Search - Lainey S. Cronk

Bert Simmons’ sickly face stares up from a hospital bed in a spacious room. Nearby, a baby in a white onesie lies in an infant warmer unit. “They’re not very beautiful,” laughs Nancy Tucker, chair of the Pacific Union College nursing department, as she looks at the two $30,000 manikins in the nursing Simulation Lab. The adult patient simulator arrived in August of 2005 and took up residence in a space that is now called the Simulation Lab. The lab has undergone a series of developments and improvements, including the recent addition of the SimBaby infant manikin. The purpose of this area is to provide a realistic hospital setting in which students can practice their nursing skills on high-tech manikins—a resource that nursing programs are utilizing more and more as clinical time in hospitals is harder to come by. “We feel that this is the wave of the future,” says Tucker. The lab houses the manikins in hospital beds, their compressors and monitors, and a control room on the other side of a one-way window, where instructors manipulate the manikin’s reactions, including changes in heart rate, respiration, and vocal responses. The lab space also includes a mock nurses’ station set...

The cell phone users of Angwin are no longer limited to having phone conversations (if they’re lucky enough to get one or two bars of service) at the airport parking lot. A Verizon Wireless antenna has been installed on the tower by PUC’s Nichol Hall, providing coverage in most areas in a roughly one-mile radius. Getting the antenna in Angwin was a lengthy process. PUC approached Verizon about obtaining a cell site in the area, and an agreement was signed in the summer of 2005, after which Verizon’s third-party site-acquisition and construction management company went through the process of checking out the location, creating a proposal for the equipment facilities, and obtaining a building permit from Napa County. Verizon utilized the tower already in place at the top of the campus but had to make structural changes such as reinforcing the foundation, removing lead paint and repainting the tower, installing the new antenna, and building facilities for the equipment that runs the antenna. They also landscaped around this new control facility. Official completion day was November 3, 2006. People around campus and town were incredulous when the word began to spread that you could get cell phone reception in the...

December always brings an influx of holiday festivities to the campus, including several annual events. The first weekend in December featured several of these, including the Christmas Tree Lighting and the women’s Christmas open house. Following vespers on Friday, students gathered on the campus mall in front of the Nelson Memorial Library for the annual Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. PUC president Richard Osborn led in the countdown to the tree lighting. Students held lit candles in the dark as they sang Christmas carols and sipped hot beverages, provided by the alumni department, to combat the winter temperatures. On Sunday evening, the womens dormitories were warm with Christmas lights, visitors’ voices, and the smells of holiday goodies. The lobbies and dorms were decked out with their annual array of Christmas finery, and many girls had taken time to make their halls, doors, and rooms especially festive for the yearly women’s dorms Christmas open house. Teachers, community members, and (most importantly) gentlemen could wander through the dorms visiting with residents, sampling the goodies, or critiquing the decorating schemes. Vice president for advancement Pam Sadler, who was the judge for the door-decorating contest in McReynolds Hall, spent some time in all four dorms....

PUC chaplain Roy Ice has started a new podcast called Salvation Coach, providing “a workout for your soul.” The goal of this life coaching program is not to discuss complex theological issues, but rather to help listeners find concrete answers to questions about a relationship with God. Ice sees a need for people today, especially young people, to find relevance and realness in their Christianity: “I think this generation is finally coming to the question – and they’re brazen and bold and released enough by the previous generation to ask the question – is it real? It’s allowing them to truly prove what we’ve known all along: That this spiritual undercurrent has to be present in everything that they do, whether it’s their social life or whatever.” On each Salvation Coach episode, Pastor Ice addresses issues facing contemporary Christians in real life. His first set of podcast programs is titled “Twelve Things to Try While You’re Still Mortal” and features such topics as forgiveness and avoiding “get spiritual quick” diets. Ice posts the episodes at the podcast’s website, www.salvationcoach.com, with brief text introductions and lists of key verses. Listeners can subscribe to the Salvation Coach podcast or download episodes individually....

On October 7, 2006, a special concert commemorated the 25th birthday of the Rieger organ at Pacific Union College. With Del Case, professor emeritus of music, on the organ and guest musicians on the violin and harp, the concert featured a wide range of composers with music from the 17th century to the present. The Rieger organ was installed in the spring and summer of 1981, culminating over 30 years of dreaming and planning by organists Warren Becker, Lowell Smith and Del Case. Under Case’s direction and research, the college decided to have the organ constructed by Rieger Orgelbau of Austria. Case also determined the tonal design, headed the fundraising effort, and supervised the installation and voicing of the organ. With four manuals, 58 stops, 85 ranks and over 4,700 pipes, the organ remains the largest mechanical tracker action pipe organ in the Western United States. Many prestigious organists from the United States and Europe have performed on the Rieger, and three recordings have been produced. In his comments at the performance, Case explained that the organ cost $380,000 when it was installed; if we were to replace it today, it would cost at least $1.5 million....

A sunny Sabbath morning in September found a group of Angwin residents, including several Pacific Union College faculty and staff members, holding their Sabbath school class in an unlikely location: a high school track in Calistoga. But they weren’t the only people there; a Relay for Life was in full swing, with members of about 50 teams walking or running laps in an event that celebrates survivorship and raises money to help the American Cancer Society. The TLC4 Sabbath school class, a group started and led by PUC education professor Jim Roy, signed up a team for the 24-hour event. “We felt it was a good way to spend our time and energy,” says Maggie Roy, the team captain and a social work department staff member. The team had a member on the track at all times, while holding their Sabbath school class and running an on-site fundraiser. The team’s creative fundraiser won them a “Best Use of Humor” award during the event. They had paper bras and boxer shorts pinned to a large umbrella, and when people came up to ask what they were all about, they were told that for any donation amount they could take the paper...

A younger set of students than usual occupied the classrooms and labs of Fisher Hall, PUC’s hub of visual arts action, on September 6 and 7. The 16th annual Publication Workshop brought nearly 200 Pacific Union Conference academy students and their sponsors a solid stretch of classes and workshops providing practical, hands-on training in the specific media of yearbooks, newspapers, video yearbooks, and this year’s new unit on radio podcasts. This year’s theme was “Making Your Own History.” Elegant signs reclining on easels in the halls directed participants to the gauntlet of classes, which were divided into “learning pods” in order for the students to focus on their specific roles as writers, editors, designers, photographers, video editors, podcasters or sponsors. This year’s increased enrollment meant that some classes had to be offered several times or presented in large-capacity lecture halls. The Mac lab, video editing lab, and PUC Radio studio provided real-life working locations for many workshops, and a lineup of 21 talented and experienced presenters brought their personal experience to the classrooms for the 40-plus sessions on vital publication skills. Leticia Russell, coordinator of the workshop and a member of PUC’s Student Success Center team, has been working with...

Summer always finds a collection of PUC students scattered around the world for mission projects. This year was no exception, with students working at a day camp in Thailand and a moving summer camp in Micronesia, teaching English in Korea, and preaching in Mexico. PUC junior Elben Capule, who was in the heart of Bangkok, Thailand, for two months, found his experience of the culture very positive. “It's very respectful and kind. I like it so much and have gotten quite used to it.” In addition to his main tasks of teaching English, music, and tennis in the summer day camp and specialty camps, Elben helped start a youth ministry. The student missionaries invited high school students—many of whom have never been to church—to “Thursday Night Live,” where the students spent time playing games, eating, and having topic discussions with the student missionaries. “Just the fact that the students were weekly was fulfilling for me,” says Elben. “We’re hoping this program will last all year round.” Student Jonathan Fox wasn’t planning on going on a summer mission trip, but made a last-minute decision to join the group in Micronesia—and, he says, it “ended up to be exactly where I was...

There were 29 smart, youthful individuals at PUC July 23–28 for the annual PacificQuest program, a summer event for gifted and talented students entering grades 8-10. Designed to challenge students in ways not always possible in typical high school and junior high classrooms, PacificQuest gives these students a chance to learn from PUC professors, earn an hour of college credit, and enjoy recreation and activities with each other. This year’s theme was “Communicating with Style and Purpose,” and all the students took the core Communication Skills for Young Leaders class, which focused on key communication skills such as decoding nonverbal gestures, being a powerful listener and speaker, and understanding persuasion principles. Each student also chose an area of emphasis, either “The Physics of Communications” or “Italian Culture and Language.” In the communication physics class, students explored and experimented with various communication techniques from smoke signals to fiber optics, learning historical and physical aspects of how communications are accomplished. The Italian students enjoyed speaking, singing, and eating for their experience of Italian culture. They also had a chance to admire the work of a local Venetian artist, explore local suppliers of olio d’oliva, and learn about soccer, opera, fashion, art and...

The School of Art isn’t the only summertime learning that happens at the Albion Field Station every year. The station also offers other classes each summer; this year, the North Coast Natural History and Digital Art Photography classes ran from July 10 to 14 in a spate of phenomenal weather. Dan Wyrick, teacher, co-editor of the Life Science textbook series, and director of "Nature By Design" creation-based science programs, has been teaching natural history and outdoor education classes at the field station for about ten years. Teachers doing continuing education work and interested in science camp programs are the most frequent attendees of these classes; however, people from Catalina Island and other programs have participated as well. The digital art class is in its fourth year and, according to field station manager Dave Weibe, “has been extremely well received.” Students have enquired about adding areas such as basic video editing and digital image presentation as well, and Weibe hopes the program will be able to expand to cover these areas. “We’re targeting a senior audience who still want to learn,” Weibe says, “as well as the continuing education group.” The class is geared towards the pre-professional level and is all...