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The celebration of Black History Month at Pacific Union College began with a civil rights pioneer sharing his experiences from the era. Congressional Gold Medalist Terrence Roberts, one of the iconic Little Rock Nine, spoke to the gathered PUC students, faculty, and staff on February 7. Roberts was a member of PUC's faculty in the mid 1970s.To his PUC audience, Roberts spoke about his motivation and participation in the journey toward civil rights. While still in high school in 1957, he became one of the Little Rock Nine when he and eight other African-American students put their lives on the line to integrate Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. In 1999, Roberts received the Congressional Gold Medal from President Bill Clinton for his part in this remarkable moment in U.S. history.Roberts reminisced about life in Little Rock as a teenager — noting that people had had hundreds of years to develop an expertise in discrimination: "For 335 years, it was legal and constitutional to discriminate against people based on racial group memberships," he said. "Discrimination seemed to be second nature to white people in Little Rock."For Roberts and his young friends who became "the nine," it wasn't about making...

Revival week at Pacific Union College gave students across campus a chance to reawaken their spiritual experiences this winter from January 22 to 26. This quarter, the week featured a lineup of PUC faculty and staff speaking on the week’s theme: “In One Accord in Fellowship.” At each event, the speakers shared personal life experiences which led them to their current life values and beliefs. During his talk Tuesday evening, PUC chaplain Laffit Cortes described his early life as apathetic and lacking religion during his talk Tuesday evening. He remembered how he observed overt racial intolerance firsthand for the first time while living in Texas and the impression it left on him while he converted and declined promising career moves to find his life calling. He urged students to live their lives according to God’s plan and noted that doing so had led him to his current job working as chaplain at PUC. “That’s how I got to PUC,” Cortes said. “Everything that I do today and get paid, I did all my life for free,” he added, noting that all of his life experiences had helped prepare him for his role at PUC. On Thursday morning, during what is...

Fifteen students from Pacific Union College braved the freezing deserts of northern Arizona over Christmas vacation to provide aid to a Navajo community there. This was PUC’s third trip to the community with a student-led ministry called Project Pueblo. “The whole idea for these repeat mission trips is to develop relationships with people in the community,” says Fabio Maia, PUC’s service and missions coordinator. “We’re there to minister to their practical needs.” Initially, the project was intended to focus on repairing and renovating a church that the Adventist group on the reservation had recently purchased with the assistance of one of the largest 13th Sabbath offerings ever given by Adventists in North America. However, when the student group arrived in the reservation town outside of Page, Ariz., they discovered a more immediate need—this winter’s unusually cold weather had frozen the water lines serving the town’s community center. “We had to change our plans and spent two days digging deeper trenches and heating the pipes up to get water,” says Jeremy Lam, one of the student leaders of the group. That meant more than just shoveling dirt—to get to the pipes, the students had to build fires to thaw the frozen...

Pacific Union College celebrated the legacy of the civil rights movement with an address by Cleophus J. LaRue on January 10 at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Remembrance installment of the Colloquy Speaker Series. LaRue is the Francis Landey Patton Professor of Homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary and is a distinguished scholar of African-American preaching and worship. LaRue began by noting that for many in the audience. “the whole civil rights movement is a distant memory” resulting in “less passion, intensity, emotion, [and] commitment.” “Some of us were younger,” he added. “We remember seeing Dr. King on TV—we remember that time in our country’s history—but for many of you, it is just a distant memory and that’s understandable.” LaRue proposed a new way of experiencing Martin Luther King Jr. Day: “This time, when we celebrate Martin Luther King’s life... should not just be the time when we look back and talk about what was, what happened.” Instead, he said that “it should also be a time when we look forward to the kind of people that we can be when we look at Dr. King’s life and [see] what in Dr. King’s life might [be] worthy of emulation.” He...

In recognition of excellence in "supporting mind, body and spirit" and being a trendsetter in employee wellness, PUC was named one of the "Healthiest Companies in the North Bay" this year. The Healthiest Company awards, announced by the North Bay Business Journal at its annual Health Care Conference in November and in the November 12 issue of its publication, recognize "outstanding efforts of organizations and businesses across the North Bay in the critical movement toward wellness." The award nominations are gathered through the summer and companies are surveyed about their health practices. The Business Journal then selects companies to honor at their Health Care Conference. PUC was cited as earning its award for a thorough and accessible wellness program that includes onsite health screenings, health risk assessments with progress reports, and health education opportunities. Such wellness programs as the "Inertia Initiative" and "Lunch and Learn Series," the Wellness Studio and Health Services Clinic, and classes ranging from the Archibald Fitness Boot Camp to martial arts and Zumba were also mentioned. PUC employees are listed as having 27 percent fewer health risks than the national average. "We work in a faith community that acknowledges our Creator's wisdom in weaving each person...