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Bert Simmons’ sickly face stares up from a hospital bed in a spacious room. Nearby, a baby in a white onesie lies in an infant warmer unit. “They’re not very beautiful,” laughs Nancy Tucker, chair of the Pacific Union College nursing department, as she looks at the two $30,000 manikins in the nursing Simulation Lab. The adult patient simulator arrived in August of 2005 and took up residence in a space that is now called the Simulation Lab. The lab has undergone a series of developments and improvements, including the recent addition of the SimBaby infant manikin. The purpose of this area is to provide a realistic hospital setting in which students can practice their nursing skills on high-tech manikins—a resource that nursing programs are utilizing more and more as clinical time in hospitals is harder to come by. “We feel that this is the wave of the future,” says Tucker. The lab houses the manikins in hospital beds, their compressors and monitors, and a control room on the other side of a one-way window, where instructors manipulate the manikin’s reactions, including changes in heart rate, respiration, and vocal responses. The lab space also includes a mock nurses’ station set...

The cell phone users of Angwin are no longer limited to having phone conversations (if they’re lucky enough to get one or two bars of service) at the airport parking lot. A Verizon Wireless antenna has been installed on the tower by PUC’s Nichol Hall, providing coverage in most areas in a roughly one-mile radius. Getting the antenna in Angwin was a lengthy process. PUC approached Verizon about obtaining a cell site in the area, and an agreement was signed in the summer of 2005, after which Verizon’s third-party site-acquisition and construction management company went through the process of checking out the location, creating a proposal for the equipment facilities, and obtaining a building permit from Napa County. Verizon utilized the tower already in place at the top of the campus but had to make structural changes such as reinforcing the foundation, removing lead paint and repainting the tower, installing the new antenna, and building facilities for the equipment that runs the antenna. They also landscaped around this new control facility. Official completion day was November 3, 2006. People around campus and town were incredulous when the word began to spread that you could get cell phone reception in the...

December always brings an influx of holiday festivities to the campus, including several annual events. The first weekend in December featured several of these, including the Christmas Tree Lighting and the women’s Christmas open house. Following vespers on Friday, students gathered on the campus mall in front of the Nelson Memorial Library for the annual Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. PUC president Richard Osborn led in the countdown to the tree lighting. Students held lit candles in the dark as they sang Christmas carols and sipped hot beverages, provided by the alumni department, to combat the winter temperatures. On Sunday evening, the womens dormitories were warm with Christmas lights, visitors’ voices, and the smells of holiday goodies. The lobbies and dorms were decked out with their annual array of Christmas finery, and many girls had taken time to make their halls, doors, and rooms especially festive for the yearly women’s dorms Christmas open house. Teachers, community members, and (most importantly) gentlemen could wander through the dorms visiting with residents, sampling the goodies, or critiquing the decorating schemes. Vice president for advancement Pam Sadler, who was the judge for the door-decorating contest in McReynolds Hall, spent some time in all four dorms....

PUC chaplain Roy Ice has started a new podcast called Salvation Coach, providing “a workout for your soul.” The goal of this life coaching program is not to discuss complex theological issues, but rather to help listeners find concrete answers to questions about a relationship with God. Ice sees a need for people today, especially young people, to find relevance and realness in their Christianity: “I think this generation is finally coming to the question – and they’re brazen and bold and released enough by the previous generation to ask the question – is it real? It’s allowing them to truly prove what we’ve known all along: That this spiritual undercurrent has to be present in everything that they do, whether it’s their social life or whatever.” On each Salvation Coach episode, Pastor Ice addresses issues facing contemporary Christians in real life. His first set of podcast programs is titled “Twelve Things to Try While You’re Still Mortal” and features such topics as forgiveness and avoiding “get spiritual quick” diets. Ice posts the episodes at the podcast’s website, www.salvationcoach.com, with brief text introductions and lists of key verses. Listeners can subscribe to the Salvation Coach podcast or download episodes individually....

On November 18, 2006, Pacific Union College faculty members Daneen Akers and Stephen Eyer premiered their documentary film Living with Fibromyalgia at Chapman University’s Folino Theatre in Orange, California. More than 150 people attended the showing, which was hosted by the National Fibromyalgia Association (NFA). Akers and Eyer, who are married, were first introduced to fibromyalgia when Akers’ mother was diagnosed with it in 2001. Watching their family hunt for good information and struggle with the implications of a chronic illness convinced the couple to make a film in order to help others dealing with the same situation. The filmmakers sold their house in San Diego to finance the documentary, and then they spent the next two years researching, filming, and in production. The finished film features Akers as she tries to understand her mother’s illness, characterized by widespread pain and fatigue. She interviews her mother and six other patients, as well as doctors and health-care providers. “I didn’t originally think I would be in the film,” Akers said. “But it ended up making sense—it really was our family that was the motivation for the film.” Response to the documentary has been overwhelmingly positive. Lynne Matallana, president and founder of...