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PUC students held the college’s fourth annual REVO fundraising event on the Campus Mall, Sunday, May 8. Hundreds of students braved damp weather to turn out for the charity event, contributing about $2,500 toward feeding an impoverished population in Argentina. The event featured performances by two student bands, as well as the San Francisco rock group I the Mighty. Students also browsed many tables of donated clothing and assorted items for sale, followed by REVO’s annual second-hand fashion show. Models in the show strode the runway in fashions inspired by African tribal dress. A new feature at this year’s REVO event was the silent auction in which students bid for goods and services from PUC’s staff and faculty, including music lessons, athletic adventures, and homemade food. “REVO couldn’t exist without the students at PUC, willing to come spend their time and money,” says REVO coordinator and junior Tyler McCulloch. He is one of several student organizers that plans the annual campaign. This year’s project is a community kitchen that will serve a small indigenous village in the Argentinean province of Salta. Malnourishment is widespread in this community, and REVO has partnered with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) to...

A visit from innovative environmentalist Annie Leonard highlighted Pacific Union College’s celebration of Green Week, Thursday, April 21. Leonard spoke for the annual Green Week lecture at Colloquy, and her presentation, entitled “Stewardship for the 21st Century,” capped a yearlong campus discussion on consumerism and society. Following the lecture, roughly 200 students attended a Q & A session with the speaker. Leonard is founder of The Story of Stuff Project, author of The Story of Stuff: The Impact of Overconsumption on the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health—And How We Can Make it Better, and creator of a documentary of the same name. This year, Pacific Union College students read her book as part of the college’s new PUC Reads program, through which the college aims to foster a rich learning community by providing a shared reading and critical discussion experience to students and faculty. Last summer, all incoming freshman for the fall 2011 quarter received a copy of Leonard’s book. The Story of Stuff was then incorporated into several classes, including English and communication courses. Beginning her lecture, Leonard described the events that led her to a career in environmentalism. Having grown up in a family that frequented nature...

REVO PUC, the college’s popular student-run philanthropy organization, raised over $1,800 toward a community kitchen at a charity run Sunday, April 17. The race, which took runners through 3.1 miles of PUC’s beautiful forest trails, was the kickoff event for REVO’s annual fundraising season and also served as the capstone event of PUC’s Homecoming Weekend. Approximately 100 runners—including students, alumni, and local athletes— participated in the race. Their $30 entrance fees will go to Adventist Development and Relief Agency, which is partnering with REVO to establish a self-sufficient community kitchen serving Argentina’s underdeveloped province of Salta. Napa Valley local Alex Lovick won first place in the race. In 2008 PUC students started the first campus branch of REVO, an international philanthropy movement. The students, who are entirely responsible for the project, select a different cause each year to support with fundraising and awareness events. Hundreds of students on campus get involved each year—through planning, coordinating, event participation, or donations. Causes have included rehabilitating the victims of human trafficking in Peru, supporting local food banks, and combating a debilitating disease rampant in Ethiopia....

Pacific Union College alumni returned to the mountain as the college held its annual Homecoming Weekend under sunny skies, April 15-17. This year’s program honored the graduating classes of ’41, ’51, ’61, ’71, ’81, ’91, ’01, and ’06, plus 25-year reunion class of ‘86. The celebration began Friday evening with the traditional Diogenes Dinner, a banquet honoring a person who has shown outstanding lifelong service to PUC. This year’s honorees were Ruth and Lyle McCoy, ’42 and ’45, two local alumni who have been intimately involved with the Angwin community and have given regularly and substantially in support of the college. President Heather J. Knight recognized the iconic PUC couple with another PUC icon—a beautiful watercolor painting of the old west wing of Irwin Hall by former art professor Vernon Nye. Knight took the opportunity to announce her dream of restoring that historic structure, which was demolished in 1982 amid concerns of its structural integrity. The announcement drew pronounced applause from the attendees, as Irwin Hall has long been a rallying point for many of PUC’s alumni. Following a short service honoring alumni who have passed away this year, Brigadier General Loree K. Sutton, M.D., ’81, presented the message at...

Pastor Laffit Cortes has accepted the position of PUC campus chaplain and associate pastor of the PUC Church, and will begin the new post effective July 1 of this year. Cortes currently serves as the youth director for the New Jersey region of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and comes with a wealth of outreach and young adult ministry experience that makes him an ideal fit for the position. As youth director, Cortes coordinates ministry events and programs for young people within the 13,000-member New Jersey Seventh-day Adventist community. He has also been a featured speaker at a variety of programs for young people within New Jersey and across the country. Cortes began laying the groundwork for his ministry at PUC April 7, when he came to Angwin to meet with student leaders and administrators on campus to begin planning for next school year. He will also took the opportunity to meet and greet the campus April 8 at a special program for PUC students. “I hope to collaborate with others as we develop future servant leaders that will not only love God, but live lives dedicated to serving as Christ did,” he says. “By God's grace, He will use us...