Pepperdine University

George Pepperdine, an alumnus of Parsons Business College in Kansas, was a lifelong member of Churches of Christ. In 1909, aged 23, he founded Western Auto Supply Company, a retail chain of automobile parts and accessories stores, with an initial investment of five dollars; the chain eventually operated about 1,200 stores across the United States. He later decided to use his fortune to create and endow a college whose administrators and professors would support students in their Christian belief.⁠[1]

On September 21, 1937, George Pepperdine College opened and was dedicated in the Vermont Knolls area of Los Angeles, a few miles south of downtown; the date is commemorated annually as Founder’s Day. Its first 167 students came from 22 states and two foreign countries, and its first president was Batsell Baxter. The campus had been a 34-acre estate, and men’s and women’s residences, an administration building and a dining hall were built that year.⁠[1]

In its first year of operation the college received full accreditation from the Northwest Association, the regional accrediting body, and on June 6, 1938, it held its first commencement for a graduating class of four. Its colors, blue and orange, and the athletic team name “Waves” were adopted in 1937.⁠[1]

In fall 1944 the college began offering its first graduate degree, the master of arts in religion. Under the G.I. Bill, enrollment rose from 824 in 1946 to a peak of 1,830 in 1949, the faculty grew from 67 in 1946 to 116 in 1947, and the number of degrees awarded annually peaked at 406 in 1950.⁠[1]

In July 1957 M. Norvel Young, who had taught history at the college from 1938 to 1941, became its third president. Between 1957 and 1966 enrollment rose from 1,084 to 1,502; in 1958 the college began an extension program with course offerings ranging from North Carolina to the Philippines and Okinawa, designed largely for military personnel, and in 1963 it established a year-in-Europe program, sending 36 students to Heidelberg, Germany.⁠[1]

In October 1968 Merritt H. Adamson, Sylvia Rindge Adamson Neville and RhodaRhoda AIRhoda AI develops robot foundation models and intelligence systems for industrial robots. It publicly introduced FutureVision in March 2026 alongside a $450 million Series A.Open the full entry-May Adamson Dallas donated 138 acres of undeveloped ranch land in Malibu to the college for a new campus; it announced its expansion plans on February 9, 1970, and dedicated the Malibu property on May 23 of that year.⁠[1]

In 1969 the college reorganized its business department as a separate School of Business and acquired the Orange University College of Law, a for-profit night school in Santa Ana. On January 1, 1971, the trustees announced the institution as Pepperdine University. The Malibu campus received its first 867 students, including 475 freshmen, on September 6, 1972.⁠[1]

On December 15, 1974, President William Banowsky announced that the liberal arts college on the Malibu campus would be named the Frank R. Seaver College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, in memory of the husband of its principal benefactor, Blanche Ebert Seaver. The School of Law then moved to Malibu, where its law center was completed and occupied by August 1979; in 1976 the School of Education began the university’s first doctoral program, the Ed.D. The Los Angeles college of letters, arts and sciences closed after the 1980–1981 school year, and the business and education schools moved to Pepperdine University Plaza in West Los Angeles.⁠[1]

Howard A. White, the fifth president, succeeded Banowsky in 1978 and led the university’s first nine-figure capital campaign, “Wave of Excellence,” which raised $137.8 million against a $100 million goal; during this period the university also formally reaffirmed its connection to the Christian faith tradition and adopted a mission statement.⁠[1]

David Davenport served as the sixth president from 1985 to 2000. In 1986 the Graduate School of Education and Psychology first offered the Psy.D., the business school began a residential MBA program on the Malibu campus, and the School of Law launched the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. The PrinceThe PrinceThe Prince (Il Principe) is a political treatise written by the Florentine political thinker Niccolò Machiavelli between late 1513 and 1514 and published posthumously in 1532. In 26 chapters it discusses the types of principalities, how power is acquired and maintained, armies and the qualities a prince should have. Its argument that a prince may set aside traditional morality to maintain his state has provoked lasting controversy in Europe since the sixteenth century, and in 1559 it was placed on the Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books.Open the full entry’s Gate campus in London opened in 1990 and the Florence campus was formed in 1995; the School of Public Policy was formally established and admitted students in fall 1997; and the business school took the name of its benefactor George L. Graziadio, Jr., in 1996.⁠[1]

Andrew K. Benton became the seventh president in 2000, as the university concluded its second capital campaign, “Challenged to Lead,” which raised $313 million. The Drescher Graduate Campus in Malibu opened in August 2003; the university established a Washington, D.C., campus in 2008 and replaced its Westlake Village campus with one in Calabasas in 2016. The Campaign for Pepperdine, publicly launched in 2011, raised more than $470 million, $20 million over its goal, by the end of 2014.⁠[1]

In 2019 the alumnus Rick Caruso and his wife, Tina, gave $50 million to the law school, which was renamed the Caruso School of Law; the gift was earmarked to help law students with loan debt. In 2014 Benton introduced the Waves of Innovation program, which funds projects proposed by faculty, staff and students; more than 350 projects have since been pitched and more than $1 million devoted to selected projects.⁠[1]

On August 1, 2019, Jim Gash, a law school alumnus and formerly the School of Law’s associate dean for strategic planning and external relations, became the university’s eighth president and chief executive officer. The university says it then had assets nearing $2 billion and an endowment of more than $900 million. Since 2010 Gash has traveled to Uganda nearly 30 times with students and alumni to support the country’s judiciary.⁠[1][2]

Its mission statement reads: “Pepperdine is a Christian university committed to the highest standards of academic excellence and Christian values, where students are strengthened for lives of purpose, service, and leadership.” Its motto comes from Matthew 10:8.⁠[3][1]

As of 2026 the university has six schools and 93 degree programs, a university-wide student-teacher ratio of 13:1, and an R2 designation in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Its 830-acre Malibu campus is 29 miles from downtown Los Angeles; it has three additional campuses in Southern California for graduate students and six permanent campuses abroad. It fields 17 NCAA Division I teams.⁠[4]

The Graziadio Business School runs Most Fundable Companies, a program for early-stage U.S. startups that is not limited to companies founded by Pepperdine students and alumni; the organizers say it is not a pitch competition but a survey-based assessment of how investors would view a business, aimed at companies with $0 to $10 million in annual revenue. Its ninth edition, in 2026, drew more than 2,100 early-stage startups from all 50 states, announced its winners on September 23, 2026, and selected a winner of the Startup World CupFIFA World CupThe FIFA World Cup is FIFA’s men’s national-team football tournament, held every four years.Open the full entry Los Angeles regional competition.⁠[5][6]

Pepperdine University: Official website: https://www.pepperdine.edu/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]

X: Public account: https://x.com/pepperdine (opens in a new window).⁠[4]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/edu/pepperdine-university-17897 (opens in a new window).⁠[4]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/pepperdine/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]