The department of visual arts welcomes two new faculty members with extensive industry experience, providing a boost to Pacific Union College’s film and television program. The department is also welcoming a new instructor of photography. Rajeev Sigamoney comes to Pacific Union College following a career as both screenwriter and producer in Southern California. He earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland and pursued additional training in filmography in Southern California with the Act One program and through the University of California, Los Angeles. He also regularly participates in a number of film festivals including SONscreen, a festival created by the Adventist Church for young Christian filmmakers. “Rajeev is very credible as both a writer and producer,” says Milbert Mariano, chair of the department of visual arts, noting Sigamoney’s considerable involvement in the film industry and Christian media. “He brings a very strong, incredible screenwriting background to the program that’s very useful for television and film.” Many students are already familiar with John ‘Tag’ Tagamolila, who is officially joining the department full-time this fall as resident artist after spending the 2011-2012 school year as an adjunct member of the faculty. A graduate of Cornell University,...

In a new list unveiled over the weekend, Newsweek and the news commentary site thedailybeast.com named Pacific Union College the most beautiful college in the nation. The ranking aggregates survey data on the attractiveness of both the campus and the students, as well as data assessing the pleasantness of the weather. "I am absolutely thrilled by this new designation for PUC from Newsweek as the most beautiful college campus in America," says President Heather J. Knight. "In many ways, this is early recognition for our collective goal to make the campus sparkle and for the hard work done by 'Team Sparkle,' which includes our landscape and facilities management teams in particular. This recognition inspires all of us in every area of our campus community to keep working even harder to make PUC a twenty-first century state of the art learning environment characterized by a God-given gorgeous and pristine setting. We are truly moving from good to great.” See the full list at thedailybeast.com....

Middle school students visited Pacific Union College to experience a preview of higher education at PacificQuest 2012, July 22 through 27. The annual program gives academically outstanding seventh- through ninth-graders a chance to earn college credit in an intensive five-day program. This year’s PacificQuest featured an introductory course in mathematics taught by Richard Rockwell, a professor emeritus of mathematics at PUC. Students selected an additional class, either in computer science or communication. “I’ve loved math all my life,” says Emma Duge, a rising freshman at Justin-Siena High School in Napa. “PacificQuest is cool this year in the way that the math course is really complex and complicated... Dr. Rockwell is such a great teacher that he makes it all easier to understand.” “I never thought I'd be doing modular arithmetic before high school,” she adds. “It's by far the highlighted week of my summer, as it was last year too.” This year, PacificQuest hosted 18 students representing eight different schools from across the Western United States and as far away as Colorado. This is the 16th year since PUC began hosting PacificQuest to give academically-minded middle school students a chance to get a head start on college. Students who want...

Most students would jump at the chance to travel to Australia and New Zealand and call it academic credit. PUC students had just that opportunity when the department of history offered its biannual summer study tour June 25 to July 7. The group spent four days in New Zealand and seven touring Australia, and logged over two days of travel on eight separate flights. “It’s sort of like one long field trip—you can go to museums and historical sites—but at the same time we had readings to do and we would connect them to what we saw and we would write journal articles about them,” says Max Morphis, a sophomore history major. “We had readings that covered all kinds of topics... It was definitely a class but it was more than just a class.” “The various museums we went to are not something that you’re going to find here [in the United States],” notes Paul McGraw, chair of the department of history. “History is something that takes a different perspective when you actually experience the stuff rather than just reading about it.” The trip provides credit for “HIST 450 - History Study Tour,” a graduation requirement for history students at...

The Pacific Union College Board of Trustees has approved a freeze in the cost of tuition, room, and board for the 2012-2013 academic year — holding prices at the 2011-2012 rate. It is the first time since 1984 that the college has not posted an increase in cost of attendance. “While students at private and public colleges across the country are facing significant increases in tuition and fees, Pacific Union College is continuing its commitment to making higher education affordable for our families through initiatives like the tuition freeze,” said Dave Lawrence, PUC vice president for financial administration. “This freeze is just one of many ways we seek to make attending PUC a reality for students.” The announcement contrasts with across-the-board tuition increases in the private nonprofit sector of colleges nationwide. According to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), tuition increased an average of 4.5 percent for the 2011-2012 academic year at its member institutions. The freeze marks a renewal of PUC’s efforts to make tuition more affordable, most recently with the Four-Year Guarantee Scholarship, which began last academic year. Under that program, nearly all students at the college are assured of a set amount of tuition...