Lost imprimatur

Why Pepperdine should revive its university press

Jun 20, 2025

Over the last eighty years, Pepperdine University Press, the publishing arm of the university, has issued between thirty and forty titles, depending on how you count. But the history of this press remains largely untold. I think the university press is undervalued, so I’d like share a vision of a more robust publishing house. My vision for the future of the press is informed in part by its past, so I’ll preface my argument with a history.

As I said, the history of the press has never really been told, so before I share my version of this story, I’ll begin with a brief discussion of previous histories of the press. The only published history of Pepperdine University Press that I know of appears on a page of the university’s Digital Commons website, where the library has created a helpful list of links to 28 books published by the university since 1975, along with this two-sentence history:

Pepperdine University Press was founded in 1975 to publish books and scholarly works written by authors associated with the university. Since then, more than 25 titles have been released on topics including theology, history, art, and science.

The Digital Commons page was first published sometime around December 2022. I’m not aware of any published history of the press before that date, but I have found some unpublished archival sources with more information. An unpublished memoir by longtime Pepperdine administrator Jim Wilburn contains about two pages detailing Wilburn’s involvement with the press in the late 1970s and early 80s.1 And an unpublished first draft of David Baird’s history of the university devotes about two and a half pages to the press, making this the fullest history I’ve found.2 This passage appears to have been cut from the published version of Quest for distinction. The history below is informed by the work of both Wilburn and Baird.

Pepperdine College Press

There is good reason to be skeptical about the founding date of 1975 quoted above for the press. Before there was Pepperdine University, there was Pepperdine College, and before there was Pepperdine University Press, there was Pepperdine College Press. In 1946, dean of Pepperdine College E. V. Pullias compiled a book titled Christian courtship and marriage, a collection of talks given by Pepperdine faculty for the benefit of students at the Vermont Avenue Church of Christ, which met near the college’s campus.3 The book’s title page gives its publisher as Pepperdine College Press. This is the earliest book I’ve found that claims to have been issued by the institution’s press.4

We shouldn’t read too much into a title page, though. The designation “Pepperdine College Press” should probably be understood to communicate that the college had issued the book without the assistance of an external publishing house. The college press didn’t have an office, a director, or any dedicated staff—it was just the name given to the college in its capacity as publisher. Baird calls this ghost press “almost a figment of the administration’s imagination.”5 The dubious status of the press’s existence remains a theme throughout its history.

Because the press didn’t really exist beyond the title page of its publications, it can be difficult to know how to classify books published by the college that don’t announce any connection to the press. For instance, Faith is my fortune, the 1959 biography of founder George Pepperdine, contains no mention of any publisher on the title page. Instead, the last page seemingly attributes the book to the “Pepperdine College Book Store.” Baird counts Faith is my fortune among the press’s early publications, but even though the same institution issued both this biography and Christian courtship and marriage, it’s not obvious to me that they should both be attributed to Pepperdine College Press. Instead, I think it makes sense to consider “Pepperdine College Press” as an imprint (trade name?) of the college itself, which was the publisher of titles both with and without the imprint.

One of the press’s early efforts was America’s builders, a magazine aimed at the construction industry that Pepperdine published in the 1950s and 60s under the leadership of trustee Jimmie Lovell and later director of public relations Bill Youngs. The aim of the publication was to develop relationships with the builders of American megaprojects like the Hoover Dam, featuring their stories in the hopes of winning future donations. Inspiring donations would continue to be one of the press’s primary goals into the twenty-first century.

Perhaps dissatisfied with the results of targeting the construction industry generally, Bill Youngs began aiming publications at individuals. In 1970, he wrote Use a thousand hands: The life story of F.K. Mittry, a biography of the tunneling pioneer published by the college press. This was probably the press’s last title before Pepperdine College became Pepperdine University in January 1971. It was also the first in a series of (sometimes auto-)biographies overseen by Youngs that the university would publish to flatter its friends in its continuing quest to inspire donations.

Pepperdine University Press

The name of the institution may have changed in 1971, but the kinds of books it published were mostly the same. Between 1976 and 1978, Bill Youngs issued a half-dozen biographies of university friends, including Frank Seaver, George Pepperdine, James W. Fifield Jr., Cliff Baker, and J. L. Allhands.6 This three-year stretch was the busiest in the history of the press, its productivity enabled by the semi-retirement of Youngs, who finally had time to write following his move to sleepy Cambria.7

The only new development was the press’s first foray into publishing academic scholarship. Russell Kirk’s The roots of American order (1974) was commissioned by Romuald Gantkowski, who directed Pepperdine’s Great Issues lecture series.8 The book is probably the most influential product of the Pepperdine University Press, seeing several subsequent printings and editions and winning acclaim as a “classic” and a “masterpiece.” Kirk’s book also inspired the core curriculum at Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy.

Howard A. White became president of the university in 1978. Being more academically inclined than his predecessors, White remade the press in his image, refocusing it on scholarship and other more prestigious publications in an effort to raise the university’s academic reputation. White established a committee to oversee the press, led by vice president for university affairs James Wilburn and staff liaison Patricia Yomantas from the public relations office.

Among the titles issued under Wilburn’s leadership were Poison stress is a killer (1978), Pepperdine chancellor M. Norvel Young’s court-ordered study on stress and alcohol abuse, and The pursuit of simplicity (1980) by Edward Teller, the father of the nuclear bomb, based on his lectures as distinguished visiting professor at Pepperdine. White also encouraged the press to put out two books of poetry by Texas poet laureate Jenny Lind Porter: Three dramatic monologues (1978) and The siege of the Alamo (1979).

The other main category of scholarly books published during the White years were three books by the press committee’s James Wilburn. At president White’s urging in 1980, the press announced a second printing of Wilburn’s celebrated 1969 biography of Tolbert Fanning, The hazard of the die. This effort was followed by two scholarly essay collections edited by Wilburn: Productivity, a national priority and Freedom, order, and the university, both published in 1982.

Under White’s successor David Davenport, the press returned to a wider variety of genres. It still published some scholarly works, including two Festschriften for Frank Pack in 1986 and 1989, but it also reverted to its tradition of publishing donors’ memoirs with Rememb’ring: One man’s journey (1993) by judge McIntyre Faries.

The Davenport era’s main innovation was its turn toward university history. Of course, there had been a long tradition of publishing biographies of important figures from the university’s history, like George Pepperdine. But from 1987, the press increasingly turned its attention to the history of the university itself. That year Pepperdine was celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its founding, and it published Crest of a golden wave: A 50th anniversary pictorial history, edited by Jerry Rushford. The next year saw a biography of early Pepperdine dean J. P. Sanders, by Morris Womack.9

Davenport’s recipe for the press was followed by his successor, Andrew Benton: a donor memoir titled My fifty years in Malibu (2005) by Dorothy Stotsenberg, works of scholarship like a book on archeology by former Seaver dean John Wilson,10 and Pepperdine histories including William S. Banowsky’s memoir The Malibu miracle (2010) and David Baird’s Quest for distinction: Pepperdine University in the 20th century (2016).

The Gash years have so far seen only one publication from the university press, another collection of essays edited by Wilburn published in 2023.11 A couple of books that might historically have been issued by the university press have recently found other publishers instead. President Gash’s own 2018 history of Pepperdine’s law school was published by Abilene Christian University Press, and a recent history of the university’s new château came from Swiss publisher Éditions Slatkine.12

In evaluating the history of the press, Baird praises above all Kirk’s Roots of American order (“magisterial”), Rushford’s Crest of a golden wave (“memorial history at its best”), and Banowsky’s Malibu miracle (“memoir narrative at its best”).13 In my opinion, a modern evaluation would have to credit Baird’s Quest for distinction as academic history at its best.

Looking back across the history of the press, it seems clear to me that it has had the most success publishing titles related to the history of Pepperdine. By the same token, the period of the press’s greatest productivity was in the mid-1970s when Bill Youngs had the most time to focus on writing—that was the closest the press has ever come to having dedicated staff (to my knowledge, anyhow).

Toward a more robust press

A more robust Pepperdine University Press would probably require dedicated staff and perhaps a director. It’s not clear to me how much profit could be expected from an academic publishing house, though it would at least introduce a new revenue stream. More importantly, it could play a more professionalized version of the role that the press has played historically: developing friendships, contributing to the university’s academic reputation, and promoting the institution’s history.

It’s hard to overstate how perfectly a reinvigorated press would be aligned with the university’s long-range goals. For instance, of the three “empowering commitments” in the university’s 2030 strategic plan, a press could advance all three by expanding partnerships and resources through donor-oriented releases, sharing the Pepperdine story through histories of the university, and advancing strategic innovation by empowering a new entrepreneurial endeavor.

More generally, a university press would be one more important step toward making Pepperdine the preeminent global Christian university it aspires to be. Now, investing in the press would come with trade-offs—it would have costs in addition to benefits, especially at the beginning. But building a university press into something that exists beyond just the title pages of books would be one more way to signal Pepperdine’s seriousness about achieving the highest standards of academic excellence. The university’s spiritual commitment, tolerating no excuse for mediocrity, demands nothing less.

Ghost of George Pepperdine

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