PUC Hosts The 32nd Annual Publication Workshop

Pacific Union College hosted the Thirty-Second Annual Publication Workshop from September 11-13. This is the first time the workshop was in person since September 2019, and PUC was excited to welcome 12 academies from California and Oregon. The workshop offers training and valuable tips for jump-starting school’s yearbook, newspaper, or video yearbook. Participants get practical, hands-on information from college educators, student leaders, and industry professionals. Through workshops and worship, students can network with advisers, editors, designers, photographers, videographers, and editorial staff.

Sponsors of Publication Workshop are the department of visual arts, communication, and English at PUC. Tim de la Torre, a PUC visual arts instructor, was this year’s Publication Workshop director. This was his first year as a director- however, de la Torre has been a workshop presenter since 2014 and started helping organize it in 2020. Having Publication Workshop back on campus was initially worrisome because of how overwhelming it might be trying to coordinate everything. “Online was a lot of work, but we didn’t have to house and feed students or pick them up from the airport.” says de la Torre. “This year, we had a conversation with Gene Edelbach to see if their department might be able to help with some of the logistics. Thankfully, Gene saw the potential and had his staff treat Pub Workshop like another College Days. He assigned Andrianna Massena to work with us, and she carried a bunch of the load with all of those things mentioned above as well as planning evening activities. Definitely couldn’t have done it without the Enrollment team!”

Andrianna Massena, PUC campus visit coordinator, played a huge part in the event from beginning to end. “Publication Workshop was a really great experience for not only me and the faculty involved but the students. It really allowed the students to spark what they had inside of them and allowed them to take what they were learning and apply it right then and there to their projects.” Massena says. Throughout the three-day workshop, there were raffles throughout each meeting in scales chapel to give high school students prizes and PUC merch. PUC’s cross country team, enrollment counselors, admissions team, and student workers woke up at 6 am on Monday to cook a pancake breakfast for all Pub Workshop participants and students. Some admissions and marketing staff served ice cream sundaes for students on Monday night and enjoyed a movie. “Being that this is the first event I have helped plan, I think the thing that I enjoyed most was making connections with the students and sponsors from every academy.” Massena shares. “I think it really goes a long way when students and even the sponsors see that faculty and staff of PUC really enjoy having these students on campus and are there to serve them!”

De la Torre, his team, and the enrollment team worked hard to create a Christian learning environment that would inspire. From the worships, keynotes, and sessions, de la Torre shared that students probably enjoyed their assignment to interview someone on campus the most. Students needed to build a 2-4 editorial spread of the person they interviewed, and many teams worked in Fisher Hall till 10 pm trying to make their spread the best it could be, and the ones that stayed the latest were one of the winning teams. “But also, I think the following morning’s critique session was really appreciated by the students as well.” says de la Torre. “We spent 90 minutes giving them critical feedback, and we were blunt and honest with our praise and criticism of their work. I don’t think most of them are used to that kind of feedback, and many of them said how impactful that was for them.”

The 12 schools that attended Publication Workshop this year were: Armona Union Academy, Lodi Academy, Redlands Adventist Academy, San Fernando Valley Academy, Ukiah Junior Academy, Pleasant Hill Adventist Academy, Mountain View Academy, Pine Hills, Tualatin Valley Academy, Paradise Adventist Academy, Orangewood Academy, and PUC Prep. PUC was extra pleased to welcome students from Tualatin Valley Academy who traveled from greater Portland, OR., to attend the workshop. 

Having schools further away joining the workshop was important to de la Torre and his team. He worried about giving up the opportunity from further schools to join in-person as they had online in the past. “I’m sad to lose the schools that would have joined us online,” de la Torre shares. “but this event simply would not have worked in a hybrid fashion; however, I’m hoping to exploring it in the future. We made some significant changes to the format this year, and I think there’s potential to do something hybrid in the future.” In the end, having people in person was a much more impactful experience than hosting online. 

The main things de la Torre hopes participants take from Pub Workshop is to “feel more confident working together as a team, and learn to trust each other and push each other to do their best work.” He continues, “I also think they left with some valuable feedback related to design, photography, and writing that will be helpful to them as they work on their own school publications this upcoming year.”

PUC appreciates all the academies that traveled near and far to attend Publication Workshop. Publication Workshop was a success, and PUC is grateful to de la Torre, the enrollment department, and sponsors for putting together a terrific workshop this year.