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Charles White: Prioritizing People at the 2012 Adventist Heritage Colloquy
Posted by Midori Yoshimura on December 14, 2012
With the warmth of a family member, Charles White, a pastor and great-grandson of Ellen G. White, drew students closer to their Adventist inheritance at Pacific Union College’s annual Adventist Heritage Colloquy. White is the senior pastor of Camelback Seventh-day Adventist Church in Phoenix, Ariz., and a PUC alum. In “Faith of Our Fathers,” the opening hymn, the audience sang the praises of a Christian inheritance, and the Heritage Singers performed a toe-tapping rendition of “Satisfied.” Afterward, PUC President Dr. Heather Knight introduced White and the accomplishments of his great-grandmother, Adventism’s co-founder and the world’s most translated female author. “Our priority should and always must be on people,” White said, as he shared family stories to create a “sense of connectedness.” “Did you ever meet your great-grandmother?” Charles White is often asked. With a laugh, he said he called upon the reasoning skills of “math majors and nonmajors” to do the calculations: Ellen White passed away in 1915. However, through his stories students had the chance to become better acquainted with members of the White family, such as “Sleeping Willy,” Ellen White’s somnambulance-prone son. “I thought it was very interesting to hear about E.G. White from a family member. Even...

Six Students Take Two-Week Trip to Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Posted by Lauren Armstrong on December 11, 2012
Several times each year, select students from PUC’s math and science departments visit the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tenn. for research and hands-on application of what they’ve learned in the classroom. Between Nov. 15 and 30, a group of six PUC students took a two-week long trip to ORNL. The National Science Foundation, a government organization that promotes the study of science, presented this opportunity and PUC physics professor Vola Andrianarijaona chose each student that attended. April Vassantachart, Kieffer Bacani, Sarah Heczko, Josue Tobar, Richard Strom, and Robert Chi attended this particular trip, reprenting areas of study from biophysics to pre-med to computer engineering. The students were given the chance to participate in different phases of particle research, with assistance from both Andrianarijaona and ORNL scientist Charlie Havener. “The purpose of our trip was to set-up our apparatus, calibrate it, and start making measurements,” said Bacani. This gave students the opportunity to not only learn how these things are done, but to put them into practice. “The trip gave me real lab experience, and put my education to the test,” said Chi. ORNL, founded in the 1940s, has been facilitating scientific discoveries and groundbreaking research for...

PUC Students Take Top Honors at National Communication Convention
Posted by Giovanni Hashimoto on December 5, 2012
Two of the top four awards, including the top group award, in the Lambda Pi Eta division of the National Communication Association convention were awarded to Pacific Union College students this year at the NCA annual event. Three of the students and PUC Communication Professor Tammy McGuire traveled to present their research at the convention.The NCA convention is the single largest annual gathering of communication teachers, researchers, students and other professionals in the nation. Over 5,000 attendees from every state and around the world were present at the convention, held Nov. 15-18 in Orlando, Fla. PUC’s papers were submitted to the division limited to members of the National Communication Association’s official honor society, Lambda Pi Eta.A paper by five PUC students, “Conflict Resolution Patterns in Intercultural Couples,” won the Stephen A. Smith award for the top group paper in the Lambda Pi Eta division following its presentation by PUC Senior Shanna Crumley. The other members of her team, Abraham Baldenegro, Jennifer Cotto, Sean Grainger and Divya Joseph, had already graduated and were unable to attend. The other paper at the convention, was presented by 2012 graduates, Janna Vassantachart and Jordan Thornburg, was titled “Birth Order and Communication Styles in Romantic...

PUC Partners with Brazil Adventist University
Posted by Lauren Armstrong on November 6, 2012
This year Pacific Union College launched a partnership with Brazil Adventist University (UNASP). Discussion began last spring, when UNASP president José Martini suggested the partnership to PUC president Heather Knight, initially with the main objective of UNASP students learning English. “Having more international students on our campuses helps to foster global understanding,” commented Knight. “Being part of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist global church, we want to help other institutions as well, by partnering with them.” With the residence halls open in the summer, PUC offers UNASP students the opportunity to study here at PUC for a five-week program. Students will also take field trips to places like the Bay Area, including San Francisco. “This idea is that they come for a short term, [and gain] language and culture experience, where they have an opportunity to be exposed to American culture and to have some formal language instruction at the same time,” said Assistant Academic Dean Ed Moore. But the partnership is an opportunity for both schools—UNASP will send students to study at PUC while PUC students will have the chance to learn Portuguese and study in Brazil. Knight noted Brazil’s emerging economy, and the especially great opportunities it presents for...

Rep. Mike Thompson Featured at Election 2012 Colloquy
Posted by Giovanni Hashimoto on November 1, 2012
Pacific Union College hosted Rep. Mike Thompson for the Election 2012 installment of the Colloquy Speaker Series Thursday morning, continuing a focus on civic engagement on the campus in the run up to the 2012 General Election.Quoting Dwight Eisenhower who stated that “politics should be the part-time profession of every man,” Thompson urged students to involve themselves in the civic process and the upcoming election. “What happens in politics influences your day-to-day life,” he noted.Thompson noted the many issues at stake in this election that affects students particularly access to affordable, quality education and federal college aid.“I happen to believe education is one of the most important things for the future of our country,” he said. “What you’re learning today, you’re gonna put in practice tomorrow. The future of our country—our economic well-being, our national security, the health of our environment, the sustainability of our country, our principles and our values in part are going to be formed by what you and your colleagues across the country are learning today in schools, and it is so incredibly important.”Following his talk, Thompson fielded a variety of questions from students on a wide range of topics including the Patient Protection and Affordable...