Search - Laura Gang

Mission trips were one of the casualties of the pandemic. Due to worldwide travel restrictions, many remote areas desperate for aid were cut off from receiving medical care, needed supplies, and equipment. As travel restrictions began to lift, a group of medical professionals from the United States, Australia, Malaysia, and South Korea along with 21 students and volunteers began planning a mission trip to Indonesia. Many were Pacific Union College students, staff, and alumni.Dr. Backsil Sung, professor of biology at Pacific Union College, has been on many medical mission trips. Planning for this one presented new challenges, but also providential surprises. “God provided everything for this trip,” Sung said. “He opened the country step-by-step.” When the group initially began planning, Indonesia had only recently opened specific areas to foreign tourists. One month later, Sung said, the country opened remote regions. Within the next month, they lifted the PCR test requirement, and then one for travel insurance. Finally, Indonesia accepted visas on arrival without any other major requirements.Dr. Sung said God also helped provide $50,000 from friends and other supporters which, except for airfare, covered all the necessary expenses for patient transportation, medicine, equipment, supplies, and materials. The large donation also...

Jennifer Klingbeil read and watched the news about the war in Ukraine in February with both shock and compassion. Like many of us here in the United States, she felt moved to action, wanting to help the Ukrainian people but not sure how.That changed after Klingbeil received a call from Kellie Lind. Lind, Pacific Union College’s vice president of advancement, was reaching out as a friend to offer her home as a place to stay for any of Klingbeil’s relatives who might have fled Ukraine.Klingbeil felt like it was “a sign” since she had been thinking about PUC. She talked with Lind about her fervent desire to help Ukrainians. Perhaps they could work together. Their idea blossomed into an initiative -- Mission: Ukraine. Through the program, 10 Ukrainian students displaced by war will travel to the United States to attend Pacific Union College. Over 70 students have already applied to this program and have gone through a rigorous selection process. The chosen group will start school here in Napa Valley this fall.Both Ukraine and PUC are close to Klingbeil’s heart. Jennifer’s mother, Adventina Shiwotenko, was Ukrainian. Remarkably, she started the country’s first Seventh-day Adventist school in Kyiv. “Christian education was...

Since arriving at Pacific Union College in 2006, Asher Raboy has worked to build connections between the college’s music program and the Napa Valley community.Raboy, the chair of the music department and PUC’s resident artist in music has composed original works for students and brought diverse musicians to perform on campus. Now Raboy said a generous donation will help PUC further in building these community relationships.A $150,000 donation from the former local nonprofit, Angwin Community Ambulance, will help PUC renovate the main auditorium in Paulin Hall, home to the college’s music department.The renovation work, conducted in two phases, will include new seats and paint along with needed wall repairs. New carpet with thick padding and vinyl hardwood flooring for the stage will help improve the auditorium’s acoustics. The hope is for the project to be completed by early 2023, just in time for PUC to debut a student-led theatrical production -- an original musical written and scored by Assistant Academic Dean Lindsay Hayasaka. To many, the work might seem simply cosmetic. But not for Raboy.Raboy, who directed the Napa Valley Symphony for nearly two decades, talks of the project with the same passion you might find him talking about Brahms...

The night before his country was invaded, Andrey Gulko went to bed early.He and his family had returned from a business trip to the Netherlands. Back to their house with their own dishes, towels, and comfortable beds. Back to the daily routine. Back to their normal life.With three children under 10, normal life for the Gulkos was busy. They barely had time to recoup after their trip. Two days went by. It was a Wednesday and they still hadn’t unpacked.The first time he awoke was to the phone ringing. It was his neighbor, anxious and worried about the tense situation with Russia.Still groggy, Andrey put his neighbor off until the morning. There had been rumors for months, but nothing had happened yet. Andrey hung up. He closed his eyes and once again let the waves of weariness pull him back into sleep.The second time he was jolted awake by the sound of loud blasts and rattling windows. It was 4 AM. Andrey and his wife looked at each other. It was actually happening.It was happening now.In the Midst of an International CrisisAndrey and his family, along with millions of other Ukrainians, suddenly found themselves at the center of a crisis...

Students in this year’s graduating class didn’t just successfully triumph through several years of study sessions, papers, and exams. They also have the distinction of making it through a global pandemic and the threat of last year’s wildfire. The uncertainty of these events posed challenges. But they also stimulated creativity, shaped priorities, and above all fostered perseverance. Those experiences and the lessons learned from them are as indelible in the minds of the students as all of their teachers, classes, friendships, and social events. Pacific Union College’s 2022 graduates are ready now to go out and make a positive and lasting impact on the world. On Sunday, June 19, 2022, PUC celebrated its 120th graduating class at a joyous commencement ceremony. The college conferred associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees upon nearly 200 students. Diverse in its make-up, the class represents students from 13 states and five countries. Three honors students and three Maxwell Scholars were also recognized among the graduates. “Choose to live boldly and take risks,” PUC Board of Trustees chair Sandra Roberts said in her Commencement address. “Choose to be resilient. Choose to allow love to emerge. Hope to emerge.”Unique to the Class of 2022 is that it...

The California Board of Registered Nursing in May gave Pacific Union College’s nursing program five-year approval, further cementing the college as one of Northern California’s top places to study nursing.In addition to meeting the requirements of WASC and other organizations, Pacific Union College’s nursing department must continually renew and be approved regularly. The BRN conducts a standard evaluation and visit of the program every five years with 2022 being the most recent.Nurse education consultants visited PUC and met with the department’s faculty and staff, student support services and administration. The formal evaluation took two days. However, preparation for the assessment took months. Kimberly Dunker, director and chair of Nursing Health and Sciences, said that because the college must continually renew, preparation for evaluation is ongoing and it involves everybody in the department. Dunker, along with Assistant Directors Debbie Wallace and Susan Bussell, prepared the self-study, which thoroughly and critically examined PUC’s entire nursing program to identify its strengths and deficiencies. It also involved planning for modifications and improvements, if necessary. In addition to clinical sites and facilities, individual faculty members and directors must be approved by the BRN in order to teach theory, clinical and lab courses, Dunker said. Faculty...

Maud Sisley. Alma McKibbon. Ruth Temple. Adventist women of firsts. Pioneers in mission, education and healthcare, they were once household names. But their stories stopped being told -- buried by time and societal change from the church’s collective memory.As Dr. Jim Wibberding, professor of applied theology and Biblical studies at Pacific Union College, studied the church archives, he discovered the names of women he’d never heard of before. Wibberding was surprised to learn that there were so many women “prominent in shaping Adventism as we know it today.”He began making a list.Starting with 50 names, Wibberding organized a course on the History of Adventist Women, dedicated to telling the stories of female leaders who shaped the church’s faith and mission. He invited 14 additional Adventist historians to be guest speakers.Choosing which women’s biographies to share proved difficult. A dilemma arose, Wibberding said, when almost every presenter had other forgotten female figures to add to the list from their own primary document research.The problem of underrepresentation of women in history is not singular to the Adventist church. Women have been overlooked throughout United States and world history. Across the globe, there are concerted efforts to fill these gaps. The first step...

“This is our Christmas.”That’s how Rajeev Sigamoney characterized this year’s extraordinary 18th Diogenes Film Festival that brought Pacific Union College’s visual art students, past and present, together to celebrate their achievements. Due to the COVID-19, the annual festival was canceled in 2020 and 2021. Sigamoney, professor of film and chair of the Visual Arts department, said he and his colleagues felt it was important to include the students whose projects had been delayed by the pandemic. This year’s festival featured films from three years -- more than 35 showcased over two days. The Student Showcase took place on Sunday evening, May 22, in PUC’s Dauphinee Chapel. Underclassmen projects were viewed by an audience of nearly 120 in two 90-minute blocks followed by an awards ceremony. A panel of judges made up of PUC alumni named Fabiola Ixcot the Filmmaker of the Future for her exceptional work in “Fading.” Filmgoers voted via text message during the event to pick the Audience Choice Award. Josue Hilario and his film “Sanity” won as well as Ysabelle Labaco and Atlas Snarr for “Unconditional.”Part two of this year’s film festival, Senior Showcase, was celebrated Sunday, May 29, and featured eight senior thesis films. “St. Helena...

Balancing being a full-time student and athlete can be challenging. In addition to classes and coursework, student athletes also train, attend practice and travel to events both in and out of state. At Pacific Union College student athletes participate in basketball, volleyball, soccer and cross-country.A record number of 75 PUC Pioneer athletes were named as recipients of the Scholar Athlete Recognition Program at an annual sports banquet on May 15. These honorees were chosen from across the four different men’s and women’s varsity sports teams. Thirty-nine Scholar Athletes had a GPA of 3.0 or higher while 36 Distinguished Scholar Athlete recipients achieved a GPA of 3.5 or above. Tyler Wilensky was named as the Presidential Scholar Athlete of the Year. The men’s cross-country runner had the best academic record among the Pioneer athletes this year as the athlete with the highest cumulative GPA.. As the winner, Wilensky was awarded a $1,000 scholarship. “We have seen an overall increase of awards -- over 15% from last year to this year,” said PUC Athletic Director, J.R. Rogers, “with over 70% of athletes receiving recognition.”On Thursday June 2, these distinguished athletes were also acknowledged at the Student Awards Celebration in the PUC church.View...

It was the first time in Pacific Union College’s history that a nursing faculty member received this prestigious award. At a special colloquy on May 19, Assistant Professor of Nursing, Serah Choi was honored as the college’s 2022 Educator of the Year. Academic Dean Milbert Mariano, presented Choi with a framed certificate, a green superhero cape and lightsaber, which have become time-honored traditions. Choi’s husband and PUC’s Aviation Program Director, Keunsong “Chris” Cho, paid tribute with a slideshow documenting her life and journey to achieving her dream job as a college nursing professor. As a young girl in Kwangju, Korea, Choi revered her father, a biology professor. She enjoyed watching him teach and going with his class on field trips.Choi excelled in academics. In 1998 she came to the United States to study at Monterey Bay Academy. Choi earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing at Pacific Union College in 2008. After working as a nurse at Adventist Health St. Helena, she completed her Master of Science in Nursing at Loma Linda University in 2013. Finally, Choi’s childhood dream became a reality when she returned to PUC, this time as a professor in the school of nursing. Dr. Sara Kakazu, PUC’s...