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Students in the department of biology at Pacific Union College know they will encounter more than slides and lectures when taking a class from Professor Aimee Wyrick. Wyrick incorporates one-of-a-kind, hands-on learning practices in Napa County to her courses. These high-impact learning opportunities provide valuable experience while teaching important principles about stewardship of the created world. Wyrick, a specialist in ecology, herpetology, and paleontology, partners with local landowners and organizations to provide opportunities to students in courses such as Ecology, Flowering Plants, and Conservation Biology. “Each quarter I have opportunities for students for internships, for research, for service-learning, and it’s not always in the same place or for the same organization,” she explained. Wyrick is currently doing research on the Calistoga popcorn flower, a federally listed “rare” species that occurs in two locations less than twenty minutes from PUC in the town of Calistoga, Calif. Specially adapted to geothermal wetlands, there are about 5,500 plants on the two sites. She and the students are involved in getting baseline data on the plant; later, they will suggest small experiments and monitoring projects to maintain the plant’s population. “Nobody has done studies on this species of plant or a plant that lives...

Pacific Union College’s enrollment services and public relations teams have introduced a new website dedicated to providing information and answering questions for future students and their families. The admissions website features fresh design in a mobile-friendly format, all geared toward sharing the distinct academic, spiritual, and social advantages of attending Pacific Union College. While the College is celebrating its highest enrollment in twenty-four years, the office of enrollment services is actively working with potential students who will enroll 2014 and beyond. Leading this effort and the development of the new website was Jennifer Tyner, vice president for enrollment management and public relations. “The main goal for this revamp was not just to make the site look good, but drive prospective students to click the apply button,” Tyner shared. “We also wanted to make a new page that would be mobile-friendly, as the old admissions page would come out jumbled and hard to read on a smart phone.” Because research shows that as many as sixty percent of young people are using their smartphones to visit college websites, adapting the admissions information to be smartphone-friendly was imperative. The new site can be accessed from smartphones and tablets as well as traditional...

PUC’s department of business administration and economicshas debuted a new Topics in Healthcare Administration course for Winter Quarter2014 that brings health care professionals to speak to students about currentissues in their areas of expertise. Many of the visiting lecturers areemployees of Adventist Health, which operates nearby St. Helena Hospital NapaValley.“There are over 900 students on campus who have expressed aninterest in a health care related profession,” shares Rodney Hardcastle, chairof the department of business administration and economics. “Since wehave a first class health care institution just five miles down the road wedecided to explore the possibility that the health care professionals therewould like to get involved with the education of our students. We foundthat they were more than happy to do so.”Douglas Houghton, director of recruitment for the NorthernCalifornia Network of Adventist Health and an adjunct professor at PUC,coordinates the class and has arranged presenters from many aspects ofhealthcare management. While the class is comprised primarily of businessmajors, students from the health sciences and pre-professional programs arealso enthusiastically enrolled in the two-credit course. In addition, theseminars are open to any interested student or community member.The January 14 installment of the series brought SteveHerber, MD, interim CEO of St. Helena Hospital...

On January 9, Pacific Union College hosted Dr. Eboo Patel for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Remembrance installment of the Colloquy Speakers Series. Patel, founder and executive director of the Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, is an interfaith scholar and member of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Patel’s presentation focused on the civil rights movement led by Dr. King in the 1950s and 1960s and the interfaith influences on Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violence. Patel illustrated how Dr. King “expands his idea of a beloved community” by interacting with leaders of different religions, including Gandhi and Thich Nhat Hanh. Patel painted a vivid story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and how non-violent protest over the 382-day boycott ultimately led the campaign to success in ending segregation on city buses. Just as King interacted with those around him in interfaith dialogue, Patel encouraged students to engage in deep interfaith discussions, even though disagreement is unavoidable. “Bring it all,” said Patel in describing how much of one’s beliefs should be shared with others. Patel, a practicing Muslim, spent time acknowledging the important contributions Adventists can make when building a “world in common,”...

Twenty-two students from Pacific Union College spent a week of their winter break serving and providing aid for a Navajo community located near Page, Ariz. This was the fourth time PUC students have made an impact on the Navajo reservation, all in cooperation with Project Pueblo, a student-led volunteer organization. PUC students Clifford Young and Dominic Hwang led the December 13-21 trip. Ben Speegle, a 2013 PUC grad who now works in PUC’s Service, Justice, and Missions Office, and Tom Turner, professor of visual arts, went along as sponsors. This year’s mission trip wasn’t just a return to the Navajo nation, but also to the local Seventh-day Adventist church, where PUC students have served since a renovation project began. “We helped a local missionary family with some of their tasks as well as assisting a Navajo family develop their property,” Speegle added. “These mission trips allow us to really give back and serve an impoverished area,” said student leader Clifford Young. “Many of the things we take for granted these people struggle with. It’s nice to see fellow students act selflessly and sacrifice their own time to give back.” From simple tasks like helping rebuild a community center to assisting...

In November, Lauren Armstrong, Arianna Duran, and Benjamin Speegle received recognition from the National Communication Association (NCA) at the 99th National Communication Convention in Washington, D.C. This group of PUC communication students had spent two quarters researching various factors influencing interracial mate selection, primarily those within the family; they compiled their research and submitted it to the NCA in March of 2013. At the convention, their paper, one of four papers selected from eighty submissions to the Lambda Pi Eta division, received the Stephen A. Smith Award for Top Group-Authored Undergraduate Research Paper. This is the second year that PUC’s communication students have taken the award for top group-authored paper. Armstrong, Duran, and Speegle, all now graduates of PUC, conducted their study for a class in Communication Research taught by Tammy McGuire, professor of communication. They aimed to determine how being raised in an interracial household can affect an individual’s relationship decisions. Their findings, compiled in a paper entitled “Familial Influence Over Interracial Mate Selection,” concluded that modern society produces an increasing number of interracial relationships because these connections are more commonly accepted today than they have been in the past. Crucial factors included household makeup, communication strategies, age, and...

Bryan Soderblom, a sophomore aviation and religion major, experienced a life-changing journey during his year as a student missionary in Guyana, a small nation on the northern coast of South America. Although as a freshman he initially planned to go to Brazil as a pilot, personally he felt the call for a homeschool teacher in Guyana was stronger. “The more and more I thought about it during long hikes in the back 40, it felt like if I went to Brazil I’d be serving my own purposes,” said Bryan. He liked the opportunity in Guyana because it seemed more of a service mission than a way to advance his own career as a pilot. Bryan was set up teaching two American children as soon as he arrived in Guyana. Shortly he began giving guitar lessons to local kids, and then was bumped up to teaching high school math to about a hundred students at the secondary school. He said the job was rewarding as well as demanding; he was able to help the high school kids push through the basics of math up to a solid high school level. “By the end, I’m glad to say we got to factorization...

In remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Pacific Union College will host Dr. Eboo Patel for the College’s Colloquy Speaker Series on January 9 in the PUC Church Sanctuary. Patel is the founder and Executive Director of the Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), which works toward the growth of the interfaith youth movement. He has spoken at the TED Conference, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Nobel Peace Prize Forum. Dr. Patel is also a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and contributes regularly to the Washington Post, NPR, and CNN. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University. For this special Martin Luther King, Jr. Remembrance Colloquy program, Dr. Patel’s subject will be Ghandi’s influence on Dr. King. Patel will present at 10 a.m. in the PUC Church Sanctuary....

Pacific Union College has been named a “Healthiest Company” by the North Bay Business Journal for the second time. The college received the award for its commitment to promoting wellness and an active lifestyle among its employees. PUC first received the “Healthiest Company” award in 2012, and continues to encourage employees to focus on health and happiness while expanding wellness program opportunities. The Business Journal gathered nominations over the summer and through September, finally settling on 21 companies and organizations that were honored on November 13 at the Journal’s 2013 Health Care Conference. The conference and special issue of the Journal draw attention to the “outstanding efforts of businesses across the North Bay in the critical movement toward wellness.” The companies selected for the award ranged from construction, education, banking, and technology; the healthiest companies were selected after a nomination and company survey process. “Millions of people spend at least half of their waking hours at work, so it makes perfect sense to make healthy choices a part of the workplace culture,” said Brad Bollinger, editor and associate publisher of the Business Journal. “The workplace wellness movement is unstoppable and is really a necessity if, as a society, we are...

Since the age of 10, Pacific Union College freshmanSpencer Swetnam dreamed of competing in the world championships of his favoritesport. On November 2, his dream came true as he traveled to Taipei-City, Taiwan to compete in the 2013 Artistic Roller Skating WorldChampionships.Swetnam and his partner Katelyn Rodgersrepresented the United States on the world stage in the team dance category. “Theworld championships are as high as the sport of artistic roller skating gets,”said Swetnam. “It is not in the Olympics for one main reason: Most people donot know about it.” Artistic roller skating is much like figure skating on ice,but with roller skates. The sport combines a careful balance of position,strength, and artistry in a single performance.A 2013 graduate of Portland Adventist Academy, Swetnamspent much of his senior year traveling to Boston to meet with Rodgers as theyprepared for the National Championship held in Albuquerque, New Mexico fromJuly 21 to August 4, 2013. The pair competed in the Junior World Class TeamDance Division. This division requires three components: two compulsory danceswith specific dances and steps, an original dance with a routine danced to arequired genre of music, and the free dance which allows the skaters to danceto any song of their...