Pepperdine Seniors Put on the Job as Consultants

Pepperdine University, through its Service Leadership program, has begun requiring seniors to serve as consultants to nonprofit businesses and community organizations.

Ventura County operations may soon be the beneficiaries.

During its inaugural 1995-1996 academic year, the program focused entirely on Los Angeles businesses, but officials of the Malibu university are beginning a search for Ventura County organizations in need of these student services.

Consultants provide assistance with marketing, advertising, financial planning, accounting, customer surveys, human resource development, business plan development and other elements of business operation.

The Service Leadership class is a graduation requirement for students in Pepperdine’s accounting, business and international business programs.

“We have been focusing our work in Los Angeles because, quite honestly, it has been easier for us to access the businesses,” said Regan Harwell, director of the leadership program.

“But we have many ties, through faculty and students, to the city of Ventura and the county. It’s easy to be drawn to L.A., but there are equal needs in Ventura.”

The Service Leadership program thus far has concentrated on nonprofit organizations, but officials are open to larger, for-profit businesses.

Student groups have partnered with such organizations as the Cerebral Palsy Spastic Children’s Foundation to help establish computer applications and funding requirements, and the city of Malibu, for which it designed and implemented a research study for the Malibu Pier Project.

“We don’t want students necessarily to serve soup in the soup kitchen,” Harwell said. “We want them behind the scenes, learning how you seek donors and raise funds, looking at organizational issues.”