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It’s impossible not to smile at Ralph Perrin, new athletics director at Pacific Union College. It doesn’t matter if you’re only just meeting him or have known him for decades, the grey-haired gentleman’s face lights up as soon as he sees you. His office, hidden between exit doors at the side of the basketball courts in the PUC gym, boasts awards given not to Perrin himself, but to his daughters.The lack of presence of awards with his name speaks not to his ability, but rather to his focus and his humility. Perrin played varsity basketball in high school, while also enjoying on the side racquetball and football.“I played it all,” he says with a laugh. “The bouncing ball is like a siren call to me. If I hear of a sport going on, it draws all my attention.”Perrin says he finds joy in virtually all sports, but some of his favorites include volleyball, baseball, snow sports, and water sports, and he raised his kids playing them as well.Despite—or perhaps as a result of—his interest in athleticism and sports, Perrin found himself more interested in the biochemical part of nutrition. This led to his undergraduate degrees in biology and chemistry, his...

Josue Hernandez is in the middle of his third year of ministry as associate pastor at the Modesto Central Seventh-day Adventist Church. He graduated from Pacific Union College in 2015 with a degree in theology, and will begin MDiv classes in January. “I wanted to be a pastor to ensure the voices of young people are heard in the life of the church,” Josue says. Beginning Oct. 8, Pastor Josue will be sharing some spiritual insights and food for thought during Fall Revival at PUC. Join us every evening Oct. 8-12 at 8:00 in Dauphinee Chapel in Winning Hall, and at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 11, in the PUC sanctuary for Colloquy, to hear him speak on PUC’s Student Association’s theme of “Beyond.” Pastor Josue adds, “This theme really resonates with what I believe to be part of life’s most rewarding elements: Our ability to grow, step out of our comfort zone, and embrace the stress and tension that growth thrives on.” We chatted a bit with Josue to get an idea of the kind of guy he is, and the verdict is he’s pretty great. We look forward to hearing what he has to say for Fall Revival.You’re...

In 2012, Helo Oidjärv, associate professor of social work, went home to Estonia to visit her parents. While there, she had a few preliminary meetings with social workers at the Tartu city government, and worked with them to develop a 3-4-week program to learn about the social welfare system in Estonia, based on that in Tartu. “Estonia has a totally different kind of social welfare system than the U.S.,” Oidjärv points out. “I thought it could be helpful for my students to experience and learn about the various agencies there, to get a broad overview of what different aspects of social policy look like in Estonia and compare it to what they’re used to experiencing in the U.S.”At the time, Oidjärv was teaching social work at Walla Walla University (College Place, Washington), and implemented the program as part of the university’s graduate social work field practicum. Now that she is teaching social work at Pacific Union College, the program has been slightly adapted and has become part of PUC’s social work program as their Global Social Work study tour.The previous teacher of Global Social Work at PUC had taken students to visit an organization in India that helped women transition...

Pacific Union College announced today that they rank second on PayScale’s 2018-19 ranking of associate degree schools which provide the best return on investment after graduation."We are proud of our A.S. students, who are attaining a well-deserved return on their investment with Pacific Union College,” says Nancy Lecourt, academic dean at PUC. “Our professors are clearly preparing them well for meaningful and rewarding service.”PayScale, Inc., is the world’s leading provider of on-demand compensation data and software. This year’s annual College Salary Report included over 200 additional schools from previous years. PayScale’s 2018 report provides estimates of early and mid-career pay for nearly 2,700 associate and bachelor’s degree-granting institutions throughout the U.S., including 1,655 schools providing only bachelor’s degrees—the category in which PUC falls.“For associate degrees, nursing and healthcare provide the biggest payoff for graduates at half the cost of a four-year institution,” PayScale indicates in their release of the report. “For four-year institutions, it pays to attend a private school, as seven out of ten of the top ten schools are private institutions.”For more information about PayScale’s rankings, or to view the complete list, visit their website. For more information about two-year programs at PUC, visit puc.edu/academics/degrees-programs....

Adventist Colleges Abroad (ACA) currently maintains 11 campuses around the world, in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Last spring, Sylvia Rasi Gregorutti, chair of the department of world languages and cultures, ACA board member and ACA representative at PUC, received an invitation from the organization to serve as a consultant for their new campus in Brazil.“In an effort to provide a better environment for students in the ACA-Brazil program,” explains Gregorutti, “the organization voted to transfer the campus from the large Universidade Adventista de São Paolo (UNASP) in Southern Brazil to the Faculdade Adventista de Bahia (FADBA), a smaller school in northern Brazil, about two hours from Salvador in the state of Bahia. That’s like moving it from Chicago to New Orleans. Culturally and weather-wise, it’s a major change.” The shift to Bahia will offer ACA students greater engagement with not only their classmates and professors, but also with the local culture and people.In order to fill her consultant role, Gregorutti was told she would need to complete the full six-week ACA -Brazil student program on the new Bahia campus. She agreed with the condition that her 13-year-old daughter come along. “I was student and consultant at...

It started as a conversation between senior biology majors one day during class. Aimee Wyrick, chair of the department of biology and the class’ professor, put down her lecture notes and looked each student in the eye. “Forget today’s lecture,” Wyrick told the class. “Today I want to hear from you and learn from your experiences. What can we do to make the biology program better?”As the laptops closed and notebooks dropped into backpacks, the students began to share. It became clear after a few students spoke that a common thread was the struggle as freshmen to navigate classes and post-college plans.“College can be complicated, even for the smartest student,” says Sabrina Mostoufi, 2018 biology graduate, who was part of the brainstorming class. “We all realized we’d had similar struggles navigating classes and post-college plans, even into our second and third years. This led us to the idea that it would be helpful if older students could act as mentors to freshmen to help point them in the right direction as they’re starting out in college.”The hour-long brainstorm session was eye-opening, revelatory, and productive. At the end of the day, Wyrick was convinced a biology major mentorship program was both...

From August 6-10, the Angwin Chevron station will be undergoing an upgrade remodel. During this week, services will be limited, as certain parts of the station will need to be closed for refurbishment. Fuel will still be available 24 hours a day, though some dispensers will be unavailable off and on.Chevron recently held a contest for all of its stations, asking for plans which the station would follow if awarded a sum of money with which to improve their physical image. Pat Withers, manager of Angwin’s Chevron, decided to participate.“It was a very nice surprise,” she says. “Earlier this year Chevron gave us $500 to repair the curbs around the station that have been broken and damaged, so this has been a good year for improvements.”The Perennial Image Refresh Award came to the Angwin station in a lump sum of $13,000. This money will help pay for painting, new LED signs on the canopy, and brand new center curbs, poles, and trash cans between the fuel dispensers.The station plans to reopen with full services and a clean new look on Monday, August 13....

In 2008, George Kuh, founding director of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, developed a collection of “High-Impact Practices” (HIPs) based on many years of data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). These experiential learning practices promote student learning through active engagement. Since then, most colleges and universities across the country have begun moving toward incorporating many of these HIPs into their curriculum.The curriculum at PUC already included several of the HIPs, such as collaborative learning, internships, undergraduate research, study abroad, writing-intensive courses, and service-learning. While the college was already providing capstone opportunities, in 2010, it intensified efforts to make “culminating experiences” available to all bachelor’s students. This included experiences such as a capstone course, internship, senior project or thesis, comprehensive exam, or portfolio.“Students are more likely to be engaged with their education when the High-Impact Practices are included as part of that experience,” says Nancy Lecourt, academic dean and vice president for academic administration at PUC. “This translates into improved learning, as well as higher retention and graduation rates.”Though many departments were already requiring a senior project for each of their seniors, the 2010 change in curriculum at PUC meant that 100 percent of all bachelor’s...

Like every department on campus, Pacific Union College's department of theology is always seeking ways to improve and increase what it offers for students. As demographics, society, and culture shifts, education must adjust to ensure the most current and relevant training for today's young leaders and tomorrow's experienced ones. Ministry is no exception."Our world is rapidly changing," says Jim Wibberding, associate professor of applied theology and biblical studies, "more rapidly than our church does in its approach to mission. We want to train leaders to interact with that reality productively and think from theory to practice and learn in the field, organic to the mission."The department has recently been given the green light by academic administration to offer a new course, starting Fall 2018: Missional Leadership. While "missions" and "missional" are trendy buzzwords in many circles today, Wibberding says the idea behind this 400-level course is to help students understand the idea that instead of the church having a mission, the mission might happen to have a church."Really, it's an attempt to go back to the apostles' experience in Acts," he says. "Jesus gave them a shockingly short to-do list. He gave them no strategy, no church organization explanation, but...

For three months of the year, two small fields in the popular Napa Valley resort town of Calistoga blossom with tiny white flowers known as the Calistoga Popcorn Flower. These two fields are the only known location of this flower in the world, which explains its presence on the list of endangered plants.“There’s a PUC alumnus in Calistoga doing a housing project, and he asked me to come take a look at this flower,” says Aimee Wyrick, chair of the department of biology at Pacific Union College. “I did, and I’ve been looking for six years now.”During those years, Wyrick has worked determinedly during blossom season, collecting soil and water samples for examination in a lab. “What’s clear is where this flower is found has a lot to do with what’s in the soil,” Wyrick says. “But we haven’t really been able to dig into this idea until recently.”What changed was the arrival of Kirpa Batth, a biochem major from Sacramento, who enrolled in PUC’s honors program with an interest in hands-on research. When offered the opportunity to partner with Wyrick and Robert Wilson, chemistry professor, Batth jumped at the chance.“Though we’re still in the early stages of our research,...