This year 16 Pepperdine seniors will not be able to walk at graduation in April because they are enrolled in the University’s five-year Master of Business Administration (MBA) program. Although these students have put in four years of work and are committed to one more year the policy of the University stands firm and will not allow them to graduate with their non-MBA program peers.
Pepperdine senior and MBA student James Conole knew before he applied to the program that he would not be able to walk at graduation. “I had some of friends in the program a couple years ago so it wasn’t a surprise to me that it was going to happen he wrote in an e-mail.
Although he knew he would not be able to walk at graduation when he enrolled in the MBA program, Conole said he did not know what Pepperdine’s rationale was in not letting the MBA students graduate with their senior peers.
Their reason might be that we haven’t technically completed our requirements yet … but many Seaver students that haven’t yet finished their requirements are going to be able to walk at graduation and then complete their requirements during the summer Conole said. I don’t know why we can’t do this too.”
Professor of Management Science of Pepperdine’s Business Administration Division Dr. Michael Summers said that the five-year MBA students are not able to walk at graduation because they have not technically finished the requirements to graduate from Seaver.
“I believe that the rationale is that these students have not completed all of the requirements for a Seaver degree since they are allowed to skip five business courses that overlap with requirements at Graziadio (and they usually are far from the 128 units required as well) Summers wrote in an email. It is only after they have taken those courses at Graziadio that they have actually met the Seaver graduation requirements.”
Summers added that the five-year MBA students may walk in the Seaver graduation after completion of the program but not earlier.
“In my eyes Pepperdine is making a mistake in not allowing us to walk Conole said. It would make a big difference to us five-years who are not going to be able to walk with our class due to a seemingly arbitrary and unwarranted resolution on the part of Pepperdine’s administration.”
Fellow senior five-year MBA program student Chris Athens said he was informed he would not be able to graduate two weeks ago when he learned his petition was denied.
“Dean Marrs’ rejection did not really come as a surprise to me Athens said in an email. I’ve come to realize that petitions like this that come from inside the Pepperdine student body have not been met with much administrative support.
“We don’t expect our diplomas until next year. We just hoped that we would be able to celebrate our accomplishments at Seaver with the very friends we spent all those long hours studying and serving Pepperdine with.”