Archives

Pacific Union College is embarking on a new three-school model for the upcoming year and announced Tuesday the appointments of the deans who will help lead the efforts to maintain and grow the college’s academic excellence.PUC is committed to high-quality academic programs while maintaining the cultural, spiritual, and lifestyle base that gives students a rich, full Seventh-day Adventist campus experience.As part of this new plan, PUC is launching the three-school model, a recommendation initiated and developed by the college’s academic leadership. The three schools are Nursing & Health Sciences; Arts, Humanities, & Professions; and Sciences. To lead each school, the PUC administration announced the following leadership appointments:Kimberly Dunker, current chair of the Nursing and Health Sciences Department and a professor of nursing, will serve as dean of the School of Nursing and Health Sciences.Milbert Mariano, PUC’s vice president for academic administration and academic dean, will transition to dean of the School of Arts, Humanities & Professions.Aimee Wyrick, an associate professor of biology, will become the dean of the School of Sciences. “Each of these leaders is committed to PUC and its Christ-centered mission and will help us better serve our students and build a bright future,” President Ralph Trecartin said....

Lindsay Morton, an experienced educator with a heart for Christ and the college’s mission and vision, will become vice president for academic administration and academic dean in July, Pacific Union College announced Tuesday.Prior to her current role as associate academic dean, Morton served two years as an English professor at PUC. Before coming to the United States, she taught in Australia at Avondale College of Higher Education for seven years. She was also the assistant dean for the Faculty of Arts, Nursing, and Theology. “Lindsay is a strong leader with insight and wisdom,” President Ralph Trecartin said. “She is innovative, pragmatic, and a consensus builder.”Trecartin said he admires Morton’s leadership skills and her ability to be idealistic but realistic when making critical administrative decisions. Among her duties, Morton will serve on the president's cabinet, drive accreditation, oversee academic support areas, and create additional pathways for students through new strategic partnerships. She will continue to evaluate and reinvigorate the student experience, manage student requests and issues, and work to deepen the integration of faith and learning. All this fits into PUC's vision of offering students a modernized, simplified, Christ-centered college experience on campus and beyond.“In the future, I want PUC to...

The Department of Chemistry at Pacific Union College has added high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to their department and is also getting new balances for their labs.Specifically, the HPLC is an Agilent 1260 with a diode array detector (DAD). This allows their department to analyze non-volatile mixtures of compounds that absorb light in the UV or visible spectrum. The HPLC does this by pumping a solvent at high pressure through a column; that separates the mixture of compounds. Then the compounds are measured by the DAD one at a time. They can use the information from the detector to determine the identity of the compound and its concentration. This is often used for pharmaceuticals, foods and beverages, biological samples, research mixtures of compounds, and many more. Due to the versatility of the instrument, many laboratories use this equipment, thus allowing PUC chemistry students to gain hands-on experience with the technique.Professor of Chemistry Robert Wilson shared that he has already had a student work on a method to separate acetaminophen, caffeine, and aspirin, which are often found in over the counter headache medicine as a mixture. “The method is quick, allowing students to become familiar with the instrumentation and processing data before...

Pacific Union College’s School of Nursing has received a $540,000 grant from California’s Department of Healthcare Access and Information (HCAI), funding that will help address the statewide nursing shortage by expanding training opportunities. Chair of Nursing and Health Sciences Kimberly Dunker said PUC will use the grant to ensure nursing student success by funding scholarships and providing support through tutoring. It will also be used to purchase high-fidelity simulation technology along with faculty support, development, and simulation training.“Expanding our simulation program allows us to meet mandatory clinical requirements while still meeting student outcomes. This ensures compliance with minimum clinical hours in the case of a pandemic, fire evacuation or other disaster,” Dunker said. “It also may allow us to expand our RN enrollment in the future.”On March 7, HCAI awarded $16.9 million in grants to 32 registered nurse training programs, including PUC, to help expand programs and improve access to high-quality health care in California. The funding supports 565 new student slots across the state, an increase of more than 150 since the previous application cycle. The awards were made possible through the Song-Brown Healthcare Workforce Training Act, which helps organizations establish and expand primary care training programs. One of...

Pacific Union College is proud to share that Bob Paulson, chair and professor of kinesiology, was selected by the SDA-HPERA award selection team for the organization’s “Service Award”. Those considered for this award must have a minimum of 30 years of service in the SDA education in the area of health, physical education, recreation, or related professions; contribute to church and community and their institution through campus leadership activities; and consistent active support of the Seventh-day Adventist Health, Physical Education, Recreation Association. Serving PUC students as a professor has been, and continues to be, an honor for Paulson. “We have fantastic, creative, and intelligent students at PUC,” shares Paulson. “Teaching is much more than the time spent in the classroom. When we care we try to interact in places like the Grind, Cafeteria, and of course Intramurals. I am truly blessed to have the opportunity to serve our students in this community-building environment.” The students are what makes teaching at PUC so enjoyable for Paulson. “Playing a part in their growth and development is not only an honor, but it is clearly a lot of fun.”The SDA-HPERA is hosting an award presentation at their national convention on Monday, March 27,...