The PUC Mission Continues: A Vision for our Future

2020 represented a watershed moment for Pacific Union College, as it faced the full weight of a long-term decline. Years of compounding deficits, organizational downsizing, declining enrollment, and ongoing financial strain began to impact operations severely. The board, administrators, and employees questioned whether PUC could continue to exist. Despite several incremental adjustments, the decline continued. In 2020, it was decided that PUC could not continue with business as usual. In 2021, a new vision plan was implemented.

The goal was simple and straightforward: recognize our problems and acknowledge the need for significant changes, all while remaining true to Adventism, our historical mission, and the quality of the PUC campus experience.

The vision plan was, in large part, an operational strategy centered on stabilizing the institution, all while maintaining our public image, core mission, and historical legacy. Pacific Union College focused on four key areas: renewing our commitment to the Angwin campus, innovating our academic offerings, expanding our reach and market presence by establishing education centers, and developing online programs.

The 2025-2030 vision continues to sustain these four pillars, but with five more focused, strategic objectives to further underline the operational steps taken to bring PUC into a prosperous footing:

• Experiential Learning: prioritizing hands-on learning in fields such as aviation, nursing, and visual arts, as well as mission trips, fellowships, research, and internships to gain a first-hand practical experience of the real world. Forest learning in PUC’s 1,100-acre woodland is also one of the largest assets on campus.
• Increased and Diversified Revenue Streams: expanding the college’s resources to maximize utilization of land and buildings, Angwin Plaza, residence halls, offering online and in-person programs, as well as searching for new streams of educational opportunities, like offering certificates.
• Innovative Academic Program Review and Reinvention: continuing to implement ways to improve the college’s general education, degrees, academic year duration and length, and delivery systems to further align with the four pillars and experiential learning emphasis.
• Restructure PUC Processes, Procedures, and Policies: implementing streamlined procedures across campus, including software and IT support that could save money, reduce workload, and create an overall better culture for student life and campus.
• Pursue Academic and Corporate Partnerships: strengthening relationships with the Adventist church, Adventist Health, Loma Linda University, La Sierra University, the Pacific Union, community colleges, and high schools.

PUC’s goal is that every student who passes through its educational system makes a positive impact in the church and on humanity, ensuring a well-equipped candidate in any field or market.

Confident in the next steps of its future, PUC foresees a bright and successful journey for each student to not only become more than a qualified graduate, but a person who will make a long-lasting impact and difference in this world and beyond. PUC remains faithful in God’s leading as they continue to pray and heed His direction.