Pepperdine Remembers
Art Linkletter and Flora L. Thornton The Pepperdine community lost two dear friends this spring: Art Linkletter, a much loved and admired figure at the University for nearly four decades, and Flora L. Thornton, a longtime friend, benefactor, and life member of the Board of Regents. One of America’s most beloved radio and TV personalities, Linkletter joined Pepperdine’s Board of Regents in 1984, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1978, and joined fellow comedian Bill Cosby in presenting the 1998 Seaver College commencement address. “Art and his wife Lois have been among Pepperdine’s closest and dearest friends,” said Pepperdine president Andrew K. Benton. “They’ve demonstrated a love for our students and this University that is powerful and enduring. He will be missed greatly.”
Record Number of Pepperdine Students Earn Every year at Pepperdine University, a committee of faculty advisors and a team of administrative staff assist a new crop of Fulbright hopefuls, a process that yields ever-greater success. Of this year’s 18 student applicants, nine became finalists, ultimately producing a new record for Pepperdine University: seven recent graduates have joined the elite rank of Fulbright Scholars, one of the most prestigious scholarly awards worldwide. Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William
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Flora L. Thornton was namesake of the Flora L. Thornton Opera Program at Pepperdine and the first recipient of the University’s inaugural John Raitt Legacy Award for outstanding contributions to the arts. She was instrumental in building the Charles B. Thornton Administrative Center, named for her late husband, and the Howard A. White Center, named for Pepperdine’s fifth president. “Pepperdine has truly lost a great friend,” said President Benton. “The good she accomplished here, memorialized well beyond the places that bear the Thornton name, will carry on as we endeavor to live up to her high ideals.”
Fulbright Scholarships
Fulbright of Arkansas, the program’s purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the rest of the world. As Fulbright himself put it, “The Fulbright Commission aims to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship.” This year’s awardees will be using their Fulbright awards to travel all over the globe to embark on a diverse array of
Summer 2010
experiences ranging from microfinance review to molecular biology.
Meet these scholars at magazine.pepperdine.edu/ fulbrights-2010.
Fulbright Scholars (from left): Devin Dvorak, Colby Long, Lindsey Murphy, Samantha Morrow, Keith Cantu, Stephanie Meza, Elizabeth Lyons