By Laurie Babinski
Editor in Chief
Few know that founder George Pepperdine never had a college education, and even fewer remember the traumatic move from the old campus in South Central Los Angeles to the hills of Malibu.
Long-time professors have a wealth of Pepperdine history and stories filed away in their minds, waiting for eager students to inquire and keep the history of the university alive.
But those who haven’t heard their stories yet better ask soon.
The five schools of Pepperdine University will lose a stunning 20 distinguished faculty members at the end of spring semester 2002 as the result of an unusual one-time early retirement incentive program offered to full-tenure professors who meet certain criteria.
Retiring professors include Drs. Doug Cloud, Stephen Sale, Ray Buchanan, Stan Moore, Thomas Osborn and Bob Privitt.
And the retirements, along with several key administration changes including the retirement of Dr. Bob Thomas and James Huffman, leave many wondering what institutional memory Pepperdine may be losing.
The early retirement deal, also called a tenure buy out package, was offered in January to full-tenure professors whose age and number of years of service, required to be more than 15 years at Pepperdine, equal more than 80. Each of the qualifying professors was offered the package with the incentive of a lump sum equaling 180 percent of their current salary upon their departure.
Professors who accept the package are also allowed to consult with their school’s dean for up to three years following their formal retirement.
“If an individual is interested in leaving early, then we’re going to give them a way to do that,” said James C. Moore, chief human resources officer for the university.
According to Moore, this is a long-range project that has been under study for a number of years. “It’s an idea that’s long overdue, actually,” Moore said.
According to Moore, the 20 faculty members retiring in 2002 is a jump from the eight retirees in 2001 and the 13 who retired in 2000. The number of faculty with over five years of service is also declining, down from 138 in 2000 to 117 in 2002.
“This year is a large retiring group anyway,” Moore said. “We have a lot of people who started in the mid ‘60s, and it’s about time for them to leave. We’re just repaying them for all the service they’ve given us with this package.”
However, some faculty members have questioned the administration’s motivation for offering the one-time benefit.
“I guess they’re just making way for new blood,” said Dr. Doug Cloud, a Seaver accounting professor with 16 years of service.
Other faculty and administrators have also raised both academic achievement and financial considerations as factors in the timing of and motivation behind the plan. Some even questioned whether departures were the result of faculty not fitting President Dr. Andrew K. Benton’s mold.
“I can see how all of those could possibly be factors,” said Dr. Calvin Bowers, Seaver professor of communication and the university’s equal opportunity officer. “It’s easier for the university to have new faculty than tenured faculty, who make the financial picture top heavy.”
Benton confirmed that finances are always a consideration, but stressed the benefit of the one-time opportunity as a reward.
“Periodically, we hear of requests to enable retirement,” Benton said in an e-mail interview. “Sometimes that means attention to continued benefits, freedom to teach only part-time or the desire to relocate and begin a new phase in life. We try to respond in a manner that is fair, and frankly, affordable.
“If you think about it, the only way to do that is to create a ‘window of opportunity’ and then offer it to the community,” he continued. “That is how it is done.”
Whatever the motivation behind the offer, many professors who already planned to retire have found it a welcome benefit.
Seaver communications professor Dr. Ray Buchanan is one professor who already made up his mind before the offer was placed on the table. “Pepperdine has been such an intricate part of my life and I will miss it greatly,” Buchanan said.
Richard Rierdan, a 32-year Graziadio professor, had also already planned to leave the Pepperdine community. “I was leaving in 2003 anyway, so this just pushed it up for me,” Rierdan said. He looks forward to pursuing non-academic interests including Shamanism, alternative medicine and music.
And while some professors like Buchanan and Rierdan were already planning on retirement, the buy out convinced others who hadn’t even thought of the idea.
“I had planned to work for another couple of years, but since this was offered, I just had to take it,” said Dr. Birthney Ardoin, Seaver advertising professor. Ardoin will take the extra years to find an agent and develop a career in voice-overs and other advertising endeavors.
Cloud had the same reaction.
“I’m 65, and this is a very generous buy out,” said Cloud. “The buy out is just so attractive, it’s too good to turn away.
“Besides,” Cloud continued, “I don’t have time to breathe.” In addition to his university responsibilities, Cloud has also been writing screenplays. He has to his credit a Home Improvement script for Disney and is now writing a full-length movie for Disney/ABC.
Others have not accepted the immediate buy out, instead opting for a more progressive change. This alternative form allows a professor to put off official retirement for up to three years while allowing them to reduce the number of units taught until that time.
Seaver art professor Bob Privitt decided to accept the delayed offer, and will officially retire July 31, 2004. He signed a new contract Jan. 1 that, for the next 2 1/2 years, will allow him to retain the title “artist in residence.”
“As such, I will not be required to do any of the following: no university committee work, no Fine Arts Division committee work, no Art Department committee work, no recruiting of art students, no dealing with art scholarships, no advising of art majors, art minors and contract majors. In short, I will not be doing all of the myriad tasks that consume one’s time and make it almost impossible to actually teach,” Privitt said in an e-mail interview.
Over the next four semesters, Privitt has agreed to teach two art courses per semester, beginning design and beginning sculpture.
Dr. Stan Moore also accepted the delayed buy out, negotiating one more year of full classroom time and three years of part-time teaching.
“(When I got the letter) I planned to tear it up,” said Moore, whose combined qualification tally hits 84. “And I did.”
It wasn’t until the day of the deadline came and his wife heard him talking about it on the phone with a colleague that he was forced to confront the issue again. “My wife said, ‘You did not consult with me!’” Moore said.
“My arm is still broken from my wife twisting it behind my back,” he joked.
And although he negotiated his deal at the last minute, Moore is still shaky about the decision. “I don’t particularly look forward to retirement,” he said.
Bowers, who has been a part of the Pepperdine community since he was a student on the campus at 79th and Vermont Avenue, can sympathize with those who want to retire and to be closer emotionally and geographically to their families. Bowers’ daughter is pregnant with his first grandchild.
“I know that some of these professors are my friends, and I will miss them,” Bowers said. “Personally, I feel quite lonely. I’m two or three (on the list of people who have been connected with Pepperdine the longest). I’m not trying to stay around to be number one.”
These aren’t, however, the first major personnel changes made under Benton, and there is no signal that they will be the last.
With his inauguration in September 2000, the president implemented a restructured administration, eliminating the executive vice president position and creating four new vice presidents, all in charge of different areas within the university.
Since his inauguration, other key administrators, including most recently Vice Chancellor Mike O’Neal and Chief Information Officer John Lawson, have decided to leave the university. O’Neal was named president of Oklahoma Christian University in January, and Lawson was appointed vice president of Tulane University in February.
Other retirements include Public Safety Director James Huffman and Executive Director of Campus Operations Dr. Bob Thomas. Huffman logged 15 years of service to the university while Thomas tallied 29.
Other key administrative moves have included Dean of Students D’Esta Love’s transition to the newly created position of university chaplain, Dr. Steven Lemley’s resignation as provost to return to the Communication Division as a professor and Registrar M. Luisita Archer’s shift to consultant to the vice president of planning, information and technology.
“Without knowing the numbers,” Bowers said, “I think this may start an exodus.”
THE EFFECT
But when they’re gone, who will tell the stories?
With all of the changes since Benton was named successor to Dr. David Davenport in January 2000, how will the changes affect the university community?
“The hard part is addressing the vacuum created by those who have been our colleagues for a long time,” Benton said. “I think is compliments Pepperdine and challenges us to find worthy replacements.”
Some, however, believe that replacements for long-time faculty will not be as easy to find.
“Does this hurt our corporate memory? Absolutely,” said Bill Henegar, assistant vice president for creative services and co-author of numerous books documenting Pepperdine history. “Now, there are fewer and fewer people who knew George Pepperdine and can connect with his founding vision.”
Henegar, whose institutional memory dates to 1971, even recalls shaking the hand of George Pepperdine before he was a students after he attended a Bible lecture on the Los Angeles campus.
But few have memories that date back as far as Henegar’s, and even fewer that date back farther. Henegar worries that this lack of connecting to the university’s origins can be dangerous to the unique calling of the school.
“There have been so many people who have questioned whether our faith and our academic mission are compatible,” Henegar said, citing all the universities including Princeton and Harvard that have broken their links with their founding religions as an example.
“But we are silly enough to believe that we can go against the grain,” he continued. “We have to have people who are willing to touch base with this idea, with where we came from. This is more than a company, more than an organization, it’s a teaching community with a soul; new faculty will have to go back and touch that soul.”
Benton said that the administration is up to the challenge of finding willing professors. “I guess (early retirement) is something to which I look forward to myself someday,” Benton said. “Pepperdine will find those who will be fitting successors, and the deans, provost and I accept that challenge.”
But some are still skeptical that new faculty can truly appreciate the nuances of Pepperdine’s intriguing history, and Henegar said that new faculty may not be interested in the endeavor.
“We need those new faculty who want to learn,” Henegar said. “And there’s really no way of knowing if they will or not.”
Henegar can remember few times that his institutional memory was tapped by new faculty eager to delve into the rich 65-year history of the school.
He doesn’t, however, doubt that it’s possible. Henegar remembers the day a new Graziadio professor walked into his office in University Publications and asked to know all of the stories behind all of the names on the buildings.
“He said, ‘I want to know, and I want my students to know,’” Henegar recalled. “That guy got it. He got it. I hope the other professors get it, that they get the sense of sacrifice we have here.”
Bowers, who has been connected to the Pepperdine community since he was a student on the campus at 79th and Vermont, can sympathize with the retiring faculty. However, he also fears disruptions in the memory and continuity of the university.
“If you lose a significant number of people all very quickly, that’s really going to have an impact,” Bowers said. “I don’t know that there’s any conscious effort to capture what we’ve got before we lose it.”
February 21, 2002
