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Hundreds of high school juniors and seniors visited PUC’s College Days to sit in on classes and worship services, meet professors and other students, and fully immerse themselves in Pacific Union College’s unique environment. The four-day event, held on February 13-16, also included a visit to the town of St. Helena, giving the College Days students a first-hand look at PUC’s scenic Napa Valley location. “College Days is a great event that connects students with the campus,” said J.R. Rogers, one of PUC’s enrollment counselors. “It gives them a look into what it would be like to attend PUC, meet with professors and students, sleep in the dorm, eat the food and attend the campus events. Traditionally students that visit campus have a higher probability of attending here, so these events are quite important and an opportunity for PUC as a whole to put its best foot forward.” The office of enrollment services coordinates the event in the hope that the visit will encourage students that the college is a perfect fit for them. The experience allows students to check out the departments that interest them, converse with college students with similar interests, and figure out what living at PUC...

On February 12, students in Pacific Union College’s most popular program had the opportunity to make connections and discuss potential jobs with representatives from multiple healthcare organizations at the college’s annual Nursing Job Fair. Coordinated by the department of nursing and health sciences, the fair brought recruiters to campus to meet nursing students that will soon graduate and enter the workforce. Lorie Johns, student success advisor in the department of nursing and health sciences, coordinated the fair. “It’s an opportunity for current associate’s and bachelor’s degree students to make connections with recruiters from hospitals and regional health care organizations, as well as for those recruiters to meet our outstanding nursing students,” Johns shared. Many of the hospitals represented at the fair are affiliated with Adventist Health, a faith-based, not-for-profit network with hospitals and clinics in California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington. However, Johns invited a diverse group of healthcare organizations to attend the fair. “While the bulk of the facilities and organizations represented tend to be affiliated with Adventist Health, we are pleased that other local healthcare-related organizations such as Napa State Hospital and REACH Air Medical regularly attend PUC’s Nursing Job Fair,” said Johns. Other organizations represented included the United...

Pacific Union College is collaborating with the Napa Valley Performing Arts Center (NVPAC) at Lincoln Theater in the inaugural year of the Orchestra Institute of Napa Valley Fellowship Program. This new partnership is helping PUC’s young musicians hone their talents while allowing graduate artists to pursue valuable teaching and performing experience. By serving as the primary sponsor and sole housing sponsor for the Orchestra Institute Napa Valley Fellowship Program, the ensembles and instrumentalists of the department of music are benefitting from a group of talented “artists-in-residence.” The Orchestra Institute Napa Valley Fellowship Program at the NVPAC is an innovative, tuition-free, full-year performance and professional-growth program for the most exceptional post-graduate music and conservatory students in the country. The musicians enrolled in the program are provided tools to aid them in developing music careers in the 21st century: performance opportunities (including playing with the Symphony Napa Valley), service as musical ambassadors, development as self-managers, and the ability to provide music education. “We are delighted to have the Fellows on campus and hope that this partnership with NVPAC will continue as it is enriching our department and allowing us to take the study of music for the major and general student to...

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...