LINDSAY TUGGLE
Staff Writer
The Club Convocation series is getting underway this week, with new sections devoted to relationships, sex, and personal improvement.
Students who have enrolled in a section will attend six weekly sessions, each for convocation credit. Sessions typically consist of mentoring, small group discussions, and readings from related publications. Each section is led by a member of Pepperdine’s faculty or staff.
Topics covered in Club Convo varies widely, from the very specific, like “The Naked Truth About Sex” and “Rich or Poor?” “What the Bible Really Says About Money,” to general personal improvement, such as the “Personal Development” section, led by Pepperdine Water Polo Coach Jack Kocur.
Many of the topics have sexual themes or are centered around building healthy romantic relationships. The sections in the Relationship Series include “Healthy Relationships: A Christian Perspective,” “Important Conversations for the Seriously Dating or Engaged,” and “Sexuality in the Media.”
Lucy Perrin, assistant director for Pepperdine’s Boone Center for the Family, located at Drescher, is leading the “Shaping Healthy Relationships” series. She said she hopes it will be a chance for students to develop the skills and character associated with a healthy relationship.
“An objective of this series is to help students make the connection between strong character, healthy and vibrant relationships, and fullness of life in Christ,” Perrin said. “We will look at a few character qualities, such as honesty, respect, contentment, beauty, and forgiveness, and consider how we might practice those in our various relationships.”
Perrin is working with the Boone Center’s Relationship IQ Project, which has designed several of the relationship series club convos.
“We will examine the idea that behavior choices are opportunities to strengthen character qualities,” said Perrin. “We want to emphasize it’s not ‘what should I do’, but ‘who should I become’.”
Some of the relationship-centered convos are also gender-specific, designed solely for men and women to explore their sexuality and relationship expectations.
“Real Men, Reel Relationships,” led by Robert Scholz, and “Beyond the Disney Effect: Breaking Down Romanticized Love for Women,” led by Courtney Holmes and Lisa Moore, are two such series that use film and television to examine the prevalence of false relationships standards in the media.
Natalie Eastman, a freshman who has enrolled in the “Sexuality in the Media” series, said she hopes that her awareness of these standards will be heightened by her club convo experience.
“I think there is a dominant force of sexual content in the media,” Eastman said. “I’m hoping this course cause me to be more discerning of what I what I see in movies and on television.”
Other club convoy topics are little more traditional. Dr. Jere Yates, a business management professor who has been with Pepperdine for more than thirty years, is leading a series titled “Faith Development.”
Yates hopes that his course will give students a chance to voice their problems and doubts in their Christian faith and come to understand that they are natural and even necessary.
“I want to focus on the strengthening of the students’ faith through examining their questions and doubts about it,” Yates said. “Faith doesn’t have to be without doubts or questions. You don’t have to understand everything.”
Yates believes the intimate setting of club convocations, which he has led other times in the past, is important in allowing students to grow in their faith.
Admissions counselor Allen Gillespie puts an equal emphasis on the small discussion setting as he prepares to lead the “Rich or Poor? What the Bible Really Says About Money” series, which focuses on examining what is said in the Bible about financial management, taking it out of its Biblical context, and considering what it means to a modern day Christian.
“I’m sure we will have people from different financial backgrounds with varying attitudes on the subject,” Gillespie said. “I think we will have some really good discussions.”
Eastman agrees that club convocations offer students a way to get convo credit in an alternative and more personal atmosphere.
“It provides a smaller venue,” Eastman said. “I get to be with my friends and actively participate in convocation as opposed to the big convocations, where you can be lost in the crowd.”
01-25-2007
