Archive for July, 2019

GCU and GCE volunteers fanned out to two homes in the neighborhood on Friday, digging into painting and landscaping projects and defying the July heat. Homeowner Mira Nava recalled the first time Habitat visited her home eight years ago to fix the roof. Her mother was battling cancer at the time and told Nava: “This is a reminder that God is still here.” Andrea Northup, Habitat for Humanity Faith Relations Manager, told Nava: “That’s what GCU lives by — faith.”

Ryan Hatmaker had good reason to want to make the Disneyland All-American College Band: His parents met there long ago while doing their own performances. But there was one problem. The Grand Canyon University snare drummer, who plays for the Thundering Heard Pep Band, was asked to play a different drum at the audition. He had never play the tenor drums — five instead of one. He didn’t panic. He called on his GCU attitude: Smile and have fun.

There will be a lot of laughs in Ethington Theatre this season, and that’s by design. The schedule, which begins Aug. 23 with “One Man, Two Guvnors,” is filled with classic comedies. “Lighthearted,” said Claude Pensis, Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Production, “but still the plays have messages. It’s always a matter of what does the director want to do, and then how does it fit into the program?”

Christopher Crawford and his Grand Canyon University landscape team perform magic every summer. Despite the summer heat, they water, trim and tend hundreds of plants and trees and acres of the grass to keep the campus looking like an oasis in the desert. Making the campus one of the nation’s best also requires careful selection of plants for shade — thank you, ash trees — and for color, such as lantana along the north end of GCU Stadium.

In this week’s Fitness Facts, Connie Colbert has some timely tips on how to eat healthy while traveling. As you might guess, it starts with good planning.

In this week’s Mental Health Vitamin, Dr. Deb Wade takes us out to the ballgame with some thoughts about what it means to have Championship Standards — and how you don’t always need to win to attain them.

When Brian Mucyo was 6, his parents had to send their son to a country more medically equipped to care for the deterioration of his vision. With only 10% visibility left in his left eye and a prosthetic eye for his right, Mucyo lived in Belgium for several years before moving to America to complete high school and eventually enroll at GCU. Now he’s an Honors College student and uses the skills he has developed in his travels (specifically, the four languages he now speaks fluently) to help other international students create the confidence to speak and learn English.

Tim Kelley never stops learning — that’s why he applied for a special summer program at the London School of Economics. But once program organizers saw how much the Assistant Professor for Entrepreneurship and Economics in the Colangelo College of Business knows about angel investing, he actually was asked to speak to the class about it. It’s another sign that GCU’s program is “right on target and on the cutting edge,” Kelley said.

Six weeks from now, thousands of student volunteers for Move-In will arrive, followed shortly thereafter by many more of their peers. Yes, Welcome Week is fast approaching, and it once again promises to be a moving week at GCU.