Archive for March, 2015

By Rick Vacek GCU News Bureau The new tennis and golf course management programs at Grand Canyon University will give students opportunities to learn all aspects of their respective industries — not just the role of teaching professional. Both 120-credit curriculums will be incorporated into the University’s new hospitality program, also being rolled out in the fall by the Colangelo College of Business. (For more on that program, click here.) The tennis management program, the first of its kind among NCAA Division I schools, will align with the pillars of the United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA) and will cover the skills needed to manage tennis operations, including facility management, merchandising, event planning and introduction to food and beverage management. The golf course program, which will include access to newly renovated Maryvale Golf Course when it reopens in October, will be the same idea: There will be a heavy emphasis on learning how to be a general manager of a public, private or resort-style course, a role that GCU women’s golf coach Don Powers called “the strength of the industry.” Students who love to play tennis or golf certainly will have a lot of opportunities to do so. They will be taught […]

The new Hospitality Management program in the Colangelo College of Business is scheduled to start in the fall semester, coinciding with the opening of the Grand Canyon University Hotel at I-17 and Camelback Road. GCU Today has a look at the new program and the man who will lead it, service industry veteran Brett Cortright.

This week’s Antelope Intros feature a new employee who had a unique way of preparing for her first exams in college and another who has gone to great lengths to devote her life to the care of children.

Grand Canyon University’s speech and debate team is sending 12 students to the Pi Kappa Delta national forensics championships in Ohio this week.

By Janie Magruder GCU News Bureau Life was too short for McKenzie Monks. A born performer, youngest child of Denise and Richard Monks and part of a mutual admiration society with her two  older siblings, McKenzie was diagnosed with kidney cancer at age 3. Despite aggressive treatments, she died before she  could get to kindergarten. “She went through so much and her life was taken far too soon,” said sister Mandy Monks, a student at Grand Canyon University. “The lessons she taught us — to always be grateful for your blessings and tell the people you love — changed our entire outlook on life. We wanted to do something to have her name live on.” Ten years ago, the family started the McKenzie Monks Foundation, which has donated $1 million to open the Kenzie Center in Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s (PCH) Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders and has given 2,000 wheeled suitcases filled with age- and gender-appropriate toys and comfort items to children diagnosed with cancer there. Called Kenzie Kases, the suitcases are patterned after McKenzie’s pink Hello Kitty bag that she took to the hospital for every treatment. The Monks plan to join an estimated 4,500 people on GCU’s main […]

Story by Janie Magruder Photos by Darryl Webb GCU Today Magazine They grew up worlds apart, one in Swaziland with missionary parents and four siblings, the other in a smaller military family that over the years lived on more than a dozen Air Force bases in the United States. Their paths to Grand Canyon University’s College of Nursing and Health Care Professions also were divergent. The science enthusiast toured GCU’s campus as a high school student, was intrigued by the cadaver lab and enrolled as a freshman, while the athlete transferred as a college senior after the future of her school’s track and field program became muddy. But once they met, Bekah Hansz and Lauren Graham discovered they had much in common. They were the same age and came to GCU from the same city, Colorado Springs. They shared career aspirations in nursing and were interested in the military, specifically, Army ROTC. And now, the two women share the honor of being named distinguished military graduates — Graham in 2013 and Hansz in 2014 — by the U.S. Army. As such, they were among the top 10 percent of cadets in their respective classes, competing not only with other students […]

Grand Canyon University swimmers Illya Glazunov and Stanislav Saiko of Ukraine rely on one another and other teammates from Ukraine when the war in their home country becomes tough to bear. Twin brother Youssef and Mazen Elkamash of Egypt, two other swimmers, also understand their grief and help when they can.

The latest edition of GCU Today Magazine — spotlighting a successful collaboration between the University’s College of Education and the Rodel Foundation of Arizona that is benefitting tomorrow’s classroom teachers — is available here. The March issue also has a story about GCU’s blossoming Center for Worship Arts, a feature on international students who share a love of swimming and the heartbreak of strife in their homelands and an article on the progress of the University’s incorporation of blended learning into its curriculum. Other content includes a story about top ROTC nursing graduates Bekah Hansz and Lauren Graham, a feature about GCU alumna Marla Booker who is helping to reinvent health care in Qatar, and an article about the 2015 Alumni Hall of Fame inductees.

Preston Morrison, pastor of Gateway Church in Scottsdale, told the Chapel crowd Monday morning to listen up — to God, that is. To get Prayer Week going, Morrison talked about the three purposes of prayer and said it is critical to listen to what God is telling you.

GCU introduced a new blended learning format to a number of undergraduate classes during summer 2014 as a way to reinvent 100-level classes to be more engaging and valuable as core degree courses. The format, which combines the best elements of online and traditional classes, has already impacted student learning.