Pepperdine University’s triennial international symposium and choral festival of sacred a cappella music will return to the Malibu campus for the fourth time from Thursday, May 12, to Saturday, May 14.

This three-day musical conference, known this year as The Ascending Voice IV, will be headlined by Grammy Award-winning gospel music sextet Take Six. The concerts will begin and conclude each day with periods of heartfelt worship, and each day offers a variety of workshops.

For the first time in the history of The Ascending Voice, Pepperdine will engage a newly formed choir-in-residence Cerulean: Voices Extraordinary. Under the direction of Ryan Board, the choir is comprised of 17 professional singers from around the United States. They will participate in various sessions at the symposium and perform their own concert on May 13.  

The Ascending Voice Festival Choir will be guided by renowned conductor Simon Carrington. As one of the founding members of the internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble The King’s Singers Carrington is in great demand as a freelance conductor and choral educator. He is a professor emeritus from Yale University, where he conducted the Yale Schola Cantorum, a distinguished choral ensemble, which he founded in 2003.      

Also scheduled to perform is The Festival Choir, a group of 160 singers from collegiate choral groups representing Centenary College, Harding University, Lubbock Christian University, Rochester College, and Pepperdine University.  

Founding member of the Christian singing group The Acappella Company and champion of congregational singing, Keith Lancaster will be one of the clinicians to lead the audience in song and worship. Audiences will experience beloved hymns known in almost all churches balanced by stirring new compositions from around the world. Musical styles will include both the traditional and the contemporary through a combination of medieval chants and Reformation psalters. Taizé tunes and old Sacred Harp refrains will also be presented in the repertoire.

Internationally renowned theologian, author, and educator Marva J. Dawn will be the plenary speaker at the event. Dawn serves as Teaching Fellow in Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. She is a popular preacher and speaker for people of all ages, and the author of numerous articles and books, several of which have won awards and have been translated into other languages. 

The Ascending Voice is an international symposium devoted exclusively to a cappella music in Christian worship, and promotes deep bonds of fellowship through worship, meals, and conversation.

Ticket prices range between $82 and $135, and are required to attend. For additional information about The Ascending Voice IV, and to purchase tickets, visit the symposium’s page on the Eventbrite website.

The Pepperdine University Seaver College 2016 commencement ceremony will take place at Alumni Park on the Malibu campus on Saturday, April 30, at 10:30 AM.

Michael K. Powell, a former chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), will deliver the commencement address and receive the University’s highest honor, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Powell’s FCC nomination came from president Bill Clinton in 1997, and he was designated as FCC chair by president George W. Bush in 2001. As chair, Powell led initiatives to open up markets in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Wi-Fi, and Broadband over Power Lines (BPL). He advocated for the updating of media ownership rules to reflect new communications technologies, such as the Internet—a move that critics considered as increasing widespread media consolidation. In 2005 he campaigned for the National Do Not Call Registry.

In 2011 Powell became president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), one of the largest corporate lobbies in Washington, D.C., to represent the telecommunications industry. Prior to working for the NCTA, he served for two years as cochair of Broadband for America, a coalition that consists of over 300 companies united in their commitment to expanding the discussion of Broadband for America.

Powell currently serves on a number of nonprofit boards, including Mayo Clinic, Aspen Institute, and America’s Promise, where he serves as the cochair of Grad Nation, an effort to end the high school dropout crisis in the United States. 

The eighth-ranked Pepperdine University women’s tennis team will host the first and second rounds of the NCAA Championships at the Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center in Malibu on Friday, May 13, and Saturday, May 14.

The first match will begin at 10 AM on Friday with 20th-ranked University of Southern California against 50th-ranked University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The Waves will also challenge University of Idaho at 1 PM on opening day. 

On Saturday at 1 PM, the winners of the previous matches will compete in a single-elimination format for a chance to advance to the round of 16, which will be hosted by the University of Tulsa at the Michael Case Tennis Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from May 19 to May 24.

The Waves earned the number eight seed in the NCAA Championships after going 21-2 overall this season. The team won a fourth-consecutive West Coast Conference (WCC) championship title, while also earning WCC regular-season champion status. The Waves have won the last 12 straight matches, including the last six matches by sweeps. 

For additional information about the upcoming NCAA Championships, visit the Pepperdine University Athletics website.

Craig Detweiler, professor of communication and creative director of the Institute for Entertainment, Media, and Culture at Pepperdine University, has been selected as Variety’s “Education Mentor of the Year” in the magazine’s 2016 Education Impact Report.

Both the nomination and win were a complete surprise to Detweiler, who credits the recognition to the dedicated film students he has worked with over the years.

“I’ve been blessed to have some really sharp students who studied under me, who have done very well all across the industry,” he reveals. “The award recognizes education and mentoring, and I’ve been honored to have some talented people to mentor.”

Detweiler explains that working as a university professor is about legacy, and that the focus is not so much on what professors accomplish, but rather on empowering students to do more and become more than they originally thought possible.

He is particularly proud of occasions when former students call him with the news that they have just received a Hollywood offer and need an agent, which he experienced earlier this year when alumnus Jeff Loveness (’10) won the Writers Guild Award for his comedy writing on Jimmy Kimmel Live: 10th Annual After the Oscars Special. Another notable moment for Detweiler was in 2015, when producer Taylor Johns (’12) was on the red carpet at the 87th annual Academy Awards to represent the film Last Days of Vietnam.

Detweiler also expresses gratitude toward fellow Pepperdine faculty members, saying it’s “an honor to work alongside those who have been tracking with students for decades in film and media, with people like Don Shores, Susan Salas, and Joi Carr, who have been investing in students for decades.”

Over the course of his career, Detweiler has authored, coauthored, and edited several books, including iGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives (2013), worked with the Directors Guild of America, received multiple awards from nationally recognized institutions, and been featured on ABC's Nightline, CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera, NPR, and in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Pepperdine University theatre students part of the Pepperdine Scotland company received the prestigious Scotsman Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s largest arts festival headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Friday, August 12. It is the second time that Pepperdine Scotland, the award-winning cultural and artistic program comprising members of the Pepperdine theatre department and leading members of the Scottish theatre community, has won a Fringe First, an honor designed to recognize outstanding new theatre work and celebrate the very best new writing. The group also earned a series of coveted four- and five-star reviews for their performance.

Written by Scotland-based playwright Lynda Radley, The Inteference is a fast-paced drama about a campus rape victim’s struggle for justice. While the play is set in an American university, it is inspired by events both in the US and UK, and the questions it raises go far beyond the campus. Within days of its world premiere on August 3, 2016, it had earned acclaim from leading critics at prestigious publications, including The Scotsman, The Herald, British Theatre Guide, The List, and Broadway Baby.

Director Cathy Thomas-Grant, divisional dean of the Pepperdine Fine Arts Division, explains, “The Edinburgh Fringe is one of the toughest and most competitive environments you can imagine. To have won this award and earned such outstanding reviews is a tremendous tribute to the dedication of our students and to the outstanding power of Lynda’s writing.”

As part of the Pepperdine Scotland program, 18 of Pepperdine’s best and brightest theatre students spent seven weeks in the Highlands, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. During their residency, students rehearsed, took classes, and worked alongside some of the leading individuals and institutions in Scottish theatre.

In the summer of 2012, the project culminated in the world premiere of Why Do You Stand There In The Rain?, which was awarded Pepperdine's first Fringe First award.

This year Pepperdine Scotland not only managed the project, but also worked with a variety of campaigning organizations, such as the Rape Crisis charities, to highlight issues surrounding sexual violence.

White Ribbon Scotland, an organization that aims to change social attitudes towards rape and other forms of violence against women, believes it is vital to discuss these issues. Davy Thompson, the organization’s communications officer, says, “It’s terrific to have such a high-quality and effective play which will help change attitudes and stop victim blaming. The Interference also looks at the legal hurdles victims face when they try to get justice and they just shouldn’t be there. It’s important to get these issues talked about and for men to make it absolutely clear that they think violence towards women is completely unacceptable.”

Pepperdine University mourns the loss of Michael R. Summers, professor of management science in the Business Administration Division at Seaver College. Beginning his tenure more than 36 years ago, Summers came to Pepperdine in 1980 and was the longest-tenured faculty member in the Business Administration Division.

“We are saddened at the passing of professor Michael Summers,” says Michael Feltner, dean of Seaver College. “A longtime faculty member in the Business Administration Division, Dr. Summers cared deeply about preparing students for both professional careers and lives of purpose. He will be missed, but the legacy of his contributions to Seaver will influence the education of business students for generations. We join with Michael's wife, Ann, and his son, Adam, in grieving his death and celebrating his life.”

Along with marketing professor Roy Adler, Summers was part of the team tasked with developing the five-year MBA program between the Seaver Business Administration Division and the Graziadio School of Business and Management. He also served for decades as the chair of the Credits Committee, a role in which he led the development and regulation of the policies outlined in the Seaver College catalog.

Summers earned his BS with highest honors, MBA, and PhD from the University of Illinois in 1969, 1970, and 1978, respectively.

"It is impossible to overestimate Mike's contribution to the Business Administration Division and to Seaver College," says Dean Baim, divisional dean of the Seaver College Business Administration Division. "During his 36 years at Pepperdine he was often our quiet conscience, and his steady wisdom was consulted by every divisional dean this division has ever had. Seaver College will be a sadder place without Mike."

Summers is survived by his wife, Ann; son, Adam; daughter-in-law, Wendy; and grandson, Collin. Details of funeral arrangements will be updated here as more information becomes available.

On Saturday, May 3, for the second time in three seasons, the Pepperdine sand volleyball team raised the AVCA Collegiate Sand Volleyball National Championship trophy after defeating Florida State 3-2 in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

The Waves relied on Becca Strehlow and Lara Dykstra to clinch the dual in the final match of the afternoon. Tied 2-2, it all came down to Strehlow and Dykstra, who beat FSU's Stephanie and Kristina Pellitteri in straight--albeit painstakingly close--sets.

"I thought Becca and Lara stayed really calm," said head coach Nina Matthies after the contest, "We're all really competitive and want perfection, but sometimes perfectionism doesn't necessarily win volleyball matches, or anything in life really. But they took it point by point, stayed within themselves and didn't panic.

"That's a lot of pressure right there, for it to all come down to one court," continued Matthies. "I just saw what I've seen from them all along. They're both great competitors and great players."

On Sunday, May 4, the team's top-two pairs, including Larsen and Woolever, as well as Strehlow and Dykstra, competed in the pairs championship and reached the quarterfinals of the AVCA National Pairs Championship, earning All-American status.

Pepperdine leads all sand volleyball programs with 12 All-American selections divided amongst eight student-athletes. Dykstra became a two-time All-American, joining the likes of Summer Ross, Kim Hill, Lilla Frederick, and Caitlin Racich.

This was Woolever, Larsen, and Strehlow's first time receiving the recognition.

In a change from last year, this season's All-American awards were granted to pairs who reached the quarterfinal round of the pairs championship. Larsen and Woolever opened the morning with a commanding 21-15, 21-17 win over Jessica Gehrke and Marina Boulanger of FIU before succumbing to a 15-13 loss in the third set to Keil and Metter.

Strehlow and Dykstra won in straight sets to open the day, but similar to their teammates, lost 15-13 in the third versus the Rainbow Wahine's number one team of Tiegs and Cook. The Pepperdine pair wraps the year with a 23-7 record.

Strehlow now holds a special place in program history, becoming the Waves' second student-athlete to achieve All-American status in both indoor and sand volleyball in a singles season. As an indoor player, the sophomore setter was an honorable mention All-American.

Waves women's sand volleyball first took the national title in 2012, the team's inaugural year as part of the athletics program at Pepperdine, becoming the first women's team at Pepperdine to capture a national title. After defeating Long Beach State in the finals, 5-0, Pepperdine's four All-Americans concluded the AVCA Collegiate Sand National Championship with the pairs tournament, where junior Caitlin Racich and freshman Summer Ross came up with a giant come-from-behind effort in the finals to capture the first-ever national pairs title.

For more information, visit the Pepperdine Athletics website.

The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art's summer exhibit, which will take place May 10 to August 3, will feature the work of Bob Peak, who designed posters for movies such as My Fair Lady, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Apocalypse Now. A reception celebrating the exhibit's opening will take place Saturday, May 10, at 2 p.m.

Robert "Bob" Peak (1927–1992) was an American illustrator best known for creating the modern movie poster. His versatile style used incisive draftsmanship, bold colors, and rich textures to produce dynamic, eye-catching compositions. This exhibition features original art covering the full range of his career—from the famous posters he designed for movies such as My Fair Lady, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Apocalypse Now to his work for a variety of national clients, including Time magazine, TV Guide, and Sports Illustrated.

The Weisman Museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and one hour prior to most performances through intermission. Admission is free. Please call (310) 506-4851 for more information or visit the Center for the Arts website.

"Walking" Fish Make Annual California Appearance

Hunting, habitat loss could be taking a toll on iconic grunion.

By Gretchen Parker in Cabrillo Beach, California 

for National Geographic

Just after nightfall in southern California, on sandy stretches of Pacific shoreline, a piece of marine folklore is coming to life.

It's that time of year again. The grunion are running.

Grunion are skinny, silvery little fish only 5 to 6 inches (13 to 15 centimeters) long. They're not harvested commercially, and they'd probably go unnoticed if it weren't for the unusual way they spawn.

But the way they flop, en masse, out of the water and onto the shoreline, dig into the sand to lay eggs, and then scoot back into the surf has become the stuff of legend in southern California.

Natives get a kick out of taking out-of-town guests to see the nighttime spectacle, which occurs each year between March and August on beaches from Point Conception, just north of Santa Barbara, down to Punta Abreojos in Baja California, Mexico. California grunion, members of the Atherinopsidae family, or New World silversides, are found nowhere else in the world.

But how much longer will they be found here? Anecdotal evidence suggests that as hunting has increased, and as development has reduced available spawning grounds, there have been fewer strong, healthy grunion runs in recent years.

"People ask me all the time, 'How are the grunion doing these days?' " says Karen Martin, a biology professor at Pepperdine University and the region's best-known expert on grunion. "I say, 'It's not their best year.' "

See How They Run

The story of "this quirky, kooky fish" is what draws people, says Mike Schaadt, a native southern Californian and the director of the beachfront Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro. "It's caught the attention of people in a romantic sense," he said, "and also just how bizarre nature can be."

Schaadt's aquarium takes advantage of the unusual opportunity to unite observers with fish in the wild. Cabrillo Beach, just outside the aquarium's door and in the shadow of the Port of Los Angeles, has long been known as a hot spot where grunion mingle.

Since 1951, the aquarium has been hosting "Meet the Grunion" on high-tide nights when the fish run. The entertainment starts inside, moves out to the beach, and ends—hopefully—with a real-life display of grunion spawning on the sand.

Last Saturday night, as the sun sank into the horizon, families, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, school groups, and budding scientists gathered in the aquarium's auditorium to watch a short documentary of the fish's life cycle.

Shot in 1964, the film is quaint by today's high-def standards, but it captures spectators' attention as they learn the details: Grunion ride the surf onto shore at the highest tides, under new and full moons and for three subsequent nights. Females shimmy back and forth to dig their tails into the sand and release a clutch of up to 3,000 eggs. Males, attracted by the movement, circle the females and release milt, which flows down their bodies and fertilizes the eggs.

Watch: Fish "Walks" on Beach to Spawn

Grunion only surf high tides, to the highest point of the shoreline, for a reason: The eggs need to incubate undisturbed under the sand for 10 days, where they wait for the next high tide to carry them out to sea. And they've evolved to wait for their ride. If they hatch too soon, they suffocate under the sand.

A year later, they're full-grown fish ready for their own beach rendezvous.

Grunion survive their brief excursion by lowering their heart rates. They conserve energy, take care of business in just a few minutes, and float out on the next wave.

At the Cabrillo Aquarium, visitors learn how to do the "grunion dance"—to twitch and wriggle just as female grunion do when they drill into the sand. They pass around baby-food jars filled with seawater and grunion eggs. They shake the jars, in the same way eggs laid on the beach are agitated by surf, and watch as tiny grunion—mostly eyeballs and tails—spring out of their clear shells. Even the adults are in awe when they see baby grunion jump out of the eggs like popcorn popping.

The kids want to keep the babies, but reluctantly return them to aquarium staff, who grow the young fish for research and release them.

Rules of Engagement

Grunion education hasn't changed much since the 1950s, and neither has grunion hunting. The rules have been the same since 1949, when restrictions limited the open season to March, June, and July. No equipment is allowed—you can only use your bare hands to grab the fish. Anyone 16 and over is required to have a fishing license. And in April and May, the peak spawning time, it's illegal for anyone to catch the fish.

The first rules on grunion hunting were passed in 1927. Before that, when the fish were a means of subsistence for some southern California families, people used bedsheets as a dragnet and harvested as many as they could from the surf.

These days, few of the fish caught during the recreational runs make it to the frying pan. (Garlic and olive oil are a must, although Schaadt says they can't mask the "fishy" taste.)

But one thing that has changed over the decades: the number of grunion hunters. The prominence of SoCal's beach culture—along with the population of San Diego, Orange, and Los Angeles counties—has exploded in the past half century. There simply weren't as many people going to the beach in the 1940s and '50s, says Martin, the Pepperdine biologist who has been studying the endemic fish for 20 years.

At the same time, other pressures on the fish have increased. Waterfront construction has narrowed beaches and armored shorelines with sea walls, reducing the area available for spawning.

Just five years ago researchers saw healthy numbers of grunion on SoCal beaches. But the runs over the past two to three years haven't been very strong. "And since grunion only live two or three years," says Martin, "that's a source of concern."

The Numbers Game

Adding to the mystery of this iconic fish: No one keeps track of them. In fact, scientists only know about them because of their spawning ritual. They aren't snared by hook and line, they don't show up in commercial nets, and they only pop up at night. They're essentially invisible in California's network of recreational and commercial fishery counts.

So populations are hard to gauge, and counting grunion doesn't work. During strong runs, the masses of fish are floppy, slithering chaos. And while females appear only once a run, males ride the waves to shore over and over. Each time they land, they look for another female to sidle up to.

Martin, along with marine conservationist Melissa Studer, helped found Grunion Greeters, a once-robust organization that held workshops, trained a platoon of volunteers, and fanned them out over SoCal beaches to size up grunion runs and report the details. From 2002 to 2010, as many as 600 volunteers a year scanned more than 50 beaches at a time. Data gathered by the group were extensive enough to persuade San Diego and then other California municipalities to change their beach-grooming practices to avoid plowing over incubating eggs.

The grant-dependent program is no longer funded, but volunteers still file scattered reports; about 200 have been received so far this year. Organizers are hesitant to draw conclusions about the overall grunion population from that data, but they say sightings of strong, healthy runs—which were common as recently as 2009—are increasingly rare. This year, only a single one was spotted, near Malibu.

Martin has begun working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to determine if more restrictions on grunion hunting are needed. She and Studer are in favor of making June part of the closed season, so catches could only be made in March, July, and August.

"There are few people that need to eat grunion at this point," Martin said. "It's purely a recreational activity. And I think if people can learn to catch and release trout, they can learn to catch and release grunion."

Nor would closing more of the season keep spectators from seeing grunion. Martin argues that enthusiasts would get even more out of the experience if they stood back and watched what happens when these fish toss themselves out of the water.

"It's much more interesting to watch their natural behavior than to watch what they do in a bucket," she said.

Smiling for 'Auschwitz selfies,' and crying into the digital wilderness

Opinion by Craig Detweiler, Special to CNN

(CNN) – It is understandable why Breanna Mitchell’s sunny tweet from Auschwitz as “PrincessBMM” would spark a viral outcry.

A tour of a concentration camp, where so many Jews lost their lives, may move us to take photos or post responses – but few would include smiles, or selfies.

But Mitchell is not the first teenager to generate Internet outrage by her response to the Holocaust.

When Justin Bieber visited the Anne Frank House last year, he wrote in the museum guest book, “Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully, she would have been a Belieber.”

While many have ripped into Mitchell and Bieber for their insensitivity, I don’t think they intended to be disrespectful to the dead.

Thanks to the ubiquity of mobile devices (mobiquity!), adolescent mistakes and hard lessons that used to be learned in private can quickly devolve into public drubbings.

This is what happens when new technologies clash with ancient understandings of the sacred. The problem is so pervasive that a Tumblr site, “Selfies at Serious Places” is dedicated to such faux pas.

We have very few spaces that our culture considers sacred, where an association with the divine results in a feeling of awe or reverence. Death may seem especially abstract to young people who haven’t been shown how to grieve, mourn or respect the dead.

So how might we help the emerging generation to develop a digital decorum that accounts for sacred spaces? Can we incorporate electronic ethics into religious instruction?

This summer, I have been teaching students at Pepperdine University’s London campus, which has given my family remarkable opportunities to see the places that define European history. Traveling with my 12- and 14-year-old children has raised questions about what is appropriate and where.

While some churches such as Westminster Abbey prohibit photography, others such as the Salisbury Cathedral allow all kinds of cameras. Our eyes, ears and spirits were far more sensitized in Westminster Abbey, where we were freed from “getting the shot.”

Once an hour, an announcement at the abbey invites visitors to pause, wherever they are, for a moment of respectful silence and prayer. How rare and appropriate to see a church encouraging us to pause en masse for sacred activity – rather than mere digital documentation of our visit.

The selfie could provide a sacred pausing if it didn’t involve so much posing.

It is one way to record a moment, to fix an experience as a reminder, “I was here.” It can be a lovely way to communicate to friends and family, “Wish you were here.”

But it also involves a level of performance that often pulls us out of the place itself. And a selfie can veer toward the humblebrag, advertising our summer vacation to friends.

The temptation with social media is to turn our friends into an audience. We cast ourselves as the star and think about how to entertain our followers. Tours of revered spaces become an opportunity to post a photo.

Should we travel to Amsterdam or Auschwitz to acquire content, to have something to share on social media?

We may sink into the spiral described by poet T.S. Eliot, “We had the experience, but missed the meaning.” Our digital devices create a conundrum: how to be fully present in the moment we are also trying to broadcast?

This summer, the line to tour the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam snaked down the block and around the church next door. So many students have read her poignant “Diary of a Young Girl” for school assignments.

Yet John Green’s best-selling, young adult novel, "The Fault in Our Stars," also awakened interest in Frank. In the novel, two teens, battling cancer, climb the stairs to Anne’s attic hideaway, where they experience their first kiss.

Older and established film critics questioned the appropriateness of the scene, but the target audience of adolescents found it powerful and inspiring. Where critics saw blasphemy and disrespect, teens edged toward the transcendent.

As Green writes in “The Fault in Our Stars,” “You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice.”

When our family toured the house, no photos were allowed. The crowd was remarkably respectful. People of all ages climbed past the bookcase that covered the back half of the house and concealed the Frank family.

While I paused with my kids to take in the reality of the books still on the shelf, a woman in her 40s pulled out her phone and snapped an illicit photo. No personnel saw it. No one chided her actions. Perhaps she shared it on Facebook in a respectful way.

The wisdom in Ecclesiastes declares that there is “A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” Yet we may not weep or laugh or photograph the same things at the same time.

We found even more incongruous responses to the Holocaust in Berlin.

Architects Peter Eisenman and Daniel Libeskind navigated considerable controversies while crafting moving Holocaust memorials. They respected the concerns of families and survivors while making history relevant for generations to come.

But they cannot control the public’s response.

While my family walked reverently through the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, others were playing hide-and-seek and jumping across the tomb-like steles.

At the Jewish Museum, we were haunted by the Holocaust Tower. When the door closed behind us with a thunderous boom, the huge, oppressive walls and darkness bore down upon us. Yet we also watched countless school groups cruise in, take a quick pic and hop out.

Should we be encouraged that so many young people were touring the museum?

Parents and educators are challenged to communicate the gravity of the Holocaust to the next generation. In “Night,” Elie Wiesel reminded us why we must continue to teach and speak and visit horrific places like Auschwitz, “For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.”

Still, we cannot control what Justin Bieber or Breanna Mitchell post.

Where most of us saw disrespect in Mitchell’s smile, she claimed it was a moment of bonding with her deceased father. Their shared experience of studying about Auschwitz found fruition in her visit. Her selfie and smile was a positive form of grieving – and an affront to others.

Perhaps the wisdom of Viktor Frankl can help us navigate a world where privacy has nearly collapsed and everything is open to self-promotion.

In “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Frankl noted: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

We must continue to provide sacred spaces and opportunities for us all to pause, to turn off our devices long enough to experience the divine. But that space must also be open to indifference, to blasphemy, to selfies.

For even in its intense inward focus, the selfie posted on social media is also a cry into the void: “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?”

May Bieber and Mitchell hear an affirming whisper rather than merely a massive outrage.
 

Craig Detweiler is a professor of communication at Pepperdine University and the author of "iGods: How Technology Shapes our Spiritual and Social Lives." The views expressed in this column belong to Detweiler. 

"Environmental Impact: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation," an exhibition showcasing original art in various mediums inspired by our natural world, will be on view at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University from August 26 through November 30, 2014. A reception will be held Saturday, Sept. 13, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Since the dawn of time, artists have been inspired by nature. This thought-provoking exhibition features work by a diverse group of contemporary artists who comment on our relationship to the natural world. Their art reveals the complex ways nature functions in society. While some see it as a source of delicate beauty, others view it as an overwhelmingly powerful force. Regardless of their perspective, artists today understand that our relationship to nature is delicate, complex, and interconnected. Over 35 large-scale works fill two floors of the Weisman Museum with various meditations on one of the most pressing issues of our time.

A key work in this exhibition is Ed Ruscha's LAX - Sunset – Malibu (1981). Three place names, rendered with the artist's signature use of typography, allude to the drive up Pacific Coast Highway from the airport to Malibu. But instead of showing scenic views, the landscape is shrouded in thick gray smog. Ruscha's witty and poignant image reminds us that through much of the 20th century, Los Angeles held the unfortunate distinction of being the smoggiest city in the nation. Another work on the theme of air pollution is Joe Goode's Torn Sky (1979). A canvas painted a smoggy gray is literally ripped to shreds revealing another canvas painted with a bright blue sky underneath. This humorous but poignant work reminds us of the extent to which we can destroy our environment—and possibly repair it.

Another side of nature is seen in Wave (2009) by New Orleans artist Srdjan Loncar. A massive eight-foot tall sculpture of a cresting wave towers over the viewer. This monolithic mass is covered with hundreds of photographs of water, depicting various oceans, lakes, rivers and streams. This work reminds us that bodies of water do not exist as isolated entities but are all part of an active, interrelated, worldwide network.

New York painter Andrew Piedilato views the ocean as a source of floating mystery and potential chaos. Two large-scale, 10-foot paintings depict the seas as a setting for cataclysmic events. In Submarine Surfacing (2010) a submarine violently emerges from the depths, shattering the peace. In Whirlpool (2011) a logjam of ocean debris alludes to a shipwreck but also to the fields of man-made garbage that float upon our oceans.

In Brethren of the Stone: Paul's Vision (Three Worlds Under a Mushroom Cloud Sky) (2006) New York based artist Jen Liu creates a futuristic fantasy world where nature and industry collide and intermingle. Adopting a format from traditional Chinese landscape painting, she creates a world within a world where elephants wear gas masks and smokestacks dance alongside smoking volcanoes. The title, which contains both religious and apocalyptic references, reveals the artist's belief that the fate of our environment involves both a religious and a material battle.

Our environment has historically been impacted by natural change on and within the Earth – by relentlessly evolving weather conditions, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, severe winds, torrential rains, etc. Man has also added to the list of stimuli that has significantly affected the quality of the environment, with industrial pollution, manufacturing, automobile and airplane exhaust, plastics, paints, etc. Environmental Impact: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation has gathered various examples of how artists have reproduced, commented and critiqued our ever-changing environment, whether the result of nature's forces or man's interventions. The exhibition brings together different approaches to the subject—both formal and conceptual—including commentary on pollution and natural disasters, and observing and altering the environment.

This exhibition was curated by Billie Milam Weisman and is generously funded by the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation.

For more information, visit the Center for the Arts website.

On Tuesday, Oct. 21, at 4 p.m., major American poet Peter Cooley will read from his work in the Surfboard Room of the Payson Library, Malibu. The reading will be followed by a Q&A.

Cooley will read from his most recent book, Night Bus to the Afterlife, which is a meditation on transience and mortality as the author moves through the landscape of the Gulf South in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Cooley is a director of creative writing, professor of English, and Senior Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. He has taught in the M.F.A. programs at Warren Wilson College, Vermont College, Western Michigan University in Prague, and the University of New Orleans in Montpellier and Madrid. He has also taught creative writing workshops in a mental hospital, a prison, in pre-schools, grade schools, high schools, and to the elderly, the socially disadvantaged, and the illiterate.

Cooley's nine books of poetry include The Company of Strangers, The Room Where Summer Ends, Nightseasons, The Van Gogh Notebook, The Astonished Hours, Sacred Conversations, A Place Made of Starlight, Divine Margins, and Night Bus to the Afterlife. His poems have appeared in over seven hundred magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The Nation, The New Republic, and The Southern Review, and in more than one hundred anthologies. His work is in three editions of The Best American Poetry.

He has given readings of his poetry throughout the United States and in Paris, London, Madrid, Prague, Honolulu, Melbourne, and in Wellington, New Zealand, the latter as the U.S. representative to the International Poetry Festival.

Three times a recipient of Mortar Board commendations at Tulane, Cooley received the Inspirational Professor Award and the Newcomb Professor of the Year Award. From 1970-2000 he was poetry editor of North American Review and is currently poetry editor of Christianity and Literature. He has been an Atlantic Younger Poet, The Robert Frost Fellow at the Breadloaf Writers' Conference, a Yaddo Fellow, and an Ossabaw Island Fellow. Cooley has received fellowships from the University of Wisconsin, The Louisiana Division of the Arts, and the state of Louisiana's ATLAS Program. He is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize and of the Marble Faun First Place Prize in Poetry given by the Faulkner Society.

Cooley received a B.A. in Humanities from Shimer College, an M.A. in Art and Literature from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in modern letters from the University of Iowa, where he was a student in the Writers' Workshop and submitted a book of his own poetry as his dissertation.

This reading is generously sponsored by the Humanities and Teacher Education Division of Seaver College and the Office of the Provost.

For more information, contact Paul Contino, Blanche E. Seaver Professor of Humanities.

The Pepperdine University Fine Arts Division will present its Luciana and Daniel Forge Fall Musical, a new production of Into the Woods, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, from Nov. 13 to Nov. 22, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, Nov.16, at Smothers Theatre on Pepperdine's Malibu campus.

Fractured fairytales come to life when a childless baker and his wife endeavor to lift their family curse by journeying into the woods, where they encounter a host of Brothers Grimm characters, including Rapunzel, her Witch of a mother, Cinderella, Jack (of Beanstalk fame), Little Red Riding Hood, and two handsome Princes. Everyone in the story has a wish—and in true fairytale fashion, their wishes are granted—but what they have to do to get their wishes is a whole different story!

This modern reimagining of the beloved musical by Stephen Sondheim offers a glimpse of what happens after "happily ever after"; what begins as a clever diversion, a simple fairytale, ultimately leads down a dark path of self-discovery to a universal message of hope.

Dimitri Toscas, an acclaimed director of plays, musical theatre and opera, helms an all-student cast, with Tyler Kimmel serving as musical director.

"I'm excited to be directing Into the Woods as my first show here at Pepperdine University," says Toscas, "but if that wasn't thrilling enough, the Fine Arts Department has encouraged me, along with my team of designers and our talented student cast to go 'deeper into the woods,' to reimagine this beloved musical for a more contemporary audience."

"Our take on this modern storytelling involves a completely new production: original costumes, innovative set design and contemporary visuals by way of artful projections," Toscas continues. "This process has allowed us to scratch away the surface of these characters, and their well-loved fairytales, to discover the universal messages that are hidden underneath."

Fantastical and enchanting with a dark-comedy underbelly, Pepperdine's new production of Into The Woods packs a unique visual punch, while maintaining the sophisticated music and story that has thrilled audiences worldwide.

Into the Woods is licensed by Music Theatre International (MTI).

Tickets, priced at $20 for the public, $10 for Pepperdine students, and $16 for Pepperdine faculty and staff, are available now by calling the Pepperdine Center for the Arts box office at (310) 506-4522. Tickets for the general public are also available on the Center for the Arts website.

Jeffrey Schultz, Interim Director of the Creative Writing Program, will read from his recently published debut collection of poems, What Ridiculous Things We Could Ask of Each Other, a 2013 National Poetry Series Selection.  The free event will take place at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 22, in the Surfboard Room of Pepperdine's Payson Library. A question and answer session will follow.

"Please join me in a real-time, in-person gathering of people of varied interests and backgrounds to listen to that most anachronistic of anachronisms, a living poet," Schultz said.

Schultz earned his MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon, and his bachelor's in English from California State University, Fresno. At Pepperdine, he teaches advanced poetry, creative writing, and English composition. His work has been published in multiple venues and he has spoken or performed at various conferences and symposiums. Jeffrey Schultz's poems have appeared in the Boston Review, Indiana Review, Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, and elsewhere, and have been featured on the PBS Newshour's Art Beat and Poetry Daily.

In addition to the National Poetry Series recognition, Schultz earned Pepperdine's 2012 Brett J. Love Award for Teaching Excellence; the "Discovery"/Boston Review prize and a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.

For information, please visit the Pepperdine Libraries website.

Crayfish crisis: $800K grant will aid effort to eradicate invasive species from Malibu

Jed Kim | 89.3 KPCC

AUDIO

The red swamp crayfish — a culinary delight in Louisiana — is more of a voracious predator in Southern California, an invasive species that has contributed to the decline of native amphibians and fish for at least a century.

Now, some scientists are undertaking an unprecedented project aiming at the complete removal of the aquatic species from the entire Malibu Creek Watershed, and the organization behind that effort — the Mountains Restoration Trust — received an $800,000 grant from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in July to aid in the effort.

Kyle Troy is a restoration technician for the Mountains Restoration Trust. She gets up early almost every morning to go wading through litter-strewn creeks in the Santa Monica Mountains. Where many would focus on the garbage and an out-of-balance ecosystem, Troy sees only potential.

“It’s going to be beautiful. That’s what I’m excited about,” Troy said. “I love my job.”

To Troy, making the creek beautiful again will require more than simply hauling out garbage – something she and her colleagues do each day — it will require completely removing the red swamp crayfish, an invasive freshwater crustacean that is believed to have arrived in Southern California about 100 years ago.

The omnivorous predator feasts on the eggs and young of insects, fish and amphibians. Troy said she personally witnessed one devour an Arroyo chub, a fish species of special concern in California because of its low numbers.

“It would be great to see the newts back up here and all of the natives, you know, it would be great. We have no native chub up here at all,” Troy said.
 

A red swamp crayfish advances on the egg mass of a California newt. Photo courtesy of Lee Kats.

Troy manages the project to eradicate the red swamp crayfish from the entire Malibu Creek Watershed. 

The goal of 100 percent eradication of the crayfish from the Malibu Creek Watershed — the largest in the Santa Monica Mountains – is unprecedented in scope.

The hope is that the removal will be completed before a dam that obstructs the watershed's natural water flow is removed. The hope is taking out the dam will allow endangered steelhead trout to spawn in the watershed.

“Our main concern is the steelhead trout, when they come back into the watershed,” Troy said. “[The crayfish] will eat the fry of the steelhead.

Impacts on native species

Many believe the red swamp crayfish were introduced to the state by fishermen interested in using it as bait for largemouth bass. 

The crayfish is a food staple in Louisiana, but in the Santa Monica Mountains, it is the connoisseur, dining on a menu of native California species, two of which — California newt and California tree frog — are considered threatened.

“The newts and the tree frogs potentially will disappear from streams where they are, so that’s a pretty serious impact, given that two of these amphibians are on or off our local list of special concern species,” said Lee Kats, a professor of biology at Pepperdine University.

Kats, who led research into the crayfish’s impacts on Santa Monica Mountains species, said that amphibians such as the California tree frog lack an appropriate evolved response to the predator.

“Its defense mechanism is to jump into the stream and dive to the bottom. Well, guess who’s sitting on the bottom: the crawfish,” Kats said. “I have seen examples where literally within 15 or 20 seconds, these crawfish have grabbed the adult tree frog and literally ripped it to shreds.”
 

An adult California tree frog that was killed seconds after jumping into crayfish-infested waters. Photo courtesy of Lee Kats.

Working towards removal

Kats said that aquatic organisms are especially difficult to remove — more so than invasive plants — because the animals are able to mask their presence.

“There are just so many places to hide and so many crevices, it’s a very difficult environment in which to attempt these kinds of removals,” Kats said.

He said complete removal will only be accomplished through significant buy-in from the community. But he sees the potential for success.

“I think if anybody can pull it off, the Mountains Restoration Trust can pull it off. It’s an organization that builds coalitions to help the environment,” Kats said.

Troy and her colleagues will cover every part of a 109-square-mile project area, focusing on clearing a hundred yards at a time. It’s a task that they’ll be at for years and will include continued monitoring at cleared sites to ensure the crayfish aren’t returning.

Troy said they rely on large numbers of volunteers. About a thousand have signed on since July. On a recent Thursday, a handful of volunteers from AmeriCorps were sloshing through a creek, checking traps and tallying numbers.

Madison Butler, a recent high school graduate, said she’s enjoyed learning to handle the pinching pests.

“The first day having to touch the crawfish, I did not touch them because of how much they freaked me out. Now I have no problem with it, which is really awesome. It’s a growing experience, and knowing how to do this,” Butler said. “It’s been great.”

On that day — the last for the AmeriCorps crew — the traps turned up 100 crayfish, a relatively low number considering they usually catch several times that amount each day. Troy said that while some areas have turned in fewer and fewer crayfish over time, the day’s low haul was most likely due to a recent rainstorm.

Eradication efforts would benefit from heavy rainfall. Kats said data show that crayfish numbers drop after years of above-average rainfall.

Unfortunately, with the historic California drought, not many crayfish have been washed down to their briny deaths in recent years. Most of the crayfish removals have been done by hand.

“I’m hoping that they were all washed out from the rain, but that would just be a dream come true,” Troy said. “They’re probably burrowed.”

She reset a trap and threw it back into the water where it would await her next visit.

Troy said her team never boils a feast of the crayfish they catch because of concerns of high metal content in the water. Instead, they donate the crayfish to the California Wildlife Center to feed rehabilitating raccoons and opossums.
 

Frozen crayfish are fed to rehabilitating raccoons and opossums at the California Wildlife Center. Raccoons that are nearing release are given live crayfish as practice for foraging. Photo courtesy of Deborah Fabos and the California Wildlife Center.

Jeffrey Schultz, Interim Director of the Creative Writing Program, will read from his recently published debut collection of poems, What Ridiculous Things We Could Ask of Each Other, a 2013 National Poetry Series Selection.  The free event will take place at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 22, in the Surfboard Room of Pepperdine's Payson Library. A question and answer session will follow.

"Please join me in a real-time, in-person gathering of people of varied interests and backgrounds to listen to that most anachronistic of anachronisms, a living poet," Schultz said.

Schultz earned his MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon, and his bachelor's in English from California State University, Fresno. At Pepperdine, he teaches advanced poetry, creative writing, and English composition. His work has been published in multiple venues and he has spoken or performed at various conferences and symposiums. Jeffrey Schultz's poems have appeared in the Boston Review, Indiana Review, Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, and elsewhere, and have been featured on the PBS Newshour's Art Beat and Poetry Daily.

In addition to the National Poetry Series recognition, Schultz earned Pepperdine's 2012 Brett J. Love Award for Teaching Excellence; the "Discovery"/Boston Review prize and a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.

For information, please visit the Pepperdine Libraries website.

Biotech entrepreneur and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Elizabeth Holmes was the featured speaker at Pepperdine University’s commencement ceremony held on Saturday, May 2 on the Malibu campus. Holmes, 31, who dropped out of Stanford at the age of 19 to launch her health technology company Theranos, is the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. While sharing her guiding principles with Seaver College’s class of 2015, their families and friends, she said:  

“Take time to think about what it is you’d do if you knew you could not fail. Keep focused on it until you find it; and when you find it you will change lives around you and in the world.”

Video of Holmes' speech

Holmes, herself, is working relentlessly to improve the way blood testing is done worldwide. Her company, Theranos, has developed technology with the ability to conduct hundreds of tests with just a simple finger prick and one drop of blood, making health evaluation quick, easy and inexpensive.

Standing in Pepperdine’s Alumni Park, with the bright cerulean Pacific Ocean behind her, Holmes advised graduates not to fear challenge. When Holmes left college to pursue her dream of building a business that would make a difference in the world, she said she had no idea how to solve the problems she set out to solve. She began working alone in a tiny basement, and slowly brought in others who believed in her cause.

“There are no shortcuts. You have to work smarter and harder than everyone else,” Holmes said. Theranos, which now employs over 700 people, was “built on sheer will and hard work.”

There were many people in Holmes’ life who repeatedly told her that her ideas would never work, that she could not succeed. She chose to use that rejection as fuel to push even harder for what she believed and wanted to achieve.

“In the journey of life we are always tested.  When it’s hardest is when it matters most to stay the course,” Holmes said. “Define what is non-negotiable to you, what you are willing to fight for, die for, live for… Many of us know too well how helpless we feel when someone we love is ill and we want to help them become well again. That is my non-negotiable.”

Holmes believes the purpose of life is to make a difference in the world and that the goal can be accomplished whether an individual holds the role of a mom, dad, an artist, a scientist, a CEO or something else.

“All we need to achieve our greatest dreams is already inside of us,” Holmes said. “It’s not in some of us; it’s in all of us. We are all meant to shine.”

Graduating senior Kyle Eastman, a Seaver psychology major, was inspired by Holmes’ message and said, “I thought her point of pursuing our passion to the point that we’d be willing to do it regardless of anything else, even pay, was great fuel to inspire us to make the changes we want to see in the world.”

Almost 280 students have been named to the Seaver College Dean’s List for the Spring 2015 semester. In order to earn Dean’s List honors, students must be in the upper 10% of their class and maintain a 3.5 or better grade point average. The purpose of the Dean’s List is to provide recognition for the positive academic achievements of students at the Seaver College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences and to serve as an additional incentive for academic excellence to all students. Congratulations to the following students.

Undergraduate students enrolled in Seaver College music degree programs will perform a series of vocal and orchestral concerts in Malibu and Thousand Oaks, on select dates from Saturday, February 4, to Friday, April 21.

The musical performances will include:

Saturday, February 4 | 2 PM | Raitt Recital Hall

Christopher Parkening Master Class

• Students of world-famous guitarist and Pepperdine faculty member Christopher Parkeningwill perform a recital.

Sunday, February 12 | 7:30 PM | Raitt Recital Hall

New Music Recital

• This performance will feature student compositions from the studio of N. Lincoln Hanks.

Tuesday, February 14 | 5 PM | Raitt Recital Hall

Pepperdine Guitar Concert Series

• Students of world-famous guitarist and Pepperdine faculty member Christopher Parkeningwill perform a recital.

Saturday, March 11 | 2 PM | Raitt Recital Hall

Alexander Treger Violin Master Class

• World-renowned violinist and Pepperdine faculty member Alexander Treger will conduct a master class.

Sunday, March 19 | 7:30 PM | Raitt Recital Hall

Pepperdine Woodwind Faculty Recital

• Pepperdine master clinicians and lecturers who are active performers in the Los Angeles area will perform.

Sunday, March 23 | 7:30 PM | Smothers Theatre

Pepperdine Wind Ensemble

• An ensemble comprised of the most talented wind, brass, and percussion students will perform.

Tuesday, April 4 | 5 PM | Raitt Recital Hall

Pepperdine Guitar Concert Series

• Students of world-famous guitarist and Pepperdine faculty member Christopher Parkening will perform a recital.

Monday, April 10 | 7:30 PM | Raitt Recital Hall            

The Pickford Ensemble: An Evening of Contemporary Chamber Music

• Pepperdine's finest student instrumentalists will perform under the direction of N. Lincoln Hanks.

Friday, April 14 | 7:30 PM | Ascension Lutheran Church in Thousand Oaks

Pepperdine Choir Masterworks Concert

• Students will perform J.S. Bach's “St. John Passion” under the direction of Ryan Board.

Monday, April 17 | 7:30 PM | Smothers Theatre

Pepperdine University Jazz Ensemble

• Jazz musician and Pepperdine faculty member Brian Scanlon will direct this performance.

Tuesday, April 18 | 7:30 PM | Raitt Recital Hall

Pepperdine Guitar Chamber Concert

• Students of world-famous guitarist and Pepperdine faculty member Christopher Parkening will perform a recital.

Friday, April 21 | 7:30 PM | Raitt Recital Hall

Pepperdine Orchestra Masterworks Concert

• Tony Cason will direct this performance featuring the winner of the 2016 Thomas M. Osborn Concerto Competition.

For additional information about the musical performances, visit the Pepperdine University Center for the Arts website.

Pepperdine University resident dance company Dance in Flight will perform at Smothers Theatre in Malibu, from Thursday to Saturday, February 9 to February 11, at 8 PM, with a special matinee performance at 2 PM on Saturday.

The performance is inspired by true events and real social movements of the 1960s. Intended for mature audiences, the show is an expression of the students' call for justice and their hope for a future without fear or oppression. 

“The show is couched in the context of the 1960s and stemmed from a simple yet significant vision to explore the interconnectedness of past and present. Since the 1960s are directly applicable to our current social climate, our company devoted the past six months to creating a narrative that not only captures the essence of the decade but also highlights select social movements,” explains Lauren Chong, Dance in Flight creative director. “If this show prompts you to consider a new perspective or ask what you can do to help further social justice, than I believe we accomplished our work as artists.”

Additionally, the elements of the show are meant to unite the community in empathy and rally around the purpose of cherishing the dignity of the individual.

“This year, we are using the stage as a platform to speak up as students of the University, a dance company, and as individuals,” says Lauren Sanchez, Dance in Flight company director. “Throughout the process of creating this show, we learned how to work together and create one message of grace, love, and unity, while also engaging with heavy topics, such as prejudice, oppression, and power.”

Dance in Flight embodies the diversity and essence of Seaver College and the liberal arts tradition. Members come from a variety of dance backgrounds, interests, and fields of study, and are united by their passion for the art of movement, as well as their dedication to presenting an impressive showcase of student artistry.

For 24 years, Dance in Flight has provided an environment for emerging student dancers and choreographers to cultivate creativity, physical expression, and teamwork in a professional performing atmosphere. Through choreography, casting, rehearsals, and collaboration with lighting and costume designers, students develop significant leadership skills that become useful in all aspects of adult life. Performances spotlight Pepperdine students of all majors and backgrounds, and feature a variety of dance principles that include jazz, hip hop, tap, ballet, modern, theatrical, and ballroom.

Ticket prices are $20 for general admission, and are required for attendance. For additional information about the dance company, and to purchase tickets, visit the Center for the Arts website.