Pepperdine University
School of Public Policy
Malibu, California
Overview
Pepperdine University is an independent university enrolling approximately 8,300 students in five colleges and schools. Religiously affiliated with the Churches of Christ, the University was founded in 1937 by George Pepperdine, who believed that the strength of a nation depends, in a large part, on the integrity of its leaders. Thus, the School of Public Policy designed its programs to combine a distinctive emphasis on ethics and the moral and historical roots of free institutions with analytical and leadership skills to provide a foundation for influencing matters of public policy.
The School of Public Policy enrolled its inaugural full-time class of students in September 1997. The average entering class size is 50. The men-women ratio is about 50/50, with approximately 17 percent international student enrollment. The faculty members seek students with varied educational, professional, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds to contribute to the collaborative learning environment in the classroom. Diverse backgrounds offer multiple points of view that contribute to a broad understanding of public policy issues.
Public policy graduates are sought after for leadership positions in federal, state, and local governments and municipalities; public, nonprofit, and church organizations; consulting; and private business. Recent job offers include the CIA, the FBI, and the State Department.
The Location and Community
Located in southern California, about 35 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, Malibu offers miles of beautiful beaches and a small-town atmosphere. The city has fewer than 30,000 people who live on 27 miles of rolling hills and Pacific coastline. Students can spend their free time enjoying Malibu's fine restaurants, shops, galleries, and beaches. Acres of national park land are adjacent to Malibu and offer mountain biking and hiking. Los Angeles and its surrounding communities offer a variety of year-round cultural and recreational opportunities.
Programs of Study and Degree Requirements
The School of Public Policy offers a twenty-month, full-time Master of Public Policy (M.P.P.) degree. The program is committed to nurturing leaders who can use the tools of analysis and policy design to effect successful implementation and real change. It is based on the conviction that an elevated and elevating culture and personal and moral certainties are the valid concern of higher education and are just as important as the tools of analysis.
The unique curriculum requires 64 units of course work (four, 4-unit courses each semester for two academic years). The first year is composed primarily of core courses that serve as a foundation for specializations taken during the second year. Specialization areas include public policy and economics, public policy and international relations, public policy and American politics, and regional and local policy.
In addition to regular credit courses, each student is expected to complete three noncredit experiences critical to developing leadership in real-world situations. These begin with an Orientation Leadership Workshop, followed by a summer internship between the first and second year. Finally, students develop a team project (a major public program design and implementation plan using a real situation in a global, national, state, or local agency) during the final semester's Policy Seminar.
The School of Public Policy offers concurrent degrees with the School of Law: a J.D./M.P.P. and an M.P.P./Master of Dispute Resolution (M.D.R.). A joint M.B.A./M.P.P. with the Graziadio School of Business and Management is also offered.
Facilities & Resources
Public policy students, professors, visiting practitioners, and researchers have computerized access to national and global databases (LEXIS-NEXIS, Dow Jones, InfoTrak, etc.), the University's voice mail and e-mail systems, Internet and World Wide Web connections, and a well-equipped computer laboratory. Additionally, the Payson Library and the Law Library on the Malibu Campus and libraries at the Graziadio School of Business and Management Centers in Culver City, Irvine, Long Beach, Encino, and Westlake Village cumulatively contain more than 720,000 cumulative volumes of library resources in all formats, including more than 7,000 periodical and serial title subscriptions. Pepperdine also has one of the first networked database systems in the country, providing access to periodical titles, with full-text delivery in electronic format. The University is committed to building a substantial core collection of bound volumes and periodicals covering a wide range of public policy themes.
Expenses and Aid
Tuition is $15,315 per semester. Public policy students attend two semesters per year for two academic years to complete the program.
Financial Aid:
The School of Public Policy offers merit-based scholarships and graduate assistantships to qualified domestic and international students. To be considered for either, an applicant must first be accepted for admission. The scholarship committee considers academic and professional experience and standardized test scores. Students awarded a graduate assistantship work with faculty members or administration members in the School of Public Policy about 12 hours per week and earn $1500 per semester. Qualified students may also apply for assistance through the Stafford Loan Program. Stafford Loans are made by banks, savings and loan associations, and credit unions.
Housing/Living Expenses:
Convenient housing is available both on and off campus. In 2004-05, on-campus students may choose a four-bedroom apartment, with each student having a single room at $4635 per semester. Limited married-student housing is also available. Living expenses such as transportation, food, utilities, and personal expenses vary depending upon the student and where he or she chooses to live.
How to Apply
The School of Public Policy encourages applications from graduates of regionally accredited institutions in all areas of study. Students are currently accepted for the fall semester only. The application deadline for fall is May 1. Applications received after May 1 are reviewed on a space-available basis. GRE scores are required; no minimum score is required for consideration. GMAT or LSAT scores may be accepted under certain circumstances. Students should contact the office listed below for specific application requirements.
Who to Contact
Director of Recruitment and Career Services
School of Public Policy
Pepperdine University
24255 Pacific Coast Highway
Malibu, California 90263-7493
310-506-7493
888-456-1177
E-mail: melinda.vanhemert@pepperdine.edu
Faculty
• David Davenport (310-506-7691; fax: 310-506-7120; e-mail: david.davenport@pepperdine.edu) is a distinguished professor of public policy and law. Davenport, who served as Pepperdine's chief executive for fifteen years, is currently a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he retains a joint appointment with Pepperdine. Davenport teaches courses in both Pepperdine's School of Law and the University's School of Public Policy. Davenport, the sixth president of Pepperdine, served from 1985 to 2000. Prior to that, he held positions as a professor of law, general counsel, and executive vice president of the University. He was instrumental in the founding of Pepperdine's School of Public Policy, and the Davenport Institute within the School is named in his honor. Davenport was an overseer at the Hoover Institution from 1987 to 1994 and from 1995 to 2001. He is a director of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest in Washington, D.C., and was the director of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. An essayist and columnist, his writings have been published in USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Christian Science Monitor, the Daily News, and the News Chronicle. In addition, he has been cited or featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Time Fortune, Insight, the New York Times, the Associated Press, and other publications. Davenport has addressed major conferences in business, education, public policy, law, and religion throughout the United States and abroad. He recently lectured at the School of Public Policy's 5th Annual Charles and Rosemary Licata Lecture "The International Criminal Court: A New Diplomacy?" along with Pepperdine School of Law alumnus, Pierre Prosper, U.S. ambassador-at-large for war-crimes issues. Davenport earned a bachelor's degree with distinction in international relations from Stanford University in 1972 and a juris doctorate from University of Kansas School of Law in 1977.
• Angela Hawken (310-506-7608; fax: 310-506-7120; e-mail: angela.hawken@pepperdine.edu) is a Ph.D. candidate at the RAND Graduate School of Public Policy Analysis. Before joining RAND, she was a consultant to the South African government and a full-time lecturer in economics and econometrics at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she obtained her undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics. At RAND, her fields of concentration include childcare, education, and civil and criminal justice. Her honors include the Ronnie Bethlehem Memorial Fellowship award for the Outstanding Young Economist, the Earnest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Scholarship, and the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Prize for Urban Economics. Hawken has recently completed her second assignment for the United States Department of State, working in the Republic of Georgia.
• Robert Kaufman (310-506-7601; fax: 310-506-7120; e-mail: robert.kaufman@pepperdine.edu) is a political scientist specializing in American foreign policy, national security, international relations, and various aspects of American politics. Kaufman received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law School in Washington, D.C., and his B.A., M.A., M.Phil, and Ph.D. from Columbia University in the city of New York. Kaufman has written frequently for scholarly journals and more popular publications, including the Weekly Standard, Policy Review, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the Washington Times. He is the author of two books. The most recent, Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics, received the Kathleen and Emil Sick Award in 2000 as the best book on the history of the Pacific Northwest. Kaufman also assisted President Richard M. Nixon in the research and writing of Nixon's final book, Beyond Peace. His current book project is a biography of Ronald Reagan, focusing on his presidency and his quest for it. Kaufman is a former Bradley Scholar and current adjunct scholar at the Heritage Foundation. He has taught at Colgate University, the Naval War College, and the University of Vermont prior to joining the faculty of the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy.
• Gordon Lloyd (310-506-7602; fax: 310-506-7120; e-mail: gordon.lloyd@pepperdine.edu) is a Professor of Public Policy. He earned his bachelor's degree in economics and political science at McGill University. He completed all course work toward a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago before receiving his master's and Ph.D. degrees in government at Claremont Graduate School. The coauthor of three books on the American founding and author of two forthcoming publications on political economy, he also has numerous articles and book reviews to his credit. His areas of research span the California constitution, common law, the New Deal, slavery and the Supreme Court, and the relationship between politics and economics. He has received many teaching, research, and leadership awards, including admission to Phi Beta Kappa and an appointment as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar for the Oklahoma Scholarship Leadership Program.
• Ted McAllister (310-506-7603; fax: 310-506-7120; e-mail: ted.mcallister@pepperdine.edu) is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and an Edward L. Gaylord Professor. He previously taught intellectual history at Hillsdale College and Vanderbilt University. A graduate of Oklahoma Christian College, Dr. McAllister earned an M.A. from Claremont Graduate School and a Ph.D. in American intellectual and cultural history from Vanderbilt University. A recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation's Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, he has also received the Leland Sage Fellowship as well as several grants, including one from the Earhart Foundation. As an author, his most recent book is Revolt Against Modernity: Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and the Search for a Postliberal Order. He is currently working on a book on Walter Lippmann, and on a new textbook on American history entitled The Paradox of Freedom: A History of the United States. Dr. McAllister serves as editor along with Jean Elshtain and Wilfred McClay for a book series entitled "American Intellectual Culture." Dr. McAllister teaches public policy courses that deal with such topics as American democratic culture, education, and the family.
• Michael Shires (310-506-7692; fax: 310-506-7120; e-mail: michael.shires@pepperdine.edu) is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and director of the Murray S. Craig Digital Democracy Library, an initiative examining ways that technology can enhance government official accountability. He previously was a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California and a doctoral fellow at RAND's Graduate School of Policy Studies, concentrating on domestic education policy, California fiscal policy, and international trade policy. His primary areas of teaching and research include state, regional, and local policy; technology and democracy; higher education policy; strategic, political, and organizational issues in public policy; and quantitative analysis. He has been active as a consultant to local and state government on issues related to finance, education policy, and governance. He received his B.A. in economics from UCLA, his M.B.A. from Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, and his M.Phil. and Ph.D. in public policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, California.