2009

Last year, a student movement called Revo swept the Pacific Union College campus and raised over $10,000 for a shelter and vocational center for trafficked and abused children in Lima, Peru. This year, Revo is back - but students have decided to raise money for a Napa Valley cause. "After a few weeks of researching, asking social work professors, and praying about it, we decided to support the Napa Valley Food Bank," says student Revo leader Grace Jung. The reasons for the choice were numerous, including a timely response to the economic downturn, emphasis on the fact that you don't have to travel oversees to help those in need, and the hope of involving the wider community in the Revo movement. But the foremost motivation for supporting the Food Bank is hunger. "There are people in our own backyard that desperately could use our help," Jung says. "The issue of hunger is becoming very real to more and more Americans. It is not a poverty issue anymore; it is creeping its way into the middle-class, forcing children, single mothers, businessmen, senior citizens, and many more to go to bed hungry at night." As Jung reports, the number of individuals experiencing...

Each year, the Napa Valley Dirt Classic mountain bike race takes place on 22 miles of Pacific Union College's trails through its undeveloped property. Prizes include a purse to each first, second, and third finisher in male and female pro categories, and trophies to top finishers in all categories. For the 2009 Dirt Classic, Aren Timmel took first place in the male pro category, finishing in 1 hour, 27 minutes, and 57 seconds. Katerina Nash came in first for the female pros, at 1 hour, 40 minutes, and 5 seconds. There were 469 racers who finished. "It was a great day," race director and PUC professor of physical education Michael Hellie was glad to report. "We didn't have any large accidents." PUC has been hosting an annual mountain bike race on its property since 1991. A NORBA (National Off-Road Biking Association) cross country race, the Dirt Classic offers riders hilly, smooth to medium-rough trails, service roads, and double track and single track, all through PUC's wooded property. Funds raised from the event benefit PUC recreational projects....

"My job is just to be an athlete," said Erica Davis, a 2004 Pacific Union College graduate. And an athlete she is. Erica's time is almost completely devoted to her love of sports. She is persistent when it comes to her goals. In March, Erica spoke at PUC for an all-school colloquy, wheeling herself onto the stage to share with students the story of her life as an athlete, including the drastic change that landed her in a wheelchair a few years ago. Her journey began at Lodi Academy. Erica played every sport Lodi Academy had to offer, her favorites being softball and football. Her senior year of high school she scored 48 touchdowns during the season. PUC was the next step in her life, a logical decision for a young woman whose parents had both graduated from its campus. Her major of choice was physical education, something she had wanted to do since she was in third grade. "You change your major five times, but I just always wanted to do P.E.," she declared. "It was an easy choice." She actively participated in intramurals and helped run them. "My teachers were good mentors," she noted. In 2005, Erica's life...

Can you measure the cross section of an electronic CT (charge transfer) in an isotopic system? Can you employ a variety of lasers and beams to generate specified molecular activity? Unless you are part of the research of Dr. Vola Andrianarijaona or researching experimental physics at the postgraduate level, chances are you cannot. This is just a sampling of the many-faceted research Andrianarijaona, who teaches in the physics department at Pacific Union College, is conducting in association with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Andrianarijaona's work is entitled "An Investigation of Charge Transfer in Low Energy D2+ + H Collisions using Merged Beams" and is scheduled to be presented at the Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (DAMOP) convention at the University of Virginia later this year. He is joined by senior physics major Jerilynn Rada, who helps analyze data and compare it to previous experimentation. Rada, who plans on attending graduate school, understands the importance of participating in such a project as an undergrad. "It really helped introduce me into the world of research and I was able to get my name out," she says. Andrianarijaona agrees and feels all science students should look for similar research...

On Sunday, March 22, 2009, Pacific Union College lost six alumni in a fatal airplane accident. The crash, which took place in Butte, Montana, claimed the lives of 14 people, seven of which were children under the age of ten.Brent Ching ('93), Kristen Mautz Ching (att.'96-97), Erin Jacobson ('96), Amy Feldkamp Jacobson (att.'93-95), Michael Pullen (att.88-91), and Vanessa Feldkamp Pullen (att.'89-90) all attended PUC and went onto Loma Linda University. Close family friends, they often vacationed together. On this occasion, the friends were headed to a ski trip in Montana.PUC President Richard Osborn said in a statement, "We are deeply saddened by this tragedy, and our prayers are with the victims' families. This is a very personal tragedy for Pacific Union College and our local community. All but one of the adults on board the plane graduated from or attended PUC, and there are many on our campus who remember them as students. Our alumni are also grieving this loss, as are many in the St. Helena and Angwin communities who knew and loved the Jacobson family."There were three families lost in this accident: the Chings and their two children, Hailey, 5, and Caleb, 3; the Jacobsons and their three...

According to the American Association of Cancer Research, cancer claims the lives of almost 500,000 Americans each year. The cure will come from the research of gifted students, professors and scientists. Leading the charge for Pacific Union College in this field is Dr. Brian Wong, who manages to balance his time between the classroom and the lab. He is joined by senior biochemistry major Rachel Devadhason and senior biology major Tom Nguyen. Many students don't realize that advanced cancer research is being conducted right here at PUC. It came as a surprise to Devadhason although she was herself a science major. "When I first heard about ongoing cancer research at PUC, I was extremely skeptical," she admitted. "Without state-of-the-art technology and multimillion dollar funding, what could be accomplished? My ignorance kept me from setting foot in the lab for an entire two years." Devadhason latched on to the research of Wong (who has been studying the effects of Scutellaria barbata and Oldenlandia diffusa on cancer prevention since the early 1990s) early last year and began conducting research of her own. "I was privileged to join Dr. Wong's team of researchers and began to work in earnest," says Devadhason. "I began...

Although the newest member of the aviation program's fleet was purchased in the summer of 2008, it has yet to leave the ground. It lacks an engine and wings, but its usefulness is hailed by students and flight instructors alike. Meet the Frasca 180, Pacific Union College's new "flight training device." The advancement of technology has had an untold impact on modern instruction. Perhaps nowhere is this more clear than in the realm of aviation and the development of flight simulators. The PUC aviation program understands that any technology promoting more efficient learning in non-life threatening conditions is worth its weight in gold. Housed safely in Fisher Hall, the Frasca 180 provides both, and affords peace of mind to students and - especially - to parents. The flight simulator allows student pilots to test their abilities against every aerial hazard imaginable, all within the safety of Fisher Hall. "We can 'weather' the airplane any way we like," says flight center director Bill Price. "We can fail various pieces of equipment and force the pilot to fly in snow, hail, fog and turbulence." Frankly, if it happens in an airplane, it can happen in the flight simulator. The sense of realism...

In an unusual and unusually rich theatre production in March (with 15 additional showings scheduled for April), Pacific Union College's Dramatic Arts Society pushed into some new theatrical territory. Clay Feet/Wire Wings: The Space Between was another original DAS work inspired by two series of poems by a PUC English professor and Honors Program director, John McDowell. McDowell's "God Poems" are written as narrative, based on the common (and biblical) things we say about "seeing God in others" or "God understanding every experience," and making that experience literal. Thus we have "God Surfs" and "God in the Kitchen." His "Angel Poems" series are more mysterious and ambiguous as they explore the mysterious and ambiguous roles of angels, who must, McDowell says, represent God to man and man to God, who are in-between. Clay Feet/Wire Wings: The Space Between is a play that is, in director Mei Ann Teo's words, "collage, ensemble, and experimental theatre." With layer on layer of art, meaning, and experience, the play demands that the audience think hard, feel deeply, and even interact. Teo led a team of DAS members in personally exploring McDowell's two series of poems, contributing their own thoughts and experiences to create the...

In three March 7 programs at Pacific Union College, U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black spoke for the Heubach Lecture and two church services. Faculty and staff, students, and visitors from far and wide packed the building for all three services and the book-signing that followed the lecture. In his presentations and interactions, Black impressed people from a wide range of ages and backgrounds with his energy, sincerity, and message. At the first church service, Black presented "Gather the Fragments," a call to gather and put to use the leftovers, fragments, or things that seem not to matter to us - including fragments of blessings, time, and compassion. All these pieces, he said, still count. They all add up. "We've got to not waste the leftovers of our faith," he said. We have to believe that God can use his people "above all that we can ask or imagine." In the second service, titled "Comfort in Tough Times," Black shared ways to have courage in these times, including learning how to wait on the Lord, permitting God to dispel the shadows in one's life, and developing an unshakable confidence in Jesus. At the Heubach Lecture, a biennial lecture provided by...

When you first meet Karen Ong you quickly become aware that she is someone going places. What you don't know is that she's getting to those places in a beat-up old trailer packed to the brim with toilet paper, toothpaste, groceries, and clothes. She sits in the passenger seat, maybe fiddles with the radio, the driver revs up the engine and it is the start of another typical day as the first full-time volunteer coordinator for JPPM. JPPM is Jail, Prison, and Program Ministries, an organization based in California's Napa Valley that ministers to prisoners and their families. Three years ago, Karen was at PUC finishing up her senior year as a bio-chemistry major and heading the ministry KidzReach, JPPM's children's program. KidzReach takes children from unstable homes and gives them a weekly day of fun filled with loving adults and activities. Then Karen received a diploma and said a sad goodbye to KidzReach. She had wanted to keep working with JPPM, but the lack of a real position and funds made it impossible. She moved to Washington, D.C., and became a fellow with the National Institute of Health (NIH), where she spent the next two years doing medical research....