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Nursing Students & Faculty Return to Fiji to Serve Their Mana Family

Posted by Ally Romanes on April 16, 2025

From March 22-30, 19 students alongside five nursing faculty and staff from Pacific Union College provided physicals, well visits, and regular physician office and dental care to 311 patients in Mana, Fiji. Students checked patients' vital signs, monitored their glucose levels, and recorded medical history and complaints. With a dentist on duty, students assisted and learned how to give fluoride treatments and educated the community on oral hygiene.Throughout the island, PUC nursing students gave in-home care with a provider to assess their needs. “This is an eye-opening experience as it allows the students to see how the local community lives,” said Sandra Ringer, PUC assistant professor of nursing. “Our lifestyle directly affects our health. It also provides cultural competence as students discover that not everyone lives and functions as we do and then apply health principles that can assist with lifestyle changes. We are not trying to make them live like the Western world, just encouraging healthy surroundings.”While PUC’s nursing department has served in Fiji in past years, this trip was different in a few ways. One of the physicians who has joined these mission trips for the past three years raised $20k to build a medical and dental clinic...

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PUC’s Department of Music Hosts Unforgettable Festival

Posted by Ally Romanes on April 3, 2025

From March 5-8, Pacific Union College hosted nine academies for their music festival, with 171 students participating in the orchestra, choir, and wind ensemble. Schools that attended were:Central Valley Christian AcademyFresno Adventist AcademyLodi AcademyMonterey Bay AcademyParadise Adventist AcademyPleasant Hill Adventist AcademyPUC Preparatory SchoolRio Lindo AcademyUkiah Junior AcademyAfter the visiting students had settled in, the music festival commenced. During the week, students had six hours of rehearsals and sectionals each day preparing for Saturday’s performances.Rachelle Berthelsen Davis, department of music chair and strings director, directed the Festival Orchestra, while Ronnie Zanella, department of music choral director, led the Festival Choir, and Will DeWitt, music teacher at Linda Vista Elementary School, conducted the Festival Wind Ensemble. Professional musicians from the community also coached sectional rehearsals alongside PUC music students, and academy teachers attending the festival.While the primary purpose of the festival was for students to join together through music, the festival also featured its first-ever Showcase Concert: an opportunity for academy musicians to perform from their respective repertoires to show other schools the music they're working on. The Showcase ended with PUC ensembles performing for the academy students. Due to its popularity, PUC's department of music will include this Showcase at future...

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Rasmussen Art Gallery Hosts Annual Faculty Show

Posted by Ally Romanes on March 24, 2025

On February 22, Rasmussen Art Gallery hosted the annual faculty show featuring work by Pacific Union College’s visual arts department. The featured artwork highlights the diverse and creative practices of PUC Visual Arts Chair Brian Kyle and Professors Amy Cronk Gatdula, Cliff Rusch, Jaymie de la Torre, Melissa Henry Pratt, Mike Murtaugh, and Nephtali Marin.For over 25 years, the faculty art show has been a tradition at the Rasmussen Art Gallery. "The inspiration behind hosting these annual exhibitions is rooted in the belief that practicing what we teach is essential," said Kyle. "The show provides an opportunity for faculty to share their creative work with students, colleagues, and the wider community. It reinforces the value of maintaining an active artistic practice while fostering dialogue and engagement with contemporary art-making processes."The show changes every year; this year focusing on 3D-printed typography, ceramic sculpture, encaustic painting, analog black and white and color photography, digital photography, mixed media, and filmmaking. With no set theme, faculty can explore their creative and artistic skills while showcasing their department's practices from traditional, experimental, and conceptual work. For PUC students, these annual faculty shows allow them to see their professors as artists, bringing their classroom lessons to...

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Vox Pro Musica & Mosaic Strings Tour Phoenix

Posted by Ally Romanes on March 13, 2025

During winter break, Pacific Union College’s music department toured Phoenix, Arizona. From February 6-9, their ensembles performed at Thunderbird SDA Academy and Elementary, Glenview SDA Academy, Paradise Valley SDA Church, Adventist Worship Center SDA Church, and Camelback SDA Church. “We had wonderful performances,” said Ronnie Zanella, PUC’s associate music professor. “Both our groups performed at a very high level of musicianship.” The two groups, comprised of 15 students, showcased different performances at each academy and church, while some students also led out in praise at academies. Seven pieces were performed by the Mosaic String Ensemble, while the Vox Pro Musica sang five songs. They held shorter performances at academies while performing a complete concert program over the weekend, with some pieces combining the groups.Zanella shared that the men from Vox Pro Musica learned a quartet piece by the Heritage Singers hours before their concert at Camelback Church and performed it well. “It was interesting to discover all of them have the same interest in this more traditional type of acapella male quartet music,” he said. “It’s also amazing to see how trips like these really bond our students, and us faculty to them as well, creating a safe and fun...

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PUC’s Nursing Department Strengthens Program by Purchasing an Anatomage Table

Posted by Ally Romanes on March 4, 2025

The nursing department at Pacific Union College is thrilled to have new equipment that will help shape and strengthen its students’ education experience. Using Song-Brown funds—grant money funded by the California Department of Health Care Access and Information, supporting nursing schools and workforce expansion in California—PUC's nursing department was able to purchase an anatomy table that students can start using in the new year. This state-of-the-art technology is the most advanced human-based medical education system, offering digitized human cadavers and medical tools. Currently, 80 colleges, universities, and medical programs across California utilize the table. For PUC, the anatomage table will better prepare pre-nursing students to take required prerequisite courses like biology, chemistry, microbiology, anatomy, and physiology. “We felt this table and the resource of having five human cadavers would be beneficial not just in pre-nursing but also as the students progress into nursing,” said PUC Dean of Nursing & Health Science Kimberly Dunker. “For the visual learners, this is an opportunity to utilize case study learning and understand and critically think about a medical problem but also visualize this problem in the body. It is a great way to incorporate teaching and learning for all types of learners.”In addition to...

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