Over the last year, no one has been left untouched by the faltering economy. Huge businesses in every sector, from airlines to accounting firms to retailers have gone belly up, and companies are faced with year-end deficits they haven’t seen in more than a decade.
And although we live in semi-isolation from the rest of the world, Pepperdine University and its students have undoubtedly been affected. On average, university endowments sank 6.6 percent in value, with variations anywhere from Wheeling Jesuit University’s loss of 30.5 percent to Westmont College’s 82.6 percent gain. Thus, it’s of little surprise that the Pepperdine’s endowment lost 8.6 percent of its value during the last fiscal year, a loss that totaled $37 million. The total endowment is now valued just under $400 million.
Pepperdine was one of the lucky schools. Though it seems like a fortune to college students who consider themselves rich when they find $20 in their wallets, $37 million is not a large amount to an institution like Pepperdine.
Indeed it seems even small in comparison to our sister Southern California schools like the California Institute of Technology, which lost 15.5 percent of its endowment for an overall loss of a whopping $211 million.
We are indeed fortunate the loss was not worse, and we admire the lengths university officials have gone to in an effort to ensure that the endowment remains strong for future Pepperdine University students. Their dedication to fiscal responsibility is to be commended for all the measures put in place before the economy went South.
But despite finding ourselves once again wrapped tight in a blanket of security because of the university’s wise financial ways, we somehow still feel the overwhelming urge to help. Call it our undying faith in and love for our university, or maybe we just don’t want our tuition to be raised. In that spirit, the Graphic staff respectfully offers up the following suggestions to help the university compensate for the $37-million loss:
Remember the elementary school children that ring your doorbell at least a dozen odd times during the year selling candy bars for this and cookies for that? Were you ever one of those students? Let’s bring out the child in all of us by asking that each student sell chocolate in the university’s name. Imagine if each of us could sell enough chocolate to yield a $100 profit. That would mean $300,000 extra dollars to stash away in the endowment. If we included the graduate schools, the total would soar to almost $800,000. It wouldn’t even put a dent in the $27 million, but we’re convinced that even small contributions will help. Besides, what better way to foster community spirit?
Another $100 suggestion. Of the remaining endowment, disburse $100 to each student over 21 years old and book a few Waves shuttles for a day trip. To where you may ask? Sin City, of course, that oasis in the desert, Las Vegas. Pepperdine students are smart, and given the large number of business students on campus, I’m sure we could come back with a tidy profit, especially if someone wins mega bucks. Our honest students would then return all of the seed money and their profits back to administrators to revive the endowment.
Unfortunately, unlike chocolate, this does run a considerable financial risk, namely that we aren’t all as gambling-saavy as we believe. And Pepperdine school rules would apply during this extracurricular activity – no illegal activity and no alcohol.
Finally, why not send Midlife Crisis on tour? President Dr. Andrew K. Benton and his band mates could surely fill auditoriums, if not stadiums, with their hits. We tend to underestimate the power of their generation, the original concert-goers, to truly appreciate quality music in a forum where their dollars will go to a good cause – the endowment. We see countless platinum records as a result of their success. Not only that, but think of the newspaper headlines and overall publicity this one could yield. Money would pour in unsolicited at the articles praising our dedicated president and his comrades.
We applaud the Pepperdine administration for their fiscal responsibility, yet offer up these humble ideas. We never said we were Nobel prize-winning economists, accounting majors, or even that good with numbers. But it’s the thought that counts, right?
February 06, 2003
