Pepperdine People Podcast

Celebrated American Indian actor and physician Evan Adams, is from the Siliamonn First Nation in British Columbia, Canada, and is best known for his role as Thomas Builds-the-Fire in the 1998 film, Smoke Signal. Adams sat down with student Mark Cruz, co-chair of the Native American Student Organization at Pepperdine, for a discussion to commemorate Native American Heritage Month.

Economist Jerry Ellig is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. In this episode of Pepperdine People, James E. Preiger, associate professor of economics at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy, interviews Ellig about the nuts and bolts of how regulation currently works in Washington, DC, the trends over the past few decades, and the future the regulatory process.

Leslie Landis, author of The Art of Overeating: A Bellyful of Laughs About Our Food Phobic Culture, finds humor in the battle between two American extremes: an obsession with calorie counting and self-indulgence. Director of Media Relations Ted Garcia, sits down with the clinical psychologist and Graduate School of Education and Psychology graduate to discuss the book, the obesity epidemic, and mac and cheese.

Os Guinness, Christian writer, lecturer, and social scientist, speaks with second-year law student Blake Edwards about finding purpose in our lives. Guinness was a guest speaker at the first Veritas Forum at Pepperdine University.

Marshall Howard, author of Let's Have Lunch Together, is known as "the guru of relationship-based fundraising." He talks with Regan Schaffer, executive director of the American Humanics program about advancing relationships in the nonprofit sector.

Randall Holcombe, professor of economics at Florida State University, explains to Ted Garcia, director of media relations, why he believes that many of the programs put in place by the federal government in the face of financial crisis undermine the fundamental incentives that make the nation’s capitalist system work.

Roger Alford, director of the Diane & Guilford Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies at Pepperdine University, discusses with Director of Media Relations Ted Garcia the new institute's mission to promote inter-faith dialogue, understanding, and improved relationships.

Leonard Allen, director and editor-in-chief of the Abilene Christian University Press and Leafwood Publishing, speaks with Jerry Rushford, director of Church Relations, to discuss the world of Christian publishing and education. A nationally acclaimed scholar, Allen is the author or co-author of numerous books, including Discovering Our Roots: The Ancestry of Churches of Christ.

As college student in Los Angeles, Hector Tobar had one goal: to change the world. Today, as a a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, his work examines the evolving and interdependent relationship between Latin America and the United States. On the first day of Latin American Heritage Month 2009, Director of Media Relations Ted Garcia speaks with Tobar on the changing role of Latinos in America.

Chris Altrock, preaching minister for the Highland Church of Christ in Memphis, TN, didn't grow up in a Christian family. Raised in rural New Mexico, he became interested in the Christian faith as a teenager and found his calling at the campus ministry at New Mexico State University. He sits down with Jerry Rushford, professor of church history, to discuss preaching in postmodern, globalized culture.