For five days each quarter, PUC hosts Week of Prayer, a time when students, faculty, and staff gather for daily worship services. Spring quarter marks the annual student-led Week of Prayer in which two student speakers share their testimonies each day. With 10 speakers featured in total, all of the messages shared during Student Week of Prayer speak to the campus’ vibrant spiritual life in their own unique ways.Biochemistry major and sophomore honors student Emma Tyner reflected, “Student Week of Prayer is such an important event. Not only are we given the opportunity to take time each day to worship, but we also get to do it surrounded by our closest friends.”Each 50-minute meeting opened with a handful of praise songs followed by an introduction to the speaker. A wide variety of students across departments, years, and academic interests joined to lay hands on each speaker as they were prayed over before they shared their messages.Each sermon featured a personal testimony interwoven with a discussion of a corresponding Bible character. Monday opened with Amber Sanchez in the morning and Joseph Santos in the evening, both seniors and majors in theology. On Tuesday, Carlos Piedra and Jamie Nelson shared their stories....

The department of visual arts at Pacific Union College welcomes the community to their annual student art show, April 18-June 16. The opening reception is at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 18, in the campus’ Rasmussen Art Gallery.Several students will display original art pieces in the show, in a variety of media. Marina Maia, freshman fine art major, will have three pieces on display, all of which she completed during her winter quarter drawing fundamentals course.“One of them, done in pastels, is a surrealist piece of a blue eye melting into clouds,” Maia explains. “It was inspired by a photo a friend of mine sent me of his eyes. I told him that the undertones of his eyes reminded me of those in the clouds after the rain cleared, so I made this to prove it.”Professor Rajeev Sigamoney, chair of the department, says that the student art show is an opportunity for students to realize that what they’re doing is actually serious, professional work.“Often, it’s easy to think of college coursework as just an exercise in academia,” he says. “But when your homework ends up showing in an art gallery, gets seen by hundreds in the community, and receives criticism...

April 19-21 marks PUC’s 110th Homecoming Weekend, a time when alumni across the years are invited to gather and celebrate their shared time on the hill. Homecoming Weekend often features special presentations, campus tours, and activities to spark memories of years gone by. Previous years have featured popular “PUC Talks,” a campus version of TED Talks, among other informative activities. Homecoming 2019 promises a number of interactive and exciting festivities. After registration on Friday afternoon, alumni are invited to take part in a guided driving tour of the PUC forest. For those service-minded alumni, a presentation on PUC’s thriving missions programs will also take place on Friday evening in the Fireside Room. Visiting alumni are invited to join students for vespers in Dauphinee Chapel at 8 p.m. as well. Following a Sabbath morning breakfast, a special feature presentation entitled, “A Mountain, a Pickax…a Health Resort? Stories from the Making of PUC,” will be offered in the church sanctuary. Alumni interested in the life and letters of Ellen G. White should stop by the Maxwell Reading Room Exhibit in the Nelson Memorial Library and peruse White’s recently uncovered letter to J.O. Corliss from May of 1882.Sabbath afternoon features honored class parties...

Last quarter, a few PUC physics students were given the opportunity to visit and assist with research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee. The idea was to give the students hands-on research experience in order to explore what research is like in a laboratory setting.PUC is one of three collaborative institutions working with ORNL and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to investigate X-ray-induced charge transfer.“This concept is not completely understood, due to lack of data,” junior chemistry major and trip participant Vola-Masoandro Andrianarijaona explains. “The research we’re doing seeks to better understand cosmic ray background.”To do this, there are two different sets of measurements that must be considered: the rocket measurement (aka: “all sky survey”) and the laboratory measurement. The former is done by NASA, the latter by ORNL, using the same rocket.“The laboratory measurement requires the ion beam to simulate the ions present in space that contributed to the data in the all sky survey,” Andrianarijaona details. “Then, the data from the all sky survey and the laboratory measurement will be compared to determine if the ion beam produces the same ions that are present in space.”While at ORNL, Andrianarijaona and her fellow PUC students...

In March, a team of twenty-five students took a ten-day mission trip to Mana Island, Fiji, marking the seventh year of missions to this particular location. Fabio Maia, PUC’s missions coordinator, accompanied the students, along with two PUC alumni, both dentists, and Dave Carreon, pastor at PUC Church. The group provided medical and dental care, constructed housing, and led a week of prayer and VBS for local students.“This community is built on faith,” remarked Brian Nguyen, junior business major and pre-med student, on his second Fiji trip. “The children start and end their day singing worship songs, and they spend their Sabbaths learning about God. They really inspire me to incorporate faith deeper in my daily life.”A typical day on Mana Island began at 7 a.m. with a group breakfast and devotional. Students then divided into three rotating teams focused on medical work, construction, and teaching or VBS activities. At the end of the day, PUC students organized games or went swimming with local children.“We prioritized the kids,” said Maia. “If they needed attention or wanted to play, we stopped our work, because ultimately, we were there for them.”Short term missions are often criticized for failing to establish lasting and...