2008

United States Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black is speaking at Pacific Union College on March 7, 2009 for the Heubach Lectureship series. The lecture is in the PUC Church sanctuary and starts at 5 p.m. A book signing will follow. Admission is free of charge. Black was elected the 62nd Chaplain to the Senate in June 2003. He is the first African-American, the first Seventh-day Adventist, and the first from a military background to hold this position, and he has also gained a reputation as one of the nation's foremost speakers. Prior to his appointment, Black had a long career in the U.S. Navy, starting as Navy Chaplain for the Fleet Religious Support Activity in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1976. He rose to the rank of rear admiral and ended his 27-year career in the military as Chief of Navy Chaplains. Black's 2006 autobiography, From the Hood to the Hill: A Story of Overcoming, follows Black's beginnings in the Baltimore ghetto to the halls of Congress. Black has also received awards such as the NAACP Renowned Service Award and the Benjamin Elijah Mays Distinguished Leadership Award, in addition to the personal decorations, unit awards, and service medals he earned as a...

This winter, Pacific Union College is offering "Spanish for Health Care Professionals," an introductory course focused on communication in Spanish for EMT and other health service professionals. It was designed to complement the college's new Emergency Services program and is taken during emergency services students' second year of the program. However, the course is broadly targeted to those heading into the medical field who would like a basic working knowledge of Spanish with emphasis in health-related vocabulary and interaction with monolingual Spanish-speaking patients. The course presupposes no previous knowledge of Spanish. This three-credit course will be taught by professor Jessica Buller on Monday and Wednesday evenings (6:00-7:15pm) in the winter quarter, beginning January 5, and is scheduled to repeat next year, also during the winter quarter. For more information, contact Sylvia Rasi Gregorutti at srasi@puc.edu or 707-965-6510....

In the midst of their sorrow over the loss of four students in a tragic automobile accident, the Pacific Union College campus and Angwin community banded together to help another struggling family. The truck driven by Julio Martinez struck the four young men's car after it had turned sideways across the oncoming traffic lane. Martinez was in critical condition and in the ICU for some time with facial fractures, loss of teeth, hand injury and two broken legs. After several days, Martinez was out of ICU but still in the hospital. Meanwhile, Martinez's wife, Carolina, stayed at the hospital and only went home for short periods. Their 7-year-old daughter was cared for by Martinez's brother and his wife. In addition to the trauma, the accident posed financial challenges for the Martinez family, especially since he is self-employed. So the PUC Church members, the TLC Sabbath School class at the PUC Church, and Angwin Community Services collected money for the family, totaling $3,478.On November 25, PUC deans Bev Helmer and Kristi Horn and residence hall staff member Elaine Hoffman went to visit the Martinez family. Hoffman took the check, and Helmer and Horn brought some food for the family. The day...

When Thomas Peele recounted the Chauncey Bailey story to a full lecture hall at Pacific Union College, he detailed the story carefully and then explained how people had come together to make sure the story didn't die after Bailey's murder. Peele is an award-winning investigative journalist for the Bay Area News Group and is part of a team working on the "Chauncey Bailey Project." Bailey, a community journalist working for the Oakland Post, was murdered while working on a story about an Oakland organization called Your Black Muslim Bakery. "The killing is not about him," Peele told the group. "It's about the First Amendment." The Chauncey Bailey Project takes inspiration from the Arizona Project, a collaborative effort of journalists in the '70s to finish the work of Don Bolles, a reporter killed by a car bomb while investigating the Mafia. As Peele told the group at PUC, however, the Chauncey Bailey Project took on an additional — and unexpected — dimension when the group encountered information that created questions about the Oakland Police Department's handling of the case. Peele gave a thorough account both of the story about Bailey and the Bakery, and about the ensuing work of the Chauncey...

On Thursday morning, November 20, the PUC campus gathered for a memorial service celebrating the lives of four students who died in a tragic accident on Saturday night. There were many hugs, quiet greetings, tears, and N4 ribbons displayed on sleeves. An estimated 2,000 people were in the sanctuary, and well over a hundred who couldn't be present watched the service live online. The lives of Luke Nishikawa, Boaz Pak, Chong Shin and Simon Son were both grieved and celebrated through music, sharing and memories, and quiet. When PUC president Richard Osborn shared how he imagined what heaven would be like for these four, he called it "A celebration — that will begin today, even as we cry." Four friends of the students presented words in honor of each student, heartfelt memories of joy and laughter, jokes, deep conversations and lessons learned. Justin Kim shared in honor of Luke, a close friend of his. He honored Luke, whose goal had been to teach history at HMA, by giving a "class presentation" about the things he learned from Luke. "Luke taught me about strength, purpose, and persistence," he said. "With the strength passed on to me by my friend, I will...

The Pacific Union College campus mood has been somber since the devastating loss of four students on Saturday night. On Monday, the atmosphere on campus — from the classroom to the dining commons and the residence halls — has been subdued as many are quietly processing the tragedy. “They are processing it in the healthiest manner, and they are being very supportive of each other,” said Robert Kurtz, dean of Newton Hall, where all four of the victims resided. Kurtz and the other residence hall deans on campus have been working around the clock to ensure that students are receiving proper counseling. The load of caring for students has been shared with a community eager to help the college. There has been an outpouring of support from all over the Napa Valley and country. County and law enforcement organizations have called to offer additional grief counseling support, and individuals from the Valley and the Bay Area have called to see if we need more volunteers. When the college created an online message board for people to post thoughts and memories, notes of sympathy and encouragement came in from all over the country. Some of PUC’s sister schools have held special...

Updated: November 20, 2008 Four Pacific Union College (PUC) students died in a vehicle accident on Deer Park Road late Saturday night. The Napa County Sheriff’s Department identified the victims as Boaz Pak, 20, Luke Nishikawa, 22, Simon Son, 19, and Chong Shin, 20. The accident took place at about 11:45 p.m. on November 15. According to police reports, the four victims were in a Honda Civic driving down the hill on Deer Park Road when it collided with an oncoming vehicle at Sanitarium Road junction. The men were pronounced dead at the scene. According to some reports the four students had been at the college gym before making their way to Safeway in St. Helena to grab something to eat; the accident occurred on the way to the store. All the young men were well liked on campus and involved in outreach. Shin, Pak, and Nishikawa were all very involved in youth ministry at the Rohnert Park Korean Seventh-day Adventist Church. Son was involved in of a campus outreach program called Homeless Ministries. Just that morning, students say that Son had gone to the bay area with a group of students to feed the homeless.* “The PUC community mourns...

They had 24 hours to write, produce and perform one-act plays. On November 7 at 10 p.m., Pacific Union College resident artist Mei Ann Teo and drama intern Zack Dunn gathered with four writers, four directors, and 13 actors to choose their theme for the first PUC 24-hour Theatre Festival. The participants, which included current students, alums, faculty and staff, one community member and one younger student, were divided into four teams and set out to theatrically engage the topic drawn from a hat: "legendary." The four writers wrote through the night, and handed the scripts off to the directors early Sunday morning. At 9 a.m., the directors met with their acting teams and started blocking and memorizing. "This has been quite a journey," said Dunn, who was the event producer. He recounted the strange mix of rehearsal scenes in Stauffer Hall. "In one room, Cammie directed her actors during a crazy dance number, while directly below her, in the seminar room, Doug Gerard's team attempts the rehearsal of a serious drama about severed connections! In another room, actors sit running lines in a closet-spaced set, and I could hear the fourth group rehearsing 'Men 101' while in the downstairs...

When executive and entrepreneur Chris Klinvex presented “Competing for Great Jobs: What Every Student Should Know Before Starting the Job Search” for colloquy on Career Day 2008, he was honest about the challenges, personal in his approach, and serious about the importance of God in the process. The paradox, he said, is that “really this is not about you guys… it’s about Him.” He told students, “I challenge you to be very prayerful.” He also encouraged them that, even in a difficult job market, there is purpose. “I really believe that you’ll find your purpose when you use the brain He’s given you and hold his hand. My life has gone best when I let His desires become mine.” Klinvex shared how he and two others started a new consulting company, Select International, which now provides major corporations around the world with assessment, hiring solutions, and recruiting services. Contrary to what you’ll be told, he said, you don’t have to sacrifice your family or your values to be a successful businessperson. Klinvex also shared some information about job markets, advice on what to look for in a company and what to prepare for in college, and common mistakes students make...

After the Social Work Forum’s push to register voters, classroom and informal debates over Prop 8 and candidates, formal debates about election issues in the Student Association “political party” and a PUC-Cast special episode, and students participating in a survey of Adventist campuses, election day itself was fairly quiet on campus. True, shuttle cars coordinated by the Social Work Forum transported some students to and from the Angwin polling place, but as professor Monty Butler reported, many chose to vote by mail-in ballot. Evening found a little more hubbub as a good-sized crowd kept the Campus Center full. Students came through as they could to catch the results and speeches on the big-screen there. Doug Wilson, director of student activities, said there were a few cheers and boos as results came in, but mostly students were just “interested in seeing the whole process.”Before the election, some of our students participated in a survey conducted for Spectrum magazine by Roger Dudley, director of the Institute of Church Ministry at Andrews University. Students at Andrews University, Southern Adventist University, Union College, La Sierra University, and Walla Walla University also participated in the survey, and an initial report was published on the Spectrum...