By Laurie Babinski
Editor in Chief
First the administration was housed there. Then, when Thornton Administrative Center was built, the Communication division and the Department of Public Safety called it a temporary home.
And now, 17 years after the Communication and Business divisions were promised new digs on the pad at the intersection of Seaver and Presidents’ drives, the divisions’ dream of a permanent home will finally come true.
It began when the Communication Division was moved up to temporary trailers with the Department of Public Safety perched high atop the rest of the Malibu campus.
Scheduled for completion in May, the 60,000-square-foot Center for Communi-cation and Business, a three-level building designed to accommodate the more than 1,100 students that belong to the two largest divisions in Seaver College. The facility includes tiered classrooms, computer laboratories, lecture halls, faculty offices, professional-scale studios for radio and television production, a new home for the Graphic and other student publications, and study lounges.
“It’s going to be great … but it’s going to be very different,” said Dr. Milt Shatzer, Communication Division chair.
Shatzer cites the lounge/ food service area, which will be similar to the HAWC, as one of the greatest ammenities of the new facility. “It will be a wonderful place for faculty, staff and students to congregate,” Shatzer said. “The temporary facilities haven’t provided a place for students and faculty to bond with one another.”
Other new benefits include a green room for the broadcast area, a graduate study lounge, and both Macintosh and PC computer laboratories. All faculty offices also have windows overlooking the Pacific, a distinct advantage of the building’s location.
A two-story mural will greet students who enter the center. The purple, pink and yellow creation incorporates the images of notable members of the Pepperdine community including George Pepperdine, Helen Young, Dr. Calvin Bowers and Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard.
Each room will even have completely new furniture, an investment which alone cost around $800,000.
But at a projected cost of $17 million, the financing of the center was never an easy prospect.
“This is the first project the university’s undertaken where they haven’t had all of the money raised ahead of time,” Shatzer said. “This is really an act of faith on the part of the university, and on the part of (President Dr. Andrew K.) Benton. … I think this really says something about the administration. They could have just said, ‘You’ve already waited 17 years, you can wait five more.”
The lack of funding, including one benefactor whose stock fell through, led to the extensive delays. When the green light was given, the university was forced to complete the building using a debt service plan, where payment is due upon completion of the building.
The university decided that, despite its unprecedented more than $400 million endowment, it was more practical to have bonds issued by the California Educational Facilities Authority to finance the center than dip into the well-invested endowment.
“It really does make sense,” Mullins said. “There’s a lower cost of borrowing. If we get an average 10 percent annual return on our endowment and only have to pay a little more than 5 percent a year in interest on the bonds until our funds mature, it definitely makes more sense.”
The low rate on the bonds was sealed in when Moody’s, a service that audits educational institutions for strength and stability to gauge their interest rates, gave Pepperdine a stable A1 rating. According to Mullins, the rating was based primarily on enrollment strength, credit, selectivity and the demand for a Pepperdine education. There are currently an average of nine applications for every spot in the incoming class.
“This is a very strategic move,” Mullins said. “This is greatly going to enhance our academic programs.”
The faculty, staff and students of the two divisions agree.
“I’m excited to have a new place to learn, study and just hang out between classes,” said junior Kathy Yi, a business administration major with an accounting minor. “We’ve waited so long, I think that we finally deserve it.”
April 04, 2002