MEREDITH RODRIGUEZ
News Assistant
Students and faculty, appalled at the prospect of losing “a rare cultural treasure,” fought against Chado’s planned reduction and successfully convinced Seaver Dean David Baird to overturn months of decision-making last week.
Chado, an ISAC tea course, was to be cut after this semester. It was one of the 32 programs targeted for reduction in Baird’s widely discussed prioritization matrix.
After a passionate “Save Chado” campaign, Baird gave word Thursday that the class would remain at Pepperdine for at least one more year.
Baird said he has always held Chado in high regard, “as I do the study of all things Asian,” he wrote earlier this month in a letter to Glenn and Carol Webb, pioneers of the tea program. His initial reasoning for the planned reduction was based on finances.
“The decision to phase out Chado instruction is, unfortunately, based largely on very practical considerations like student demand and allocation of resources,” Baird continued in his letter to the Webbs.
The dean pointed out that Chado occupies a large Payson Library space and that student enrollment has dropped from 35 in Fall 1999 to 20 in Fall 2004.
“The class doesn’t look good on paper,” Carol Webb said, “especially to an administrator whose job is to crunch numbers.”
Despite practical reality, however, proponents of the teahouse would not let Chado go without a fight.
“We will fight quietly, respectfully, yet firmly,” adjunct professor Keiko Nakada wrote in an e-mail Feb. 2 to her students upon hearing of the planned reduction.
Subsequently, students wrote letters expressing the value of Chado and personally handed their letters to the dean. They also collected signatures around campus. One advanced student, junior Andrew Hockman, began designing a “Save Chado” Web site.
Among arguments for Chado is that there has always been a high demand for the class, demonstrated by a wait list each semester. The documented drop in student enrollment is not due to lack of student demand, rather to a shortage of teachers, according to Nakada.
Nakada further pointed that Chado prepares students for life after college by broadening their cultural perspective. Knowledge of Asian history and culture is a vital tool for students who may someday develop liaisons with Japan, the number two economy in the world, she said.
“By taking away the Chado courses, Pepperdine is taking away one of its strongest cultural educations,” junior Ginna Nguyen wrote in her letter to Baird. “How can we, as a community and the future of our society, bring peace, progress and prosperity to our world if we fail to educate ourselves in its ways?”
Finally, Chado is the only Seaver class that offers pre-modern Japanese history.
Carol Webb said, in light of Baird’s proposed Asian Studies minor, Chado is vital, for in getting rid of it, “you would rip out the heart out of the Asian program.”
Apart from its pedagogic value, students pointed out its sentimental and spiritual value.
“At first the thought of a tea class sounds almost absurd,” said junior Daniel Fredrickson, a beginning Chado student. “Who needs to take a class about tea? But the truth is that the actual tea is secondary to the humility and the gratitude that go along with it.”
Ashley Parris, a third-year law school student and advanced student of Chado, agreed.
“It is one class that not only expands your mind, but your heart and spirit as well,” she said. “It truly makes you a better person.”
Nguyen agreed.
“I truly find the spirit of Jesus in the tearoom more than anywhere else on Pepperdine’s campus,” said Nguyen. “Humility, service, love, care, respect — these qualities are at the root of tea.”
Though the dean’s reprieve on Thursday delighted all those involved in the Chado campaign, “we’re keeping our fingers crossed,” said Carol Webb, hoping for confirmation in writing that the program will in fact remain indefinitely.
Right now the plan is to use the Payson space for one more year, after which Chado may be moved up to the SAC.
Chado students and faculty hope for a chance to not only keep the Chado program alive, but also to increase the breadth, strength and knowledge of the program. Funds are limited, however and many details must still be worked out, according to Baird.
02-24-2005