SHANNON KELLY
Editor In Chief
“Leaders that fail and those who succeed both take risks,” former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told close to 600 people at Tuesday night’s School of Public Policy 10-year anniversary celebration. Leaders have intellectual curiosity and courage, they initiate reform and remain committed, while exuding humility and patience, he said, “but above all, leaders take risks.”
A decade ago, university leaders, under then-president David Davenport established the Pepperdine School of Public Policy — a feat they considered risky, but crucial. And with Bush as their distinguished guest and speaker, close to 600 guests including university administrators, students, donors and the board of visitors honored the successes of the past 10 years with a dinner and celebration at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
In 1997 Davenport set his sights on a graduate school that would place Pepperdine apart from the rest, an institution he said would fill the void in a field of study lacking programs that aimed beyond the traditional tent of federal government-centered policy.
He seated James Wilburn in the inaugural dean’s chair, and together they set the school’s principle educational foundations. They committed to examining policy based on private enterprises and businesses, state and local solutions and non-governmental approaches, while focusing on the ethical and moral underpinnings of policy, Davenport said.
“In the beginning we had great dreams and we believed in the need for a school unique and different from other schools,” said Wilburn, who has served Pepperdine for more than 40 years as provost, dean of the Graziadio School of Business and Management, and still remains in the position he’s held for ten years. “We didn’t know until we tested the waters, but about three or four years ago we realized we weren’t just correct, but the interest is greater than we dreamed.”
During the banquet, speakers shared praises and ambitions for the school, commemorated successful alumni and paid tribute to the professors who Wilburn says have “an ability to ignite the fires of inquiry.”
One of those professors, Dr. Robert Kaufman, said teaching at the School of Public Policy is the best thing he’s ever done.
“I came here because I believed in the dean, who is one of the most visionary and decent men I have ever encountered,” Kaufman said. “I wanted to be part of a program that gives students a more sophisticated ethical, historical and philosophical basis.”
After thanking professors and donors, Wilburn applauded a handful of the school’s alumni – the best way to reflect on the success over the past 10 years, he said. He acknowledged students who hold crucial governmental positions like political analysts in the nation’s capital, who have established public/private non-profit organizations and who work for prestigious organizations like the Hoover Institute, among many others (see sidebar).
The dean also announced the Jack F. Kemp Institute for Political Economy, which he said is a feat reflective of the direction he hopes to see the school take in coming years.
Politician, Jack Kemp, served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush, after an unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988. He was the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee in 1996, and is a revered analyst and political advisor who helped outline the foundations for President Ronald Reagan’s free-market, conservative Reaganomics.
The Kemp Institute is a three-part endeavor that will begin with the digital archiving and cataloguing of his papers, which Wilburn says should be completed over the next year. Once funds are raised, the institute will endow a distinguished visiting professorship and hold an annual symposium attracting economists and leading political figures.
Kemp, who graduated from Occidental College, told Tuesday’s guests he felt more at home at Pepperdine than any other university because of the immense respect he has for the school and its values.
“Young people that graduate from this school can play a huge role in changing the course of this country,” he said, after joking that he should have set up office at Pepperdine to recruit its graduates.
Bush followed Kemp with his speech about leadership and conviction, which centered on the magnitude of risk taking as a source of success.
“Change scares people,” Bush said, adding that continuous change is usually the best option — a more courageous one, nonetheless.
Ten years ago, Pepperdine took a risk and made a big change in adding, not only a new graduate program, but an innovative one at that. While relishing in its successes, Tuesday, the School of Public Policy stayed true to its roots founded on risk-taking and change while it set new goals for the future.
10-04-2007