Michael Warder

Principal, The Warder Consultancy

Michael Warder was appointed Vice Chancellor of Pepperdine University in Malibu, California on April 2005, and retired from that position in 2014. He is the principal of The Warder Consultancy.

Pepperdine is a Christian university committed to the highest standards of academic excellence and Christian values, where students are strengthened for lives of purpose, service and leadership. Today 8,000 students attend five different schools.  These include an undergraduate school, Seaver College, and four graduate schools:  School of Law, Graziadio School of Business & Management, School of Education and Psychology and the School of Public Policy.  There are overseas undergraduate programs in Shanghai, Buenos Aires, London, Florence, Lausanne and Heidelberg.  Mr. Warder’s primary duty is to ensure the future growth and development of the university.  He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the School for Public Policy.  Recently, he was asked to develop a university-wide global strategy.

Prior to coming to Pepperdine, Mr. Warder was Executive Director of the Southern California Children’s Scholarship Fund (2001-05).  Over four years he was responsible for development, publicity and the administration of this $12 million program for more than 9,200 annual partial tuition scholarships.  During this time he had leading roles as a member of Southern California Grantmakers, a professional association of philanthropies.  Mr. Warder has held a variety of executive positions with leading public policy research organizations.  These included: Vice President for Development of The Claremont Institute based in California (1995-01); Executive Vice President of The Rockford Institute in Illinois (1985-95); Executive Vice President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington DC (1983-84) and Director of Administration at the Heritage Foundation (1980-83)

In the course of his work, Mr. Warder has written newspaper columns on a variety of topics for hundreds of newspapers including: Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, San Francisco Chronicle, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Sun Times, Houston Chronicle, San Diego Union Tribune and many others.  While in Illinois, he was a weekly columnist in the Rockford Register Star (1991-92), and was for four years a weekly commentator for WNIJ, the NPR affiliate for Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin.  He won four Silver Dome Awards for his radio commentaries.  He has appeared as a guest on a wide variety of television and radio programs including: FOXs O’Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, Crier & Company, ABCs Politically Incorrect, MSNBC’s Internight, Fox News, WTTWs Chicago Tonight, KCETs Life &Times, Frontline, CBS Network news and many others.  He created, produced and hosted a weekly public affairs television program, Stateline Newsmakers, in Rockford.  He has traveled broadly and led delegations to the former Soviet Union, the Baltic States, London, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Jerusalem and Rome.

Listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World, Mr. Warder is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, Los Angeles World Affairs Council, Council for National Policy, Philadelphia Society, Riviera Country Club, and the Board of Directors of the Americanism Educational League.  He is a 1968 graduate of Stanford University with a degree in Political Science.  Now residing in Malibu, he is married to the former Cheryl Gilkerson. They have three grown children.

Michael Warder Contributions

November 7, 2018
  • Government & Politics
  • Government & Liberty
July 28, 2017
  • Government & Politics
  • Government & Liberty
  • Health Care

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