The story
Founded by George Pepperdine in 1937.1
Early years
In February 1937, against the backdrop of the Great Depression, George Pepperdine founded a liberal arts college in the city of Los Angeles to be affiliated with the Churches of Christ.
Pepperdine had built his fortune largely through the Western Auto Supply Company, which he founded in 1909 with a $5 investment. Pepperdine had a twofold objective for the college: "First, we want to provide first-class, fully accredited academic training in the liberal arts... Secondly, we are especially dedicated to a greater goal—that of building in the student a Christ-like life, a love for the church, and a passion for the souls of mankind."
On September 21, 1937, 167 new students from 22 different states and two other countries entered classes on a newly built campus on 34 acres (14 ha) at West 79th Street and South Vermont Avenue in the Vermont Knolls neighborhood of South Los Angeles, later referred to as the Vermont Avenue campus. The campus was designed in the Streamline Moderne style by John M. Cooper, an art deco architect. By April 5, 1938, George Pepperdine College was fully accredited by the Northwest Association in large part due to the leadership of president Batsell Baxter and dean Hugh M. Tiner.
The student newspaper, the Graphic, published its first issue in October 1937.
The college expanded significantly in the years following its founding, reaching an enrollment of 1,839 for the 1948–1949 year. The college's first graduate program, a master of arts in religion, admitted its first students in 1944, and the school's first international program, a year-long program in Heidelberg, Germany, was launched in 1963.
Racial unrest, murder, and move to Malibu
By 1957, when M. Norvel Young was named president, the young college faced serious problems, not least of which was the high cost of expansion in South Los Angeles. The area around the Vermont Avenue campus was developing issues including rising crime and urban decay, and racial tensions had arisen that led to the 1965 Watts Riots.
Before the worst of the tensions began, President Young had begun to look for suburban sites to expand the university's footprint. In 1966, a committee was formed to look at potential locations, including sites in Westlake Village and Calabasas. Pepperdine favored the Westlake Village location until the Adamson-Rindge family, who owned hundreds of acres near Malibu, offered to donate 138 acres (56 ha) and to sell 58.7 adjacent acres. Despite concerns over building costs on the mountainous site, the school decided to move forward based on its prime location and potential for raising donations, accepting the land in Malibu in 1968.
In March 1969, Larry Kimmons, a Black teenager from the South LA neighborhood, was killed by Pepperdine campus security officer Charlie Lane following a verbal argument. Protests ensued, with Black students opposing the college's administration. Some have attributed the killing to racism.
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In December 1970, student activists threatened to burn down the campus, even setting small fires in three buildings. Students later occupied the academic life building, leading to a standoff with the Los Angeles Police Department that was defused by negotiations with Vice President William S. Banowsky.
Construction in Malibu began on April 13, 1971, and the new campus opened in September 1972. The campus and many of its buildings were planned by Los Angeles–based architect William Pereira, who had also designed the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the University of California, Irvine, and much of the University of Southern California. The construction of the Malibu campus was made possible largely by gifts from Blanche Seaver, the wife of Frank R. Seaver and heir of his oil-drill manufacturing fortune, who donated to Pepperdine more than $160 million over her lifetime. The undergraduate college was officially named after Seaver in 1975.
The university retained and continued to expand its original Vermont Avenue Campus, building a new academic building there in 1970, and redesigning the curriculum to serve its more urban setting. Much of the undergraduate liberal arts program, however, moved to the new Malibu campus. In the decade to come, the Vermont Avenue Campus transitioned away from its residential model, and in 1981 it was sold to Crenshaw Christian Center, whose minister, Frederick K. C. Price, then oversaw construction of the "Faith Dome," then the largest-domed church in the United States.
Growth of the university
In 1969, Pepperdine bought the Orange University College of Law in Santa Ana, California, which became the School of Law and moved to the Malibu campus in 1978. What had been a business division offering graduate and undergraduate degrees became a graduate business school in 1968, which in 1971 was named the School of Business and Management. Also in 1971, the School of Education was formed, which in 1981 became the Graduate School of Education and Psychology. Pepperdine administrators used these expansions as justification to change the institution's name to Pepperdine University in 1971.
Pepperdine continued to expand, adding permanent international programs in London and in Florence beginning in 1984 and 1985, respectively. These were followed by similar programs in Buenos Aires, Lausanne, and Shanghai. The School of Business and Management was renamed the Graziadio Business School to honor a gift of $15 million from real estate developer George L. Graziadio Jr., and in 2019 the School of Law was renamed the Caruso School of Law after a gift of $50 million from alumnus Rick J. Caruso. The Malibu campus itself was expanded by the construction of the 50.4 acres (20.4 ha) Drescher Graduate Campus, which was completed in 2003 under the supervision of president Andrew K. Benton.
Brush fires
Pepperdine's Malibu Campus has often been threatened by brush fires, including in 1985, 1993, 1996, 2007, 2007, 2018, and 2024. The university prepares for the fires by clearing brush 200 feet from all buildings and has developed plans with Los Angeles County Fire Department to shelter faculty, staff, and students in place.
From Wikipedia’s article on Pepperdine University, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5