What is Pepperdine Doing Right?

If the leaked U.S. News rankings are correct, one of the big changes is the ranking of Pepperdine, which jumped 21 spots in the right direction.  I realize that the majority attitude regarding these rankings is to disdain them, but no one can doubt that they do matter, and that they do reflect in a general way the level of regard academics have for various schools.  Whether they admit it or not, all schools are making choices so as to improve or maintain their ranking.

From what I can see, Pepperdine has made some very good choices.  The following observations are from a complete outsider; other than attending a few conferences at Pepperdine over the years, I have no special knowledge of what they are up to.  Certain of their actions, however, have been obvious even to outsiders like me:

1)   Pepperdine is not only encouraging and enabling the publication of scholarship, but they are having their professors get out of town and promote that scholarship in other places.  It seems that most of the conferences I receive notice of have someone from Pepperdine on a panel, and it is hard to walk twenty feet at an AALS conference without running into someone from Pepperdine.

2)   Pepperdine has taken a leadership role within the bloc of Religiously Affiliated Schools, and more than perhaps any other institution has hosted conferences directed at this group.   Pepperdine's Bob Cochran is probably the most significant person within this movement nationally.  Given the sheer number of schools that fall into this group, the impact is significant.

3)   Pepperdine has a very high-profile Dean (Ken Starr), who has remained extremely active on the national scene (most recently arguing the "Bong Hits for Jesus" case in the U.S. Supreme Court) while still teaching at the school and becoming a core part of that school's identity.

-- Mark Osler