Archives

The Pacific Union College campus mood has been somber since the devastating loss of four students on Saturday night. On Monday, the atmosphere on campus — from the classroom to the dining commons and the residence halls — has been subdued as many are quietly processing the tragedy. “They are processing it in the healthiest manner, and they are being very supportive of each other,” said Robert Kurtz, dean of Newton Hall, where all four of the victims resided. Kurtz and the other residence hall deans on campus have been working around the clock to ensure that students are receiving proper counseling. The load of caring for students has been shared with a community eager to help the college. There has been an outpouring of support from all over the Napa Valley and country. County and law enforcement organizations have called to offer additional grief counseling support, and individuals from the Valley and the Bay Area have called to see if we need more volunteers. When the college created an online message board for people to post thoughts and memories, notes of sympathy and encouragement came in from all over the country. Some of PUC’s sister schools have held special...

Updated: November 20, 2008 Four Pacific Union College (PUC) students died in a vehicle accident on Deer Park Road late Saturday night. The Napa County Sheriff’s Department identified the victims as Boaz Pak, 20, Luke Nishikawa, 22, Simon Son, 19, and Chong Shin, 20. The accident took place at about 11:45 p.m. on November 15. According to police reports, the four victims were in a Honda Civic driving down the hill on Deer Park Road when it collided with an oncoming vehicle at Sanitarium Road junction. The men were pronounced dead at the scene. According to some reports the four students had been at the college gym before making their way to Safeway in St. Helena to grab something to eat; the accident occurred on the way to the store. All the young men were well liked on campus and involved in outreach. Shin, Pak, and Nishikawa were all very involved in youth ministry at the Rohnert Park Korean Seventh-day Adventist Church. Son was involved in of a campus outreach program called Homeless Ministries. Just that morning, students say that Son had gone to the bay area with a group of students to feed the homeless.* “The PUC community mourns...

They had 24 hours to write, produce and perform one-act plays. On November 7 at 10 p.m., Pacific Union College resident artist Mei Ann Teo and drama intern Zack Dunn gathered with four writers, four directors, and 13 actors to choose their theme for the first PUC 24-hour Theatre Festival. The participants, which included current students, alums, faculty and staff, one community member and one younger student, were divided into four teams and set out to theatrically engage the topic drawn from a hat: "legendary." The four writers wrote through the night, and handed the scripts off to the directors early Sunday morning. At 9 a.m., the directors met with their acting teams and started blocking and memorizing. "This has been quite a journey," said Dunn, who was the event producer. He recounted the strange mix of rehearsal scenes in Stauffer Hall. "In one room, Cammie directed her actors during a crazy dance number, while directly below her, in the seminar room, Doug Gerard's team attempts the rehearsal of a serious drama about severed connections! In another room, actors sit running lines in a closet-spaced set, and I could hear the fourth group rehearsing 'Men 101' while in the downstairs...

When executive and entrepreneur Chris Klinvex presented “Competing for Great Jobs: What Every Student Should Know Before Starting the Job Search” for colloquy on Career Day 2008, he was honest about the challenges, personal in his approach, and serious about the importance of God in the process. The paradox, he said, is that “really this is not about you guys… it’s about Him.” He told students, “I challenge you to be very prayerful.” He also encouraged them that, even in a difficult job market, there is purpose. “I really believe that you’ll find your purpose when you use the brain He’s given you and hold his hand. My life has gone best when I let His desires become mine.” Klinvex shared how he and two others started a new consulting company, Select International, which now provides major corporations around the world with assessment, hiring solutions, and recruiting services. Contrary to what you’ll be told, he said, you don’t have to sacrifice your family or your values to be a successful businessperson. Klinvex also shared some information about job markets, advice on what to look for in a company and what to prepare for in college, and common mistakes students make...

After the Social Work Forum’s push to register voters, classroom and informal debates over Prop 8 and candidates, formal debates about election issues in the Student Association “political party” and a PUC-Cast special episode, and students participating in a survey of Adventist campuses, election day itself was fairly quiet on campus. True, shuttle cars coordinated by the Social Work Forum transported some students to and from the Angwin polling place, but as professor Monty Butler reported, many chose to vote by mail-in ballot. Evening found a little more hubbub as a good-sized crowd kept the Campus Center full. Students came through as they could to catch the results and speeches on the big-screen there. Doug Wilson, director of student activities, said there were a few cheers and boos as results came in, but mostly students were just “interested in seeing the whole process.”Before the election, some of our students participated in a survey conducted for Spectrum magazine by Roger Dudley, director of the Institute of Church Ministry at Andrews University. Students at Andrews University, Southern Adventist University, Union College, La Sierra University, and Walla Walla University also participated in the survey, and an initial report was published on the Spectrum...