, and soothing music. “Once people go into that energy room,” says Shannon, “they never go back.”

Shannon’s treatment plan begins with healing athletes’ injuries through different methods, including the Black Pearl technique, a combination of massage and acupressure over certain points of the body, which regulates different neural networks in the brain and allows blood flow to return to normal levels. Once they recover, Shannon goes on to begin performance optimization techniques, which involves pairing certain players with the best coaching techniques for their specific conditions.

The athletes she treats most commonly suffer from concussions, explosive rage disorders, ADHD, and CTE—chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disorder experienced by athletes who have suffered repetitive brain trauma.

“It’s a quite dangerous mix of things that are very common in higher levels of sports performance,” she explains. “The more you play sports like soccer and hockey and football, the more likely you are to accumulate diffused brain traumas that maybe aren’t so apparent now, but down the road are devastating.”

With patients who suffer from these types of conditions, Shannon uses several energy medicine techniques, such as cerebral blood flow regulation that strengthens the brain with remarkable progress. “Some people have come to not need lifelong ADHD medications after we do treatments for concussions,” she says. “My passion right now is to try to find ways to help people cope and prevent injuries so that, down the road, they can be happy, healthy fathers and husbands when they’re retired.

“My psychotherapy degree and background are extremely helpful in talking through things when emotions come up. I use all of the things that I have learned and I still am in love with psychology from Freud to Piaget to Jung,” enthuses Shannon. “But paired with the energy medicine techniques, it just knocks it out of the park.”

My entire world turned right on its side in that moment. I had no idea how to fit that into my understanding of anything.

— ERIN SHANNON

Photo courtesy of Fox 2 News St. Louis


ADVANTAGE: SARKISSIAN

Professional tennis player Alex Sarkissian (’14) takes tools learned at Pepperdine on the ATP Pro Tour.

By Sophia Fischer

Until arriving at Pepperdine, professional tennis player Alex Sarkissian depended only on himself on the court. He viewed

tennis as an individual, self-focused sport. An only child, Sarkissian maintained this philosophy from his tennis beginnings at age 6 in his hometown of Glendale, California.

“I liked that I was in control of everything,” says Sarkissian. “I had no teammates to rely on and I liked the competition.”

So he was quite surprised upon being recruited by Pepperdine that the men’s tennis team followed a different philosophy. Former head coach Adam Steinberg, who left Pepperdine in July to become head coach at the University of Michigan, emphasized a team-oriented environment, where athletes supported and encouraged one another.

“I was never exposed to that idea of teamwork before,” Sarkissian explains.

Sarkissian had played on his own for so long that he didn’t understand what many young tennis players don’t: that college tennis is team first.

“These kids become accountable to each other,” says Steinberg. “They realize that if they do something negative, it affects not only themselves, but also their teammates, past players, and the program.”

Current head coach Marcelo Ferreira, who replaced Steinberg, has been involved in other tennis programs, but says Pepperdine’s is special because of Steinberg’s group philosophy.

“He always preached to the guys the importance of being selfless, of caring for one another,” Ferreira comments. “Adam always stressed that they should rely on each other as soon as they set foot on the tennis court, as well as off court, and that the benefits of doing that are always beyond normal expectations. That blew me away.”

As a result, Ferreira observed players like Sarkissian improve their game significantly.

“I’ve seen players with a lot of potential and talent, but they never achieve their long-term goals, because they just care about themselves and live in their bubble the entire time,” Ferreira says.

Feeling responsibility for one another helps players deal with hard times on the court.


COMMUNITY | ATHLETICS

“Alex understands that his best tennis comes when he’s positive, when his body language is right, and with how he carries himself in the face of adversity,” Steinberg says. “I see already how it has carried over these past few months in the matches I’ve watched him play in.“

Once Sarkissian embraced the team concept, his game improved significantly. He made Pepperdine history with his achievements, including earning 2014 West Coast Conference Player

of the Year.

“Helping others get better while improving myself helped me in many ways for tennis and

personally, including getting ready to play professionally,” Sarkissian says.

Since graduating last spring, Sarkissian has distinguished himself on the intense and competitive professional tennis circuit, raising his Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) singles ranking from 866 in early summer to 595 in late October.

“I would love to be the best player in the world like Roger Federer,” Sarkissian says. “I’m traveling for tournaments, getting my ranking up, and trying to maintain my skills. We’ll see how things go.”

His former Pepperdine coaches are big fans. They watched him grow and develop tremendously this past year.

“He’s doing great on the pro tour. I’m really proud of him,” Steinberg says. “His potential’s unlimited. I can’t wait to see him grow over the next few years and one day watch him in the U.S. Open.”

Sarkissian has the talent and skills to make it in the pro circuit, agrees Ferreira.

“He’s already achieved a lot and I truly believe that he is doing all the right things to become a successful pro player,” he enthuses.

Sarkissian’s greatest on-court strengths are his ground strokes, Steinberg says.

“A lot of players have weaknesses on certain strokes. Alex

really doesn’t have any weaknesses. He’s solid on both sides and that’s what makes him dangerous,” he remarks.

Former Pepperdine teammate and professional player David

Sofaer (’14) came to know Sarkissian on and off court through the many college tournaments to which the athletes traveled.

“He’s got incredible ground strokes and a big serve. His mental strength on the court is now his biggest weapon,” Sofaer says. “Alex is a great guy, very chill, and loves to have a laugh. I always requested him as a roommate, because we would have nonstop laughter.”

Tennis has shaped Sarkissian’s character, imparting important life lessons, like learning to work harder after a loss. A Seaver College economics major, Sarkissian extended that concept to other areas of his life, such as class assignments.

“I knew it was going to be tough going to college and being a student-athlete. You go through a lot and it takes a toll on you,” Sarkissian explains. “I managed to pull through and I’m proud of that.”

To stay in top form, Sarkissian trains six days a week. Each day, he spends three hours on fitness and conditioning training at the gym and four hours playing tennis. He also closely monitors his sleep and diet.

“Tennis is my full-time job,” Sarkissian says. “I’d much rather be out on the court in the sun playing and competing than sitting at a desk all day. Everything I’ve learned about hard work, discipline, how to be professional, and look out for others I’ve learned at Pepperdine,” Sarkissian says. “I’m the same player, but more polished. I’m glad I went through it. I’m off to new territory now.”

Alex Sarkissian celebrates alongside former Pepperdine men’s tennis head coach Adam Steinberg after finishing the 2014 NCAA Singles Tournament as the runner-up champion.

Alex Sarkissian, top row, far right, poses with his Waves teammates and coaches.

See Alex Sarkissian in action at the West Coast Conference Tennis Championship Semifinals: magazine.pepperdine.edu/alex-sarkissian

“ EVERYTHING I’VE LEARNED ABOUT HARD WORK, DISCIPLINE,

HOW TO BE PROFESSIONAL, AND LOOK OUT FOR OTHERS I’VE

LEARNED AT PEPPERDINE.— ALEX SARKISSIAN


Cosima Luther (’06) uses her violin to inspire disadvantaged youth in Los Angeles. By Sophia Fischer

the fervent fiddler

ACCOMPLISHED PROFESSIONAL VIOLINIST Cosima Luther’s biggest thrill is not when she performed live on American Idol with Janet Jackson and Christina Aguilera. It’s not her performances at the Academy Awards Governors Ball or with Stevie Wonder, Natalie Cole, and John Williams. It’s not her world travels performing in prestigious venues and not her gig conducting the Western States Honors Orchestra Festival in Colorado this month. So, what is Luther’s biggest thrill?

“It has been by far the most rewarding and fulfilling thing I could ever imagine with music,” Luther enthuses, of her work with disadvantaged children in Los Angeles.

Six days a week, Luther drives to Exposition Park in South Los Angeles to teach violin as the head violin teacher for Youth Orchestra LA (YOLA). YOLA provides free music lessons, instruments, and performance venues to 300 children between the ages of six and 17. Established in 2007, the program is offered through a partnership between the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Harmony Project, and Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.

Students apply for admission and, once accepted, remain with the program through high school graduation. The children study with professional musicians on their respective instruments and are placed into beginning, intermediate, and advanced orchestras. Luther conducts all three groups.


COMMUNITY | THE ARTS

the fervent fiddler


Although the program is intense, YOLA’s primary goal is not to raise classical musicians.

“We want to show them what it means to work for something and see the benefits,” she explains. “Through music, we can teach important values that they can use throughout their lives in whatever they pursue.”

Luther receives tremendous satisfaction from her students’ accomplishments. In essays for school assignments and college applications that they shared with Luther, students express how practicing violin changed their lives, taught them to complete homework, achieve better grades, and inspired them to apply to college. In fact, several YOLA participants have been awarded college scholarships.

“I have had students say, ‘I’ve had no one to look up to all my life.’ ‘Thank you for being my role model.’ ‘You’ve shown me how to be a better person and achieve the things I want,’” Luther explains.

For many students, music lessons are the highlight of their week. Most walk or take the bus to Exposition Park for lessons.

Luther hopes that YOLA leaders can find space to accommodate the 100 children on the program’s waiting list.

“Cosima is one-of-a-kind,” says Henry Price, Pepperdine professor of music. “She has this enthusiasm that’s contagious. She shows students that music is not only about hard work, but that it’s fun.”

As a Pepperdine student, Luther solidified her identity and became a better teacher because of the diversity of students, experiences, and backgrounds on campus.

“I felt very much at home there, surrounded by people with similar vision, values, and morals—fellow students who are hardworking, passionate, and had dreams to achieve,” Luther recalls.

When not teaching, Luther is on the road performing in Europe, Asia, and North America with the Classical Concert Chamber Orchestra, made up of musicians from many countries. She recently returned from a three-week recording session in Poland and will perform in Italy in the fall.

For Luther, music is a universal language. She describes a moving experience she had with a fellow musician in 2013 while performing in Latvia in which their only common language was music.

“I shared sheet music with another violinist who only spoke Latvian,” she recalls. “We could not talk to each other, but we were able to play Vivaldi, Mozart, and Bach the same way with not one spoken word. We had the best time making music together.”

Although she enjoys being an international musician, her thoughts are with her young protégés no matter where she goes.

“The hardest thing about touring with the orchestra is being away from the students,” Luther says.

Luther is passionate about music and puts her whole heart into everything she does.

“When I perform, people come up and say, ‘Wow, you brought tears to my eyes,’” Luther says. “Knowing I can impact people that way is the greatest blessing I could ever ask for.”

“I’m such a believer in the arts and what that can do for a child during the growing up years,” Luther says. “Music can change lives for the better.”

Working with children is not new to Luther. She began teaching music at age 13 when her family opened the Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp in 1999 in the mountains outside Denver, Colorado, where Luther was born and raised. She, her father Mark, and her brother Christopher, who both play violin, join other professional musicians in teaching non-classical forms of violin at the annual summer camp.

Luther has also taught violin at Crossroads School for the Arts in Santa Monica, California, and served as conductor and director of the South Bay Youth Orchestra.

“Maybe the social aspect of music has been my favorite part,” she says. “I’m thankful to God that what I do for a living can impact people’s lives in a unique way.”

Luther extends her teaching skills to Pepperdine as well, serving as guest faculty for the summer music program in Heidelberg, Germany, along with her brother, and at the Malibu campus, where she returns annually to play in the orchestra, an opera, or a musical.

Through music, we can teach important values that they can use throughout their lives in whatever they pursue.—COSIMA LUTHER

You may have remarked at the talented performers, the sophisticated set design, or even how the particular adaptation of the play or musical compared to versions you had seen before. Perhaps you didn’t notice the way the lights cast ominous shadows during a tense scene or flooded the stage with whimsical bravado, but chances are they influenced how the show made you feel.

Ben Pilat, visiting assistant professor of theatre at Seaver College, claims he “fell into” lighting while studying theatre at Emporia State University, a small, liberal arts college, much like Pepperdine, that emphasized the development of a diverse set of skills instead of specializing in one particular field. His first lighting assignment was The Laramie Project.

“The subject matter was tragic and gut-wrenching,” Pilat says, “and I watched those rehearsals in a plain rehearsal room, not in a theatre. It was powerful, but it wasn’t until we got through all of the rehearsals in the theatre and the show was finished that I realized the power that lighting had on the way an audience receives the show.”

As a lighting designer, Pilat has the unique ability to affect the arc of a show, shape how a story begins and ends, and play a part in the way audiences see a piece of theatre—sometimes just as much as the actors in the show. On set, he is the last person who gets to do his job. In order to visualize the final product, the sets need to be built and painted, the costumes need to be made, and the actors need to be on stage.

“I can present ideas, I can communicate with words and images as well as I can, but at the end of the day, there’s still an integral part of the process that requires sitting in a theatre, going over all of the light cues, discussing, making some changes, and then moving on.”

After receiving his MFA from Boston University in 2008, Pilat was drawn to Los Angeles, where, for the past five years, he has been the lighting designer for the Los Angeles Ballet and has worked on productions of Swan Lake and the Nutcracker. He has also been tasked with designing the lighting for eight world premiere ballets in collaboration with major American choreographers.

“The kinds of productions I like the best are when the performers and the light are working together to tell the story,” Pilat explains. “The light is not just something that rains down from above and tells us what day it is, but the actors are interacting with it and it becomes another character on stage.”

Think of the last time you enjoyed a theatre production.


COMMUNITY | THE ARTS

From Broadway to ballet, lighting designer Ben Pilat has gathered the tools necessary to becoming a valuable teacher. By Gareen Darakjian

The hardest part of his job, he says, is time.

“It’s knowing that the show will absolutely open on a certain date whether we are ready or not, and that date gets closer every day,” he says.

Between stints at the Attic Theatre Company, Juilliard, Yale, Commonwealth Opera, and Manhattan Theatre Source, Pilat has also been a member of the lighting design teams for the Broadway productions of Master Class and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.

“Many people view Broadway as being the pinnacle of a career,” says Pilat. “You have access to all of the resources, etc., but one of the things I enjoy most about ballet is that there tends to not be any words. The challenge is how to tell a story through movement of the human body and through lighting and through music. In some ways, it’s a much freer form.”

At Seaver College, Pilat incorporates his love for the abstract in classes including lighting design, stage management, drafting, and drawing and rendering. Each course is a mix of lecture, demonstrations, and hands-on experiences. His students keep lighting journals to jot down details they notice in the world around them and others are tasked with breaking down the elements of photographs and recreating them in the theatre on stage. In lighting design, he covers both the technical aspects of optics and electricity, as well as the artistic side of telling a story through light.

Pilat’s desire to pursue teaching theatre at the college level came easy, and he has been credited with helping Seaver College’s theatre program double its number of production/design majors. While teaching was something that he considered to always be on the horizon, it was important to him to gain work experiences that would make him a more valuable teacher.

“One of the things about teaching that I enjoy most is the moment when a student realizes, ‘I can actually do that thing I’ve seen you do, the thing that used to look like magic. I get it. It’s not unattainable.’”

On the first day of classes this fall, Pilat and a crew of students began building the set for Into the Woods, the theatre program’s fall musical that debuted at Smothers Theatre on November 13.

Pilat has designed lighting for Into the Woods once before in New York at the

Stella Adler Studio of Acting, on the third floor of a building of a tiny theatre that

housed only 24 lights. The musical is a modern retelling of classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales and one of the theatre department’s biggest shows yet. A student cast of 20 and a crew of more than 50 students, faculty, and staff spent most of the fall semester building the world in which Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Cinderella exist.

“Something I occasionally struggle with is wanting to give my students all the knowledge I have and wanting them to be experts in particular areas of theatre,” he admits. “I always have to remind myself that that’s not really the goal. I am far happier if students are well-rounded and can have an opinion about a play or a light cue or scenic design and be able to articulate it,” he explains.

“I want my students to have that kind of a background to be educated, well-rounded citizens of the world who have an intense curiosity about the world around them,” he says. “I would be much happier about that than if they were experts in every particular field of theatre.”


One of the things about

teaching that I enjoy most is the moment

when a student realizes, ‘I can actually do that thing I’ve seen you do, the thing that used to

look like magic.’—BEN PILAT

A Flood of NoahsSeaver College

Instructor: Chris Heard

From brightly colored children’s nursery furnishings to Darren Aronofsky’s post-apocalyptic film, the story of Noah’s ark pervades Western culture. Students enrolled in this seminar will discover what the story of Noah has meant to readers from antiquity to the present, and how the story of Noah influences popular culture. Heard, an expert in literary features of biblical narrative and theology, will specifically emphasize Jewish and cinematic interpretations of the Old Testament tale.

Cool for SchoolIN RECENT YEARS, courses covering everything from zombies in popular culture to the history of

maple syrup have cropped up on college campuses around the nation. Here, we rounded up a list of some of

this fall’s coolest classes across Pepperdine that, beyond capturing the attention of students itching for more

than just another lecture, allow professors to express their own passions and spirit for the subjects.

Foundations in Digital ArtsSeaver College

Instructor: Dana Zurzolo (MA ‘02)

Demystifying the digital painting and drawing process was the motivation behind the art department’s new digital arts track that launched this fall. The series of five hands-on courses emphasizes using digital technology (particularly Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Dreamweaver) alongside more traditional technologies (acrylic paint, printing presses, cameras). The Foundations course, specifically, is designed to encourage students with little or no digital drawing experience, and those who feel they lack creativity or traditional drawing skills, to attempt and welcome the spirit of self-expression.

The Nature of Presidential LeadershipSchool of Public Policy

Instructor: Steven Hayward

Want to know what it takes to be the leader of the free world? This seminar, taught by Steven Hayward, the School of Public Policy’s Ronald Reagan Professor of Policy 2014–2016, will examine the qualities necessary for presidential success, fundamental issues in executive political leadership, and how the modern presidency measures up.

Video Game LawSchool of Law

Instructor: Matthew Blakely

This course, taught by an entertainment attorney and established Hollywood dealmaker, encompasses both fundamental and controversial legal aspects of the rapidly expanding video game industry. Between discussions of asset acquisition, intellectual property issues, and governmental regulation of games with respect to sex, nudity, and violence, the course will focus on issues arising from the sale and distribution of modern computer games.

Wine LawSchool of Law

Instructor: Brian Simas

From grape to glass and beyond, this course gets to the bottom of everything future viticulturists or everyday wine enthusiasts need to know about the business of making and selling wine. Wine Law examines the regulations, diverse fields of law, and transactions encountered in a modern wine law practice while giving students the opportunity to learn from guest lecturers and participate in off-site, hands-on instruction at local facilities to learn about the mechanics of vineyard operations. As the chair of his firm’s Wine Industry and Agribusiness Practice Groups, Simas represents wine and agribusiness enterprises and industry stakeholders throughout the state of California.


IN FOCUS

NOT ALL GIFTS from Your Estate Are Created Equal

CURT A. PORTZEL (’92), JD, MTS

Executive Director Center for Estate and Gift Planning

[email protected]

24255 Pacific Coast Highway Malibu, California 90263-4893

pepgift.org

Since individual retirement accounts passing to individuals other than spouses are taxed at death, giving such assets to charity through your estate plan is a great option.

Maximize your giving to the people and causes you love most! Learn about this and other tax advantages of giving to charity through your IRA by calling the Center for Estate and Gift Planning at 310.506.4893.

i

THE PEPPERDINE MOBILE APPNow available for free download on iOS and Android devices

25%

Cert no. SW-COC-002556F P O

24255 Pacific Coast HighwayMalibu, CA 90263-4138

DOWNLOAD THE PEPPERDINE MOBILE APP FOR:

Ú University news and events calendars

Ú Updated emergency info

Ú Campus maps

Ú Much more!

Free in both iTunes and Google Play stores

EXPERIENCE PEPPERDINE IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND!

pepperdine.edu/u-mobile-app

pepperdine magazine vol. 6, iss. 2 (fall 2014)

Documents