Julieanne Leupold
I have never been the poster child for Pepperdine.
I hated that we didn’t have a football team. I hated that we prayed in class.
I hated knowing that every time I told anyone I went to Pepperdine that infallibly the first thing that came out of his or her mouth was, “Oh, that’s such a beautiful campus, you must get nothing done.”
So needless to say, I was more than a little wary when a prospective student e-mailed me a list of questions to help make a decision about my almost alma mater.
He asked all the traditional questions about religion and Pepperdine’s night life. But I answered them all with practiced security that “religion is the foundation of Pepperdine’s mission, but it is what you make of it.” And that “night life does exist both on and off campus” — giving my Hot Spots calendar PR schpeal.
I could have been a tour guide.
But it was his last question that caught me off guard: “What has your experience at Pepperdine been?”
All I could write was wonderful.
And then I hated myself for subscribing to the stereotypes — even for a little while — of the ultra-conservative-religious “castle-on-the-hill” image that Pepperdine has.
Now a month away from graduating, I recognize that I might have been warped by living in the bubble too long. The world is not like Pepperdine — idiosyncrasies and all. But that just makes me feel sorry for the rest of the world.
Everywhere there is such sadness. People killed by terrorists or their neighbor’s dogs. Kids murder other kids for calling them a stupid name. Not a day goes past without a senseless crime splashing across newspaper pages.
But at Pepperdine, students follow a different mantra. People clean up mailbox inserts and buy caf food for anyone paying cash. College coeds give up a Friday night to dance with grandpas and grandmas in a makeshift prom.
It is only here that I don’t walk around in fear of what I might see, but in hope for the future.
These people that I’ve spent four years growing with and learning from will one day change the world. But what they do in the future doesn’t matter as much to me, because in my mind they have already accomplished that goal.
For I am sure that each random act of kindness that is committed every day on this campus starts a domino effect. And somewhere down the line someone who has never heard of Pepperdine will buy a stranger coffee or bring a homeless man a blanket — all because a former Wave started this chain.
I’m sure that I will walk around New York University next fall and smile and say hi to people I don’t know. Or stop to put a quarter in someone’s meter that has expired. And I’m sure that those people will think I’m crazy, but all I’m doing is pushing over another domino.
And even though it took four years of getting over the things I hated to learn that lesson, I’m glad I stuck it out. And maybe you’ll be the next person to commit a random act of kindness because someone smiled at me in the hall — and the chain will continue.
April 04, 2002