2007

“Safe Surrender,” the 2006 documentary film produced by PUC film and television majors Brian Bazemore and Jackson Boren, has been making its way to hundreds of thousands of viewers across the country, and now earns further recognition with a platinum Ava Award.

Bazemore and Boren filmed, directed and edited the documentary for the San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland, California, about the Safely Surrendered Baby Law. The law, which allows parents to anonymously and legally give a newborn to a hospital, police or fire station within 72 hours of the baby’s birth, has been in place since 2001, but needed to be brought to public awareness.

The film debuted on October 11, 2006, to an audience of more than 200 distinguished educators, public officials, and law enforcement officers. Since then, the hospital has been working to distribute the film both locally and across the nation. In addition to submitting the project for various awards programs, they gave 150 DVDs to health-care participants in the 10th annual state Emergency Medical Services for Children conference, provided all the school nurses in the county with copies, and have made the DVD available to all area schools. Over...

Pacific Union College Church presents Michelle Tumes, award-winning contemporary Christian recording artist, in concert on December 2, 2007, at 7 p.m. The program is part of the Michelle Tumes 2007 Christmas Tour. For the Angwin concert, a community orchestra and choir, comprised of Napa Valley residents and PUC students, will accompany Tumes.

With a voice described as “angelic,” Tumes offers an alternate kind of worship experience, weaving contemporary pop arrangements alongside classic hymns and melodies. Born in Adelaide, Australia, the song artist began playing piano at age four, and has been classically trained in piano and voice. After signing with Sparrow Records in 1998, Tumes’ first album, Listen, was released. Since then, three additional albums have been produced....

During the annual Career Day colloquy at Pacific Union College, Alan Nakanishi, Assemblyperson for California’s Tenth Assembly District, reminded students that the key to success is to trust in God’s leading.

“You and I serve a powerful God. If he can take a poor boy from the ghettos of Sacramento to PUC to Loma Linda to the halls of the state capital, then he can do more for you,” said Nakanishi, who was the special guest speaker at the event.

Nakanishi shared his own career journey, which started at PUC nearly fifty years ago. He had just graduated from high school and was contemplating whether he should attend the local university in Sacramento or PUC.

“My family couldn’t afford for me to be at PUC. But I had a conviction that God wanted me to be at a Christian college,” he said. So at 17 years old, Nakanishi enrolled at PUC with just enough money to last one quarter and the determination to be a doctor.

Nakanishi managed to stay the entire year. To earn money for college, he cleaned classrooms, bussed tables, sold books door to door,...

Ashley Riveira once paced the tree-shaded sidewalks and staircases of PUC’s campus, taking time to chat with a friend or rushing to make an early class. Now she strolls the halls and offices of a law firm in Washington D.C., practicing both international law and labor and employment law in one of the country’s most exciting legal climates.

Her story became even more remarkable this May when Riveira, along with nine more of America’s most promising young professional women, won Running Start’s “Women to Watch” award. The award is given to young women who use their positions of leadership to aid the cause of women’s rights. Riveira was recognized for “Presumed Equal: What America's Top Women Lawyers Really Think About Their Firms,” the book that she co-wrote with a classmate from Harvard Law School.

Of course, Riveira’s transformation from PUC-ite to nationally recognized up-and-comer did not happen overnight. After her graduation from PUC in 2001, she spent a couple years in the Napa Valley before applying and being accepted to Harvard School of Law. The transition from a small liberal arts college, quietly nestled in the hills of the Napa Valley, to one of...

Today’s youth are constantly in the crossfire of public opinion. The “millennial generation” is criticized in the media, which depicts them as narcissistic and shallow. But at Pacific Union College, campus chaplain Roy Ice sees something in today’s youth that others have missed. “Millenials are much more willing to serve than previous generations. Ninety-two percent say they will volunteer if they believe in the cause,” he reports.

At PUC, students are already living up to the numbers, with grassroots volunteer groups becoming ubiquitous on campus. Sensing a cultural shift among students, PUC leadership is strengthening their focus on service, which has always been one of PUC’s core values.

In philanthropy, large donations and publicity-laden events garner the lion’s share of attention. Though PUC doesn't discourage this kind of service, the college aims to redefine how a person can make a difference. Pastor Ice points to Galatians 6:2 as a guide for the campus’s direction: “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.”

Various service groups have sprung up around campus to meet this challenge. Dean Annette Riebe of Andre Hall leads “A Stitch in Time,” a...

D. Malcolm Maxwell, president emeritus of Pacific Union College, passed away on Monday, October 1, 2007, at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was 73 years old.

Maxwell was the first PUC alumnus to serve as president, and he had the longest tenure-18 years-of any president. He retired from the presidency in 2001 but continued to work at PUC as a professor in the religion department until 2006. In April of 2007, Maxwell and Eileen, his wife of nearly 52 years, were in the process of moving to Scottsdale to be near family when Eileen passed away.

Maxwell, son of famed Seventh-day Adventist author Arthur C. Maxwell, graduated from PUC in 1956 with degrees in theology and biblical languages. He completed his master of arts in systematic theology at Andrews University and earned his doctorate in biblical studies, specializing in New Testament, at Drew University. At Drew, Maxwell was honored as a Rockefeller Fellow and Drew University Scholar.

Maxwell taught religion at Union and Walla Walla Colleges. After 13 years in the classroom, he stepped into administration, serving as academic dean and vice president for academic administration at Walla Walla College. In 1983, he accepted the call to serve...

Students, faculty, and staff gathered in Commencement Grove Monday night for a Western-themed get-acquainted party. As plates got piled high with cornbread, corn on the cob, fresh salads, penne pasta, and apple cobbler, the Pioneer mascot made an appearance, working the crowd, giving high-fives, posing for pictures.

Cowboy hats, boots, and flannel were sported by many students who got into the spirit of the occasion. Carrie Moore, a junior graphic design and photography major, enjoyed dressing up and “howdy-ing” all her friends, old and new. “It’s a lot of fun to get to start the year off like this,” Moore said. “I don’t know if I’ll get up the nerve to ride the bull, though.”

Even if Moore didn’t decide to ride the bull (that’s a mechanical bull for all the nervous parents out there), it seemed like the rest of the student body did, lining up to try staying on the bucking, twisting, spinning bovine attraction operated by a former professional bull rider. Every now and then cheers and shouts would start in earnest for a student who had managed to stay on for 30 seconds or more.

Even the...

Forget the palatial gardens of Paris and the wonders of the Louvre—that is so last year. This year the honors program opted instead for Italian villas and cozy cafés as the site of its annual Summer Term Abroad. The two-week trip to Italy was for the class “Beauty,” a required class for honors students that examines different concepts of beauty within the Western aesthetic tradition, particularly in the visual arts.

Previous to its trip to Europe, the honors class met informally to prepare for the class. The students then traveled to many cities and towns throughout Italy to learn on location about artists and writers from Michelangelo and Di Vinci to Aristotle. While the class visited Venice and Rome as well as several coastal towns, the class spent the majority of its time in Florence, Italy, visiting cathedrals and museums like the Santa Maria del Fiore and the Academia.

According to professor John McDowell, head of the honors department and trip sponsor, Italy was the perfect place for the students to learn about the history and art of the period they studied. “Florence is a great place for the students to see the shift from the classical models of the Renaissance period...

For the second year in a row, PUC’s Pioneers basketball team has received the “California Pacific Team Sportsmanship Award.” Pioneers coach Robert Castillo received the award for the 2006-2007 season at the California Pacific Conference Convention on August 26.

The award is given to the team that displays outstanding sportsmanship and exemplifies the purpose of the “Champions of Character” program that was set up by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletes several years ago. The award is voted upon by coaches from the member institutions of the CalPac Conference and is based on character and personalities of the athletes as well as athlete conduct during winning or losing game situations.

The Sportsmanship Award tops off what was a truly amazing season for the PUC Pioneers, who made their first appearance in the conference playoffs and played a first-round game in the CalPac men’s tournament against Simpson College. Though the Pioneers lost the game, 85-77, they were graced with the support of their fans who overflowed the stands and were led by one extremely devoted group of PUC students called the “Pioneer Posse.”

Receiving the award for a second time is an...

While cramming five Shakespeare plays into three days is enough to have students thinking in iambic pentameter for the rest of the summer, 14 PUC students and alumni found it to be an invigorating experience when they attended the annual Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) this summer in Ashland, Oregon, for PUC’s Shakespeare in Performance class.

The class began with a tour backstage so students could get an intimate behind-the-scenes look at all the factors that go into running a repertoire theatre, including scheduling, costuming, set design and direction. The students experienced an afternoon and evening performance each day and in the course of three days students attended performances of “The Tempest,” “As You Like It,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Tartuffe,” and “Romeo and Juliet.” Between plays, students participated in seminar discussions in which they both prepared for and reacted to each of the plays.

As if that wasn’t enough, students also saw a “Prologue” that was prepared by the OSF. Later, they met and conversed with the actress who played Ariel in “The Tempest,” who gave the students insight into her particular role and her experiences as an actor. During down time, students...