2008

The first service at the Pacific Union College Church commences with the rich tones of the Rieger organ. Not long ago, this “early service” started at 8:45 and housed a very small congregation, mostly white-haired. Now the first service is called the Majestic and starts at 10 a.m. It is purposeful in presenting a quality traditional service, and is more intergenerational and attended by about four times as many people as before. These positive changes are part of a larger picture that includes both worship services (the Majestic and the Gathering, which meets just after noon). Led by senior pastor Tim Mitchell, worship and outreach pastor Jessica Shine, and campus chaplain Roy Ice, the church recently began to take a good hard look at the weekly services and the congregational community. Some of the problems they faced were low attendance at the early service, frustration with the blend of elements in the second service, and the need for a sense of community that carries over from week to week. “We asked ourselves, what does the congregation need?” Shine recounts. Church members filled out surveys; and focus groups made up of people from a wide spectrum of ages and roles met...

David Trim, a history professor from Newbold College, much-published author, and preacher, has come to Angwin from England for a one-year stint at Pacific Union College, financed by the Walter C. Utt Endowed Chair of History. This visit is no vacation stay, however; as Utt Professor for the 2008 calendar year, Trim is teaching one class each quarter, giving two lectures, and engaging in research and writing for several in-depth history projects. Trim was asked to come to PUC by the board of the Utt endowment, the college’s only endowed professorship. The endowment was established after the 1985 death of its legendary namesake, a PUC history professor who left a legacy of mentorship, brilliant lecturing, and authorship. Now, the professorship memorializes Utt and fosters Adventist scholarship by bringing great teachers to PUC and giving them time to focus their energies on research and writing. A number of conferences and book editing and essay-writing projects, along with the Utt lectures and preaching appointments, are on Trim’s agenda during his time as the Utt professor. He’ll complete the editorial on a volume of essays on European Warfare, write an essay on the history of chivalry after the Renaissance, and write a paper...

In an inconspicuous commercial area at the end of a tiny strip-mall, a door opens into a hubbub of young voices. It's 3:40 and the Angwin Teen Center has been filling up with the after-school crowd of junior high and high school students, bearing their earphones, their backpacks, and a lot of energy. PUC student Larissa Ranzolin is sitting at a small table in the thick of things, surrounded by kids and discussing a can of pumpkin pie filling with the dad of one of the teens.It's a surprisingly familial atmosphere for a teen hang-out, and that's the result of a very intentional commitment to mentorship. "Here," says executive director Tom Amato, from a couch against one wall, "the relationship is not based on behavior, performance, or production. We'll be unconditional. We help [the teens] to realize we're family."That's a big deal for many of these young students, explains PUC student Georgiana Tutu, who works as a supervisor at the Center. "Some of their home lives are pretty crummy, so it helps to know that they can come to a place that is always going to be there… it helps to know that the people that work there are always...

On March 5, students and faculty packed Alice Holst theater for the world premier of Bryonn Bain’s one-man show We Are and So I Am, a 76-minute performance that blends hip-hop and spoken word to tell the story of his experience with an unjust prison system, racism, and how to move forward despite the existence of both. And how the different influences in his life have come together to make him who he is. Bain is a spoken-word poet and prison activist. He’s a Nuyorican Grand Slam Poetry Champion; founder of the Blackout Arts Collective, a grassroots organization that brings workshops and performances to public schools and prisons; and current host of BET-J’s current affairs talk show “My Two Cents.” He’s also an actor and world traveler. He is currently performing off-Broadway in the production From Auction Block to Hip-hop and is the “Poet-in-Residence” at New School University in New York. Bain experienced the unjust hand of the law when he was taken in for a crime he didn’t commit. His only crime: being black and in the wrong place at the wrong time. The experience he had proving his innocence and dealing with the prison system greatly impacted him...

Valentine’s Day may have come and gone but love was still in the air at Pacific Union College thanks to the latest Dramatic Arts Society production, “Love: is a Four-letter Word.” Audiences filled the Alice Holst Theater for six nights to watch actors explore how and why we fall in seven one-act plays. The production, which ran from February 16-24, featured seven one-act plays, ranging in length from three to 45 minutes. Tears and laughter filled the theater as characters felt the awkwardness of first wedding nights, the heartbreak of unrequited love and much more. Cambria Wheeler, who produced the one-act festival, says, “ I hope [the audience] leave thinking about the different facets of love. Our human forms of it are so different, and they can cause healing, but grief also. Love is so different. There isn’t only one love, but many ways in which it manifests itself.” Wheeler’s own appreciation for PUC manifested itself through this festival, which was a definite labor of love. Seven plays to costume, light, prep and set, thirteen actors working with four directors, and only six weeks to rehearse. But it all paid off. As one audience member said, “I was impressed by...

Not many of us can say we have felt the demoralizing effects of losing 20 family members in a single day. Ibrahim Musa Adam, a former farmer and volunteer teacher, was one of two survivors from the Darfur conflict region in Sudan who shared his first-hand account for Pacific Union College’s February 7 all-school colloquy program.Adam lived in northern Darfur in the village of Jadara. His village of about 3,000 was attacked in July of 2003 by the Sudanese army and members of the Janjaweed militia. Eighty villagers, including 20 of Adam’s family members, were killed. Adam still has over 100 relatives in six different refugee and internally displaced persons camps, and more than 80 villages have since been attacked. “They collected women and girls. One girl was raped over 20 times,” Adam told the student body at PUC, who listened in stunned quietness. “Some were able to escape because the Janjaweed don’t know the Darfur terrain very well.”Today Adam lives in Rockford, Illinois. He hopes to one day return to Darfur and help rebuild the region. Meanwhile, he shares his experience with the “Voices from Darfur” speaking tour and takes part in activist organizations.The second speaker at the colloquy...

For the second year, several students from Pacific Union College made a special trip to the Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the United States, from January 23 to 28. The students were accepted into the “University Students at the Sundance Film Festival” program, a competitive program that allows a limited number of students each year to attend the festival. As part of the program, PUC students Jackson Boren, Craig Church, and Ryann Pulido and alum Annie Woods earned film credentials, had access to filmmaker-only areas at the festival, received discounted tickets and lodging, and had the opportunity to meet with other students. "The Sundance Film Festival is a unique experience because it attracts thousands of people from all over the world into a small skiing town for 10 days to experience the best in U.S. and international independent cinema,” said Stephen Eyer, a PUC film and television instructor who attended the festival with the students. “For students to be able to experience the festival first-hand is both inspirational and something they will never forget." The group saw many films, including "Bottle Shock," a film shot in the Napa Valley last summer about the 1976 French wine...

Legendary as a lecturer and beloved as a mentor, PUC history professor Walter C. Utt was mourned deeply when he died in 1985. A special endowment with its own board was established in Utt’s honor, and their most recent project to continue his legacy is the publication of two historical novels based on Utt’s work. No Peace for a Soldier and its sequel, No Sacrifice but Conscience, both published by Pacific Press, are a skillful combination of two titles by Utt published in 1966 and 1977 (Wrath of the King and Home to Our Valleys), an unfinished manuscript that he left, and the work of author and professor Helen Godfrey Pyke. Eric Anderson, one of the founders of the Utt Endowment and now president of Southwestern Adventist University, was advised that Pyke, who teaches at Southern Adventist University and has a long list of published titles, was the perfect person to complete Utt’s manuscript. “And she really was,” says Bruce Anderson, Eric Anderson’s brother and another founding member of the endowment. The endowment hired Pyke to finish the manuscript, and Southern granted her a Sabbatical. PUC president Dick Osborn talked with Dale Galusha, president of Pacific Press, about the project....

They weren’t wearing capes and they didn’t fly onto the stage, but the three local businesspersons who visited PUC for the January 17 all-school colloquy were welcomed as heroes. PUC president Richard Osborn introduced Robin Lail, Norm Manzer, and Phil Toohey by saying, “What has impressed me about you is that not only are you successful at what you do, but you seem to have a passion for helping the community.” Lail, a fourth-generation vintner of Lail Vineyards, told how she became a part of the St. Helena Hospital Foundation. “‘Should’ is my least favorite word in the language,” Lail said. “But I got involved because I thought I should.” She discovered, however, that “should” was only the beginning. “I found a passion for this institution and the community it serves that was way beyond what I’d ever imagined.” With her help, the foundation has already raised over $25 million for the first phase of a campaign to rebuild the hospital campus — an impressive sum, Osborn noted, even for much larger hospitals in big cities. Lail’s drive to make a difference is no new thing for her. “About when I was 4, I was struck by the feeling that...

On March 17, 1965, students Paul Cobb, Will Battles, Fernando Canales and Milton Hare crammed into a two-seater Karmann Ghia with the goal of driving 2,300 miles from Oakland, California, to Selma, Alabama. The objective was to join the third attempt at a march for voting rights. It was a risk; not only did the Seventh-day Adventist Church, at the time, shun the notion of political activism, but the bloodshed during the second Selma to Montgomery march served as an ominous reminder of what might await. In the face of physical, verbal, and emotional threats, the men, three of whom were Pacific Union College students, moved forward in hopes that by doing so the nation would move forward also. Bill Knott, editor of the Adventist Review, the flagship journal of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, shared this little-known story at PUC’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Colloquy program on January 10, 2008. Knott was joined by Milton Hare, now an Oakland, California resident and social activist. Hare, who attended PUC before transferring to UC Berkeley, received a standing ovation from the audience, which packed the large PUC Church sanctuary. The morning program also included an official apology, by the college administration,...