Pepperdine People Podcast

Pete Peterson is executive director of Common Sense California, an organization that promotes and supports citizen engagement as a way of producing more creative policy decisions and better citizens. He sat down with Steve Zikman, organizer of Taking it Upstream: A Green Leadership (Un)Conference, to discuss the potential topics at this highly participatory symposium sponsored by the Straus Insititute for Dispute Resolution and the Palmer Center for Entrepreneurship & the Law at Pepperdine University.

Pepperdine celebrates the 21st annual Step Forward Day on September 12, 2009. What began as a single service project by two students has grown to engage generations of alumni, parents, and friends spanning the globe to live the mission of the University: Freely ye receive; freely give. Alumnus Scott Pitts ('89), one of the student founders, joins Vice Chancellor Sara Jackson, former director of the Pepperdine Volunteer Center, to remember the first day of service in 1989 and discuss why the tradition continues to thrive after two decades.

Michael L. Williams, assistant professor of information systems at the Graziadio School of Business and Management, will take the helm of the Pepperdine Center for Faith and Learning during the 2009-10 academic year. In this episode, Wiliams discusses the center's ongoing work to unite Pepperdine's passion for teaching and scholarship with its identity as a place of faith.

On occasion of the first Nonprofit Summer Institute at Pepperdine University, held in the summer of 2009, Regan Schaffer, associate professor of organizational behavior and management, welcomed to campus Doug Green, a consulting, strategic planning and organizational development professional to nonprofit organizations and local government. Green offered his insights into the current trends in nonprofit management, and the two discuss the challenges and rewards of the field.

Kenneth W. Starr, the Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean and Professor of Law, and Thomas J. Stipanowich, the William H. Webster Chair in Dispute Resolution and Professor of Law sat down with Timothy Perrin, Vice Dean and Professor of Law to discuss their recent trip and participation in the Qatar Law Forum in Doha Qatar regarding Global Commitment to the Rule of Law.

Christopher Parkening, artistic director of the Parkening International Guitar Competition, is a distinguished professor of music at Pepperdine University's Seaver College Fine Arts Division, where he holds the Christopher Parkening Chair in Classical Guitar. Media Relations Manager Molly Drobnick sat down the guitar virtuoso to find out what's in store for the second triennial competition, in which 15 of the best young classical guitarists from around the world will vie for $65,000 in prize money.

Poet C.K. Williams is the author of 10 books of poetry, including Repair, which was awarded the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. In 2005 he won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, which is given to a poet "whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition." In this episode, Williams, who teaches creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, speaks with Pepperdine creative writing professor John Struloeff about the writing process and the significance of National Poetry Month.

Michael Zakian, director of the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art on the Malibu campus, dedicates himself to bringing the highest quality of art to the museum, engaging with the Pepperdine and local communities, and building a permanent collection for the museum. From January to April 2009, Zakian had the opportunity to display the works of Robert Dowd, whose contemporary art he says "has been unjustly overlooked in recent years." Molly Drobnick, public relations manager, speaks with Zakian about the American artist, best known for his imaginative, whimsical paintings of money and stamps.

As an assistant professor of economics at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy, Luisa Blanco specializes in economic development and international economics. In this episode, Ted Garcia, director of media relations at Pepperdine, picks her brain about her research on the issues of policy-making in Latin American countries, and specifically the rise in Leftist politics that she has observed. In January 2009, Blanco presented research at the American Economic Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California. She will also present in June 2009 at the Latin American Studies Association international conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Prolific author and scholar John Stackhouse comes to Pepperdine as the featured lecturer of the fifth annual Frank Pack Distinguished Christian Scholar Lecture Program. In this episode, Jerry Rushford, director of church relations at Pepperdine University, speaks with Stackhouse about his talk, "Can God be Trusted? Faith and the Challenge of Evil." The title of the lecture comes from Stackhouse's book of the same name, in which he critically examines the doubts about a loving God that arise out of difficult situations.

As a senior fellow at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy, Joseph Loconte writes widely about the role of religious belief in strengthening democracy, advancing human rights, and reforming civil society. He has had plenty to write about in the midst of an economic crisis and political climate change in Washington with the recent election of Barack Obama. Loconte sits down with colleague Robert Kaufman, professor of public policy, to discuss "A Christian Vision of Social Justice," a lecture in which Loconte explores social justice and proposes a new vision for Christian engagement.

Bill Szobody has been a professor of dance at Pepperdine University for six years and has directed the dance program, Dance In Flight, for the past five years. As director of the fall 2008 musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie, he takes on the challenge of transporting Pepperdine audiences to Manhattan in 1922 - a time when women were entering the workforce and the rules of love and social behavior were changing forever. Actress Jillian Lawson, a Seaver College junior who plays Millie Dillmount in the play, picks the director's brain about his modern take on Thoroughly Modern Millie.

In 1994, while nearly one million Rwandan Tutsis died at the hands of Hutus, Immaculée Ilibagiza spent three months cramped in the bathroom of a merciful Hutu pastor with seven other terrified women. Her parents, brothers, friends, neighbors had all been killed. Ilibagiza has since authored a book on her experience titled, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust. Pepperdine's Convocation director Chris Collins shares a dialogue with the genocide survivor and bestselling-author on the bumpy path she's navigated in her pursuit of forgiveness.

James West is a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma. As president of Futures for Children, an Albuquerque-based organization, he has dedicated his life to enhancing the educational experiences of American Indian students who live on reservations. Ted Garcia, Pepperdine's director of media relations, speaks with West about issues of American Indian spirituality, to which West has lent his pen in many significant essays, and his path from childhood on a reservation in Oklahoma to becoming a nationally-recognized economic and business development expert.

Lauren Winner, author of the books, Girl Meets God, Mudhouse Sabbath, and Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity, recently sat down with Pepperdine's Jerry Rushford to discuss her writing. She has appeared on PBS's Religion and Ethics Newsweekly and has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, Books and Culture, and Christianity Today. Her essays have been included in The Best Christian Writing for the years 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006. Winner has degrees from Duke, Columbia, and Cambridge universities, and holds a Ph.D. in history. The former book editor for Beliefnet, Winner teaches at Duke Divinity School, and lives with her husband in Durham, North Carolina.

Robert Clark, Founding President of the Alumni Leadership Council, sat down with Pepperdine's Rick Gibson to talk about the mission of the council and the overall vision and strategy to be used in helping to build affinity and develop community among Pepperdine University Alumni. Mr. Clark also offers specific suggestions as to how alumni can support our current students by providing jobs or internships and acting as mentors as a step to building a stronger alumni base.

Robert Louis Wilken, the William R. Kenan Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia, spoke on St. Augustine, The Confessions, and the Christian Intellectual Life at Pepperdine University on Jan. 11, 2007. Pepperdine's Paul Contino sat down with Wilken to discuss his most recent work, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God. During the discussion, Wilken and Contino explore what some of the earliest Christian thinkers have to teach us about the relationship of faith and reason.

Dr. Scot McKnight, the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University in Chicago, IL, spoke at Pepperdine University on January 9, 2007 as a part of the third annual Frank Pack Distinguished Christian Scholar Lecture Series. Before he spoke, Dr. McKnight sat down with Pepperdine's own Jerry Rushford about his books Jesus Creed and The Real Mary, as well as his thoughts on the emerging church movement.