Pepperdine president William Banowsky was named the coordinator of the campaign to re-elect president Richard Nixon in LA County, according to reporting in The Graphic.¹ He was named to the position by California governor Ronald Reagan.

The Graphic was skeptical of the appointment, expressing in an editorial its concerns that administrators were "becoming too involved in partisan politics" and that it posed a "threat to academic freedom." Administrators Jim Wilburn and Jim Mayer had both announced nine-month leaves of absence from their duties at the school to support the re-election campaign.¹

Banowsky himself framed his decision as rejecting the "temptation to remain remote from the real problems of our society."¹ His decision probably helped shore up the support of Pepperdine's friends and donors, who skewed conservative, though it did him no favors with donor Blanche Seaver, who disapproved of Nixon.²

It's unclear whether Banowsky came to regret his involvement in the Nixon campaign, but he writes in his memoir that he regarded "Mrs. Seaver's conscientious objection to her old friend Nixon" during the 1972 campaign as, in retrospect, "a compliment to her character."³