Academics

A global pandemic didn’t stop the College of Nursing and Health Care Professions from helping its graduate students — all working nurses — move one step closer to completing their master’s degrees. The college worked hard to make the three-day summer residencies for Family Nurse Practitioner and Acute Care Nurse Practitioner as COVID-19-safe as possible. Despite the current health climate, “Most of the students said, ‘I’ll still be there,'” said Stephanie Herrick Kays, Graduate Simulation Coordinator.

Beakers, goggles and graduated cylinders have long made their homes in countless chemistry labs. But not this summer, at least not in Dr. Kimberly Horsley’s introductory chemistry class. She wanted to find out if some lab activities could be done at home, and COVID-19 presented a unique opportunity to test the at-home-lab-experiment waters. Her CHM-113 students received lab kits in the mail, assembled by the College of Science, Engineering and Technology’s lab team, and the remote chemistry opportunity was on.

They analyzed blood spatter and DNA. They did toxicology screenings. And they studied together and helped each other pass their Forensic Science classes. Now David Carillo, Emily Helmes and Hannah David, who received their bachelor’s degrees from GCU in April, are doing one more thing together: They’re all headed to the same graduate school. It shows not only the strength of GCU’s Forensic Science program but how close-knit its students are. “Students form strong friendships that elevate their performance in classes,” said Dr. Melissa Beddow, program director. “When one starts to fall, the others rally around to lift each other up.”

Christian Worldview 101 often inspires students, and now they have another class that could expand their faith. Beginning with the fall semester, Christian Life: The Way of Jesus will help them apply their faith to their career. “I think it will be good for students in any program,” said Brett Berger, part of the three-man committee that crafted the CWV 316 curriculum.

Lynette Stant grew up on a Navajo Reservation. She remembers being at her mother’s side to make tortillas, only later realizing that through those experiences she was learning fractions. That came in handy as the Arizona Teacher of the Year and GCU alumna helped teachers this spring find ways to reach students who faced online barriers during emergency remote learning.

How students would perform in their classes during a pandemic — that was a big unknown. But now that the semester has wrapped up, GCU’s leaders were thrilled to hear how their students did. Compared to the same time last year, their course completion rates improved, meaning more students passed their courses. Also, a larger percentage of faculty members received high marks from students this year compared to last year on end-of-course surveys. Those numbers were the final measure of all the University’s distance-learning efforts, said Provost Dr. Hank Radda. “It’s sort of the piece at the end of the story, about everything we did all those weeks ago when we began the transition to online.”

Forget the Freshman 15. A new weight-gain worry is cropping up among adults called the Quarantine 15 — the weight that people have been gaining since they’ve been sheltering at home. But Dr. Zach Zeigler, Associate Professor in the Health Science Department of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, said the habits that are predictors for weight gain in this stressful time can be changed. His coronavirus weight-gain academic paper — he shares credits with six student researchers — was published recently by the journal Obesity Research & Clinical Practice.

The Technology Department continues to help build the nation’s cybersecurity community, thanks to a $100,000 grant awarded by the National Security Agency and National Science Foundation. The GenCyber grant will be used to support a free summer camp on the GCU campus in 2021 designed to help high school educators teach cybersecurity. “We’re in trouble if we’re not creating the next generation,” said Dr. Heather Monthie, Associate Dean of Technology in the College of Science, Engineering and Technology.

What makes Dr. Brandon O’Neil’s doctoral degree so interesting is where he conducted his dissertation defense: via Zoom while he was on Air Force deployment in Saudi Arabia — and, on top of that, under the threat of a missile attack. Fortunately, it all went well.

Lynette Collins has brought her real-world experience to her GCU online classes in social sciences and education for 10 years. The adjunct instructor was selected as the featured teacher for April in Honored, a nonprofit that promotes excellent teaching. But you’ll also see her the latest season of “Girls Incarcerated” on Netflix. Here’s why.