By Laurie Babinski
Editor in Chief
Wherever Pepperdine students turn they often find themselves confused with same last names of faculty, staff and students. The plot thickens when the Pepperdine environment, accused of stifling dating, fosters marriages. Marriages, of course, that lead to more families in the Pepperdine community.
The Pepperdine familty tradition is not a new concept. Chris and Claudia Sangster met on the first day the Malibu campus opened and began dating two-and-a-half years later.
Chris, assistant dean of advancement and alumni relations for Seaver and George Pepperdine Colleges and Claudia, former senior counsel for Estate and Gift Planning, were married after she graduated in 1966.
While in Houston, Chris started an alumni chapter in the area to make sure he didn’t lose his roots.
“There is just something about Pepper-dine that I couldn’t leave behind,” Chris said.
The Sangsters re-turned to Pepper-dine nine years ago after Claudia was offered the senior counsel position.
Since then, Claudia has moved on to an Internet philanthropy organization, but both Sangsters remain a vital part of the community.
“I think the reason we have stayed at Pepperdine is the family environment. Everyone cares about everyone else and wants to be a part of their lives,” Chris said.
It is this environment that Chris has incorporated into his position, keeping alumni connected, especially during Homecoming.
“Homecoming will be an amazing success,” Chris said. “We’ve worked on making it bigger and better, a full weekend event.”
Sandra and Rich Dawson’s story is similar. They met on the Pepperdine campus on 79th and Vermont in Los Angeles. They married after graduation, and moved to Santa Barbara in 1970 for a ministry and graduate school opportunity at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
In 1984, the Dawsons received a phone call from Seaver Dean of Students Carl Mitchell inviting Rich back to work in the dean’s office. Rich Dawson served as associate dean of students before he transferred to the director of International Student Affairs position. Sandra Dawson is the office manager of campus ministry and the Malibu Church of Christ.
“We were excited to be back. We have a lot of ties at Pepperdine because we have a lot of church ties,” Sandra Dawson said.
Two of the Dawson’s four children are Pepperdine alumni, another will graduate in April and the youngest works in the mailroom.
“I love having my children here,” Sandra said. “But it has its good points and its bad points. They definitely have more mothers and fathers here — everyone watches out for everyone else.”
That same environment is what drew Brad and Dana Dudley to the Malibu campus.
Dana, associate director of the Center for Career and Academic Advising and coordinator of the Washington D.C. Internship Program, is a 1998 Seaver alumna. She completed her master’s degree at Claremont Graduate School and is currently working on her doctorate at the same school.
Her husband, Brad, is the service learning coordinator in the Pepperdine Volunteer Center.
Brad came to work for Pepperdine first. “One spouse works here and drags the other spouse in,” Dana said. “It was really our goal, we both wanted to work here.”
What drew her to Pepperdine was not only her husband, but the accommodating Pepperdine environment.
“I’ve worked a lot of places where there’s not a nice work environment,” she said. “It’s the magnetism.”
There are, however, other benefits.
Brad and Dana work right around the corner from one another in the Tyler Campus Center.
They eat lunch together when other appointments don’t interfere, and make the long drive from the Inland Empire together every day. “It’s a long commute,” she said. “It’s much nicer to commute with someone.”
But Pepperdine family dynasties extend beyond faculty and staff, sewing a new generation in the student body.
Corleen Parmalee, a human resources generalist, and Stephen Parmalee, visiting instructor of composition, met as freshman on the Los Angeles campus.
“Basically, I didn’t get into Stanford, so I came to Pepperdine,” Corleen Parmalee said. “I was so disappointed, I cried gallons of tears. Now I look back on it as the best thing that ever happened to me.”
After graduation, the Parmalees left to Brazil for a year and returned to the Malibu campus, where Stephen accepted a job with student maintenance services. “The longer we stayed, the deeper our ties became,” Corleen Parmalee said.
Since then, their three children, Jay, Sam and Jack, have all attended Pepperdine.
“We encouraged them to look at other schools,” Corleen said. Two kids looked very seriously at other schools, both decided at the last minute to come to Pepperdine.
“What I’ve seen them be able to do at a small liberal arts school like Pepperdine is just amazing,” she continued.
“We believe in the mission of the university, having the school as an alternative. Over the years, we’ve seen so many lives changed by coming to Pepperdine.
“Now our roots are so deep, It would be painful to leave.”
The Parmalee’s children are following in their parents’ footsteps. Sam left Pepperdine after graduation to work in the computer industry but returned to Pepperdine to work in the Campus Life office. Jay, who will graduate in April, met his fiancée, Hannah Smith, at Pepperdine.
And Corleen Parmalee found that she and her family where bound to Pepperdine for many of the same reasons other families are.
“I think there’s a genuineness,” Corleen said. “There are a lot of people who really care about students and each other, and there are a lot of people committed not just to talking Christianity, but living Christianity. We’re doing something important here.”
The ties are strong even in the athletic realm. Men’s basketball head coach Paul Westphal’s son, Mike Westphal, plays on the team.
His daughter Tori, a Seaver alumna, is married to Branden Higa, assistant director of International Student Services.
And the list goes on.
Mike Truschke, Seaver College director of admissions, and Linda Truschke, campus minister.
Dawn and Bob Emrich, associate director of residential life and technology liaison for information technology.
The list goes on, leaving Pepperdine with so many family ties, they’re more like knots.
February 07, 2002