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The California Board of Registered Nursing in May gave Pacific Union College’s nursing program five-year approval, further cementing the college as one of Northern California’s top places to study nursing.In addition to meeting the requirements of WASC and other organizations, Pacific Union College’s nursing department must continually renew and be approved regularly. The BRN conducts a standard evaluation and visit of the program every five years with 2022 being the most recent.Nurse education consultants visited PUC and met with the department’s faculty and staff, student support services and administration. The formal evaluation took two days. However, preparation for the assessment took months. Kimberly Dunker, director and chair of Nursing Health and Sciences, said that because the college must continually renew, preparation for evaluation is ongoing and it involves everybody in the department. Dunker, along with Assistant Directors Debbie Wallace and Susan Bussell, prepared the self-study, which thoroughly and critically examined PUC’s entire nursing program to identify its strengths and deficiencies. It also involved planning for modifications and improvements, if necessary. In addition to clinical sites and facilities, individual faculty members and directors must be approved by the BRN in order to teach theory, clinical and lab courses, Dunker said. Faculty...

PUC’s new Paramedic to RN program has received full approval and is ready for its first cohort to begin in Fall 2022. The program is one of only a few of its kind in the state of California and will enable students with a paramedic background to continue their education and become registered nurses (RN). The program was presented to the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) during an onsite campus visit during April and granted official approval on May 17. Classes and labs for the Paramedic to RN path will be held at the college’s satellite campus in nearby Napa, California, which makes the program more accessible for commuting students. The new program also follows a non-traditional format built to accommodates busy professionals, following the successful model of PUC’s existing licensed vocational nurse (LVN) to RN program.“Classroom instruction is taught in ‘core weeks’ where students come to class Sunday to Wednesday for eight-hour days every six weeks, and 12-hour clinicals are held on Sundays,” said Debra Wallace, Associate Professor of Nursing and Director of off campus programs. “This format allows individuals to be able to pursue a professional nursing degree while continuing to work full-time, fulfill military commitments, or...

Maud Sisley. Alma McKibbon. Ruth Temple. Adventist women of firsts. Pioneers in mission, education and healthcare, they were once household names. But their stories stopped being told -- buried by time and societal change from the church’s collective memory.As Dr. Jim Wibberding, professor of applied theology and Biblical studies at Pacific Union College, studied the church archives, he discovered the names of women he’d never heard of before. Wibberding was surprised to learn that there were so many women “prominent in shaping Adventism as we know it today.”He began making a list.Starting with 50 names, Wibberding organized a course on the History of Adventist Women, dedicated to telling the stories of female leaders who shaped the church’s faith and mission. He invited 14 additional Adventist historians to be guest speakers.Choosing which women’s biographies to share proved difficult. A dilemma arose, Wibberding said, when almost every presenter had other forgotten female figures to add to the list from their own primary document research.The problem of underrepresentation of women in history is not singular to the Adventist church. Women have been overlooked throughout United States and world history. Across the globe, there are concerted efforts to fill these gaps. The first step...

A fire broke out at approximately 4:35 p.m., Wednesday, June 8, at Angwin Valley View Auto on Howell Mountain Road in Angwin. Pacific Union College CFO Brandon Parker says the probable cause of the fire was an exploding gas tank. The Angwin Fire Department was able to quickly suppress the flames after both natural gas and Chevron gas were shut off. According to on-site witnesses and Parker, there were no injuries, and no students were in the facility.The building, leased from PUC, was located next to the campus Chevron station. Campus facility manager Dale Withers and Chevron employees immediately took appropriate actions. The Chevron station sustained minor damages that should not result in a long-term closure. Howell Mountain Enterprises is working to restore Chevron services as soon as possible....

“This is our Christmas.”That’s how Rajeev Sigamoney characterized this year’s extraordinary 18th Diogenes Film Festival that brought Pacific Union College’s visual art students, past and present, together to celebrate their achievements. Due to the COVID-19, the annual festival was canceled in 2020 and 2021. Sigamoney, professor of film and chair of the Visual Arts department, said he and his colleagues felt it was important to include the students whose projects had been delayed by the pandemic. This year’s festival featured films from three years -- more than 35 showcased over two days. The Student Showcase took place on Sunday evening, May 22, in PUC’s Dauphinee Chapel. Underclassmen projects were viewed by an audience of nearly 120 in two 90-minute blocks followed by an awards ceremony. A panel of judges made up of PUC alumni named Fabiola Ixcot the Filmmaker of the Future for her exceptional work in “Fading.” Filmgoers voted via text message during the event to pick the Audience Choice Award. Josue Hilario and his film “Sanity” won as well as Ysabelle Labaco and Atlas Snarr for “Unconditional.”Part two of this year’s film festival, Senior Showcase, was celebrated Sunday, May 29, and featured eight senior thesis films. “St. Helena...