[May 13, 2013]

Laura Skandera Trombley to Deliver Commencement Address for the Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology

Nationally-recognized champion of liberal arts education and president of Pitzer College, Laura Skandera Trombley, Ph.D., will address education graduates at the commencement ceremonies of the Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP) on Saturday, May 18, 2013.

"We are honored to have Dr. Trombley address our education graduates, as both an accomplished leader in education and as a Pepperdine alumna," said Margaret J. Weber, dean, GSEP. "Her impact on the students she has encountered through her stellar two-decade-long career will be a great source of inspiration for our graduates."

As president of Pitzer College, one of the Claremont Colleges, Trombley has presided during a time of expansion, raising the college's profile and academic reputation. She has overseen the foundation of several collegiate centers and majors, including the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability. For the past three years, Pitzer students have won more Fulbright Fellowships than students at any undergraduate college in the Unted States.

In addition to her leadership of Pitzer, Trombley is a highly respected scholar of Mark Twain. During her doctoral research she discovered one of the largest caches of Mark Twain letters to date. The most recent of Trombley's five books, Mark Twain's Other Woman: The Hidden Story of His Final Years, was published in 2010 and the paperback issue released in 2011. She is a frequent guest book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times and her op-eds and commentaries have been featured in The New York Times, NPR, Huffington Post (News - Alert) and Chronicle of Higher Education.

In 2012 President Barack Obama named Trombley to the 12-member Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. She also sits on boards of the Association of Governing Boards and the Claremont University Consortium. She has received numerous honors, including the CEO Leadership Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education District VII and the Dorothy Trux Award for an Emerging Professional Administrator from the National Association for Women in Education.

Trombley earned both her bachelor's degree in English and humanities and her master's degree in English from Pepperdine University. She received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Southern California where she was a Virginia Barbara Middleton Scholar, and a recipient of the Lester and Irene Finkelstein Fellowship for Outstanding Humanities Student. In 2002 Trombley was awarded the Distinguished Alumna Award from Pepperdine University.

The education commencement ceremony for GSEP will take place at 2 p.m. at Alumni Park on Pepperdine University's Malibu, California campus. Pepperdine University commencements are hosted outdoors with the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop and are open to the public.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]