Grand Canyon University is elevating parents as key voices in national conversations on higher education. Early in the summer break, the GCU Parent Council took its support to Washington, D.C., turning family experience into a new kind of advocacy.
Over four days, parents from eight states walked the halls of Congress, sat in on higher education panels and met with the administration’s faith office, offering personal stories instead of memos. Their message to lawmakers and staffers offered firsthand accounts of how the university’s approach to affordability, community impact and faith are changing their students’ lives.
“There’s so much about GCU that people don’t know until they talk to families,” said Trish Pullin, vice president of the Parent Council. “This gave us a chance to explain what we’re doing on affordability, workforce preparation and community development in Phoenix and around the country.”
The 13 parents, joined by three GCU-affiliated staff members, represented a sampling of the university’s national footprint, with families from Arizona, Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, Wyoming, California and North Carolina. Their itinerary included back-to-back congressional visits, a higher education forum at the American Enterprise Institute, a meeting in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and after-hours tours of landmark institutions, including the United States Capitol.
In meetings across nearly 20 congressional offices, parents advocated for GCU by showcasing its community and economic impact. They highlighted local business and law enforcement partnerships that fast-track students into West Phoenix jobs, plus an unprecedented 18-year campus tuition freeze.
“When Grand Canyon University wanted leaders in the nation’s capital to understand its impact, it turned to the people who feel it most: parents. Their feedback carries a different kind of weight because it’s rooted in what they’ve seen in their own homes,” said Dana Drew Shaw, GCU’s vice president of government relations. She led the trip with Director of Welcome Programs Garrett Abeyta and Sarah Collins, a former congressional chief of staff who now serves as general counsel for Grand Canyon Education.
“At a time when there’s skepticism about higher ed, legislators want to know what the future should look like,” Shaw said. “Our parents can speak to that firsthand. They see what’s happening on campus and in their students’ lives.”
Pullin, who lives in North Carolina, met with the office of Sen. Ted Budd, who serves on a Senate entrepreneurship subcommittee. There she emphasized GCU’s growing ecosystem for student entrepreneurs, including a dedicated campus space for startups and students who have taken their ventures onto the television show “Shark Tank.”
Beyond Capitol Hill, the parent delegation stepped into the broader civics conversation. At the American Enterprise Institute, they listened as panelists dissected national trends in higher education affordability, and access and regulation – the same issues parents had been addressing one-on-one in congressional offices.
A stop at the Museum of the Bible and a private night tour of the U.S. Capitol, where they stood on the House floor where votes are cast, added to the trip. But it was the meeting with the administration’s faith office, housed in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the West Wing, that left the biggest impact on Pullin and other parents.
Faith office leaders outlined their work supporting faith-based organizations and placing faith-focused advisers in federal departments. In turn, the GCU parents asked how they could pray for national leaders and for the challenges facing the administration.
“Being able to ask those questions there was really meaningful. That moment captured what makes this kind of advocacy unique. It’s not just about policy positions, it’s about who we are as a Christian university engaging civic life,” said Pullin. “I think it left a strong impact. We got to share things about GCU they didn’t know, and they could see the excitement from the parents. When decisions are being made about higher education, I hope they remember the families they met.”
The parent trip fit alongside a broader set of initiatives aimed at making GCU a hub for civic engagement. The university hosts a voting precinct on campus and will welcome voters for Tuesday’s primary elections. In September, GCU will host a civics conference. The Canyon Civic Institute sends student fellows into K-12 schools for civil discourse training, and it takes student-focused trips to Capitol Hill.
GCU News senior writer Jason Gonzalez can be reached at [email protected].
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