Paul Begin, interim senior associate dean for Seaver College stands alongside his son, first-year Ethan Begin at their Pepperdine faculty home. The Begin family continues a Pepperdine legacy from childhood to adulthood during their time on Malibu campus. Photo by Soliel Lara Aponte
Nestled up in the hills of Pepperdine lay the homes of many faculty and staff members. One family in particular, the Begins, put their roots down on Pepperdine soil more than a generation ago and continue the Pepperdine legacy as alumni, a student and a dean in a Waves family.
Connected by blood, each Begin walks the grounds of the Malibu campus daily, yet with a different purpose. Paul Begin (‘99) steps into his office each day as the Interim Senior Associate Dean for Seaver College. His son, first-year Ethan Begin, continues to live on the campus he grew up on — now in a different era as he tries to define his adult life.
Similarly, Ethan’s cousins, first-year Taylor Wooten and senior Braden Wooten, also attend Pepperdine, following in the footsteps of their Pepperdine alumni parents.
“Pepperdine is a family,” Paul Begin said. “Families have things they disagree on and yet, you still love your family.”
Paul Begin’s family — Ethan, Malika, Jagger and Clanton — spend time at Alumni Park. The family lives in a faculty condo, where they have forged memories with a tight-knit community. Photos courtesy of Paul Begin
Life on the Hill
For many Pepperdine students, the Malibu campus is a place of academia and a temporary home for their years of education. But just up the hill is a place of livelihood and community for families the families of faculty staff members.
Malika Begin, a Graziadio alumna (‘21) and Paul’s wife, met her husband back in 2007 when she was director of International Programs and the two were planning the Madrid summer program together. As time passed, Paul and Malika fell in love, and they married in 2011. Now, they have a family with Ethan and two younger sons, Jagger and Clanton.
On the Drescher Campus, the Begin family lives in a faculty condo where they have created a tight-knit community with their neighbors. For Malika Begin, she said growing up on a university campus has created a unique experience for their sons.
The Begin family is surrounded by a community full of families who embody the Christian faith and values.
The Begin family often welcomes neighbors and students to their home. Most notably, they have hosted a soup night for the neighborhood 12 times, leaving their home jam-packed. The neighborhood hosts Fourth of July bike parades, epic water balloon fights, mom present-wrapping parties and Bunco night.
“It really is such a gift,” Malika Begin said. “It’s a rare, rare gift and we’ve been really grateful for it.”
Roots in the Malibu Soil
The Begin family roots can be traced back to Pepperdine even before Paul Begin’s undergraduate experience. His grandfather, Miles Begin, attended Pepperdine when it was originally called Pepperdine College.
Miles Begin became a Christian and never finished school, leaving for a church in Arizona.
Paul Begin grew up in a small Church of Christ in Huntington Beach, and he said knowing people connected to Pepperdine led him here as an undergraduate. He remembers his own student experience being stress-free — working as an intern for campus ministry, studying Journalism and surfing with friends.
“I can’t ever remember studying in Payson Library,” Paul Begin said. “I read in my room a lot, but I wasn’t worried about my grades.”
Paul Begin said he remembers enjoying his classes, professors and soaking up the Malibu experience.
In 1998, Pepperdine only offered four international programs — Lyon, France; London, England; Florence, Italy; and Heidelberg, Germany. At the time, then-President David Davenport was committed to opening a program in Latin America, Paul Begin said.
Paul Begin travels to Florence during his time abroad as an undergraduate. The Latin America programs experimented locations in Buenos Aires or Costa Rica for students to determine a future International Programs location.
Thus, in his senior year, Paul Begin said he experienced life abroad with the first half of each semester in Madrid and the last halves in Costa Rica and Buenos Aires, respectively.
“I was on that experimental trip as the RA,” Paul Begin said. “My professor came to me the year before and said, ‘We’re going to run this trip. You need to do this so you can be a Spanish major, and I need somebody to be a spiritual life director on the trip.’”
The opportunity led Paul to solo travel in Costa Rica, where he traveled with strangers who encouraged him to have life-changing experiences.
Finding His Own Faith
At that time, Paul Begin said the Church of Christ’s presence was felt very strongly on campus, contrasting to the current student body with only 4.5% identifying as Church of Christ followers, according to the Office of Institutional Effectiveness.
Nostalgic, Paul Begin said he remembers every Wednesday night when the University church would host a gathering called “Care Group,” garnering around 350 to 400 people in Elkins Auditorium who sang devotional songs and prayed together.
Coming from a fairly sheltered cultural experience, Pepperdine provided a space where Paul Begin could think about Christianity on his own terms. Paul Begin said it was through open conversations with friends and professors that his faith grew to be more complex.
“I was really able to kind of make it my own, and different from my parents — not in a really radical way, but, definitely, I was forming what I thought about God and church and how humans are supposed to live together,” Paul Begin said.
Paul Begin said he wanted to pursue being a professor as he enjoyed the life of the mind, leading him to attend the University of Virginia for his master’s degree and PhD in Spanish. It was his way of serving and living a thoughtful existence.
“I went as far away as I could,” Paul Begin said. “That was one of the pieces of advice that they gave me, is to go as far as you can.”
In the fourth year of his PhD program, Paul Begin’s former Pepperdine adviser and the dean at the time reached out to him for a faculty position back at Pepperdine. This offer led Paul Begin to begin his Pepperdine employment in 2006, holding positions such as professor of Hispanic Studies and Foundations of Reasoning before moving to his current role as interim senior associate dean.
“I’ve grown up by the ocean my whole life, and when I think about going somewhere else, it’s hard for me to imagine finding a university that I feel so connected to is also in a place I feel connected to geographically,” Paul said. “So, this is my home.”
The Begin family has now built a life centered around the privileges of living on the Malibu campus.
“For my kids, they’re born into that, right?” Paul Begin said. “Like, they know Saturdays are beach days, and they like being able to take the shuttle around campus, and they love our neighbors because we work with and live with really amazing, smart, kind, Christian people.”
Paul Begin and Ethan Begin surf together. Growing up in Malibu, Ethan would tag along with his father to paddle board, eventually learning how to surf.
Campus Kid
Ethan’s childhood bedroom overlooked Pepperdine’s Malibu campus for all 18 years of his life. Taking advantage of the athletic facilities, his childhood included playing baseball down at Eddy D. Field Stadium with his dad, going to games in Firestone Fieldhouse to cheer on the Waves and hiking through the hills.
Ethan said growing up on a college campus felt normal to him. Being one of 10 kids in his neighborhood all born within the same six months, the group explored the graduate campus to hang out and eat at Heroes Garden, forming a tight bond.
“There were kind of phases for everything,” Ethan Begin said. “We’d have a few months where everyone’s super into biking, and then, a few months, everyone was all over basketball.”
On a regular day, Paul Begin would take Ethan Begin to his office. Ethan Begin said he remembers how it seemed like everyone knew who he was. Most notably, Ethan Begin would tag along to the beach to paddle board while his father would surf.
Ethan Begin said he learned about hard work and the balance of family and work by watching Paul Begin. Ethan Begin said his dad made sure to be present in moments such as family dinners and breakfasts and taking him and his siblings to school in the morning.
Yet, there was a period of time in his upbringing, specifically high school, where he was able to have some distance from Pepperdine. During this time, Ethan Begin lived with his mother in Agoura Hills and attended Agoura High School before graduating from Oaks Christian School.
When applying for colleges, Ethan Begin didn’t consider Pepperdine as one of his options. However, he said he decided last-minute to continue his family’s legacy and hasn’t regretted it since.
Ethan Begin said he began his first year in the fall, majoring in Accounting — inspired by his uncle who works as an accountant.
He continues to build his first-year experience, becoming a member of the Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) fraternity, being at the gym — either working or working out — and surfing. Ethan Begin can be found alongside his fraternity brothers listening to a sermon down at Zuma Beach and enjoying The Well on campus.
“What I see in Ethan is a very conscientious person, somebody who wants to do the right thing,” Paul Begin said. “Maybe that’s from our family, but I think a big part of it is going to be having grown up in an ecosystem where you’re around really good, ethical people.”
To Malika Begin, she said being a Pepperdine family means embodying the mission of living a life of purpose, service and leadership.
“We learn so, so much from the students in the community, but, we are definitely here to serve with purpose and to really be a part of the community in an active way,” she said.
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Contact Christine Park via email: christine.park@pepperdine.edu