MIA TAYLOR
Staff Writer
It is no surprise that Milton Pullen won Pepperdine’s Howard A. White Award for teaching excellence in 2005. The award recognizes professors throughout the university that motivate, challenge and inspire their students. For Pullen, the award honors 30 years of teaching music and dedication to his students.
Pullen’s musical interest sparked from his father’s love of music. Pullen’s father was raised in rural Texas and found talent in playing the harmonica, guitar and fiddle. Along with these instruments, his father loved Gospel singing and often sang Gospel music with his wife and children.
Professor Pullen is the second to the oldest of his siblings and remembers seeing his older brother in choir concerts. “It’s just like yesterday, I was mesmerized,” he said. Later, at Clear Creek High School, Pullen also joined the choir.
Finding sports to be another of his talents, Pullen enrolled as a student at St. Jacques College and played baseball. During his studies he took a music appreciation class and was introduced to Gustav Mahler’s 2nd symphony entitled “The Resurrection.” The uplifting composition sends Pullen into a moment of reprise to his first musical experiences.
“I said to myself, Lord, take me away,” Pullen added. “The Resurrection” is an 80-minute choral and orchestral piece that features text based on German poetry. Pullen had then learned of composers like Mahler and Mozart.
“I heard Mozart’s “Requiem” and I was hooked.” His passion for music grew stronger from that moment on.
Professor Pullen graduated from college with a master’s degree in music in conducting, and a bachelor’s degree in music education, for voice, from the University of Houston. After graduating, Pullen decided to teach for his old high school, Clear Creek. Pullen and Evie Pullen had three children, all of whom were in his high school choirs Both of his sons are now choir conductors at Clear Creek High School, following in the footsteps of their father.
After leaving his high school yet again, Pullen accepted a job teaching music at Abilene Christian University (ACU) in Abilene, Texas. He recalled that the students at ACU were what kept him “going.” He remembered that they were supportive and had great talent.
Pullen taught at ACU for six years before moving to Pepperdine’s beautiful Malibu campus.
After his job interview at Pepperdine, Pullen returned home to discuss his opportunity with his wife. “It was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he said. “We moved to California and I found that it was the best move — this is the best job,” he added.
“If you have sports, a music program and a theater program, you have a good school,” Pullen noted. This explains his passion for teaching and dedication to the students for nearly 13 years at Pepperdine.
Although music is an obvious pastime for Professor Pullen, on the weekends he enjoys ironing the next week’s attire and watching television in the comfort of his home. Every weekend, he looks forward to starting a new week at Pepperdine.
Evie Pullen is also a professor in the Fine Arts Division and has been for the last 12 years. Pullen explained that working in the same department as his wife has been enjoyable.
Professor Pullen will be directing an upcoming concert called the Masterworks Concert, which will include large pieces of music and an orchestra. The concert is on April 17.
One student, a music major, said that the Masterworks Concert was going to be “one of the best this year.” The same student, when asked about her thoughts on Professor Pullen, expressed that she has had Professor Pullen almost every year and thinks he is such “such an important person in the music program here.”
Pullen teaches three choirs, Collegium Musicum, Concert Choir and Women’s Choir, as well as Music History and Conducting.
Another student, a young woman in the Concert Choir, described Pullen as “one of those teachers you can’t get enough of, you can tell he really loves what he is doing.”
04-17-2008