The Beacon presents a photo series on summer missions trips: A view from China

Check out the Beacon’s first of many photo series on the PBA summer missions trips taking place all summer long. All shots feature students and are taken by students who went on the trips in various locations around the world. Stay tuned for more!

Junior Hannah Huffer has provided the Beacon with some of her snap shots from her trip to China with the PBA missions team. Check them out below.

Did you go on a Summer missions trip with PBA? Send us your photos for your chance to be featured in our summer missions series! Send in your best photos to beacon@pba.edu or to mitzi.fig@gmail.com stating that you give the Beacon permission to use your photos. Don’t forget to include your name, your year,  and a bit of information about your trip (what was your favorite part? What was your job? etc).

Spending the summer in WPB? Looking for something to do?

Beacon editor Jen Herring has started a new blog dedicated to West Palm Beach nightlife, events and entertainment! For all of you who are spending the summer in West Palm Beach or the South Florida region, she will be updating the site with suggestions of how to beat the rainy blues and who will be hosting hot summer events!

Check it out here!

A view from Haiti

Beacon contributor Cheyanne Lent spent her Spring Break, along with a group of students, on a missions trip to Haiti. Every year, PBA sends students around the world to different countries during the Spring and Summer breaks. Spring Break ’09 trips included missions to locations such as Ireland, Brazil, Peru and Haiti.

Check out Lent’s slideshow of the trip and her behind the scenes photos of the team’s experience here!

For more on the Spring missions trips, check out the Beacon’s archived coverage.

Did you recently get back from a summer’s missions trip? Send us your photos at beacon@pba.edu!

Finals make you want to jump off a bridge?

Sure, finals are stressful and they can make you want to pull out your hair. But we were down right shocked to see this video of a group of freshman jump off Okeechobee bridge.

Thankfully, no one got hurt doing the stunt but the group was sternly reprimanded by police.

Oh and for the record, maybe the stunt wasn’t the smartest thing to do but the group did share a prayer before anyone took the leap off the bridge. 

* The Beacon newspaper does not encourage dangerous behavior* 

It’s midnight somewhere, Happy Finals Week

Yep, it’s that time of year again. Finals week means more than late nights and crowded study rooms. It’s also the time in the semester when the cafeteria opens up at 9 p.m. for a free cafeteria-style breakfast, just in time for your evening coffee fix. Check out the photo gallery to see the traditional Midnight Breakfast frenzy.

Mahanes sit-in protest update: Protest cancelled

Update: The sit-in protest scheduled to take place tomorrow at 11 a.m. is canceled. Protest organizers released this statement on the Facebook group page regarding the change.

In lieu of and in respect to the wishes of Dr. Mahanes, the protest tomorrow will not be taking place, all members of this group have been notified of the adjusted nature of the events on Tuesday.

The silent sit-in protest was called shortly after a letter sent to university faculty and staff was published on The Bacon that outlined the details of budget cutbacks that would terminated Dr. Ken Mahanes’ position as Vice President of Religious Life.  The Facebook group calling for the protest urged students to wear black, bring signs and invite everyone to a sit-in protest at 11 a.m. on the Rinker Green May 5. During its short lifetime, the group grew to 266 members.

Stay tuned for more breaking updates on the Mahanes protest and other news.

A commentary on the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency

Beacon contributor Marissa Barkey, reflects on the Obama administration and the president’s first 100 days in office.

After studying abroad in a European culture that embraced our new leadership, I came back to PBA, and it was the first time I saw the highest amount of disappointment of our new President. I was taken back when I heard one student say he believed Obama was a terrorist. President Barack Obama’s first 100 days are concluding. As I might mutter admiration for Obama’s term, clearly, I cannot forget to acknowledge that America is in big trouble.

One of the major questions we face is whether the crises we are all confronting require or demand a seismic shift in order to keep the American ship afloat. I have felt a deep ambivalence about this since I first started to take in what Obama meant. However, as the depth of corruption of the last decade is slowly revealing itself in many places, I still find myself persuaded by Obama that this is the time for real government action.