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For the first time, GCU has rolled out its first Formula SAE race car. The GCU Formula SAE Team, which has been fabricating the small-scale version of a Formula vehicle since January, worked all weekend to get the car ready for the Lincoln Formula SAE competition, which runs from Wednesday to Sunday in Nebraska. A team of about 20 will be recognized with a send-off event at 1 p.m. today outside the Engineering Building. Once they reach the competition, they will be competing against 79 other university teams — around 1,300 undergraduate and graduate students — from not only the United States but countries such as Mexico, Brazil and Canada.

When his daughters Mackenzie and Madison headed to school for a new year, Kevin Scruggs knew that someday he would want to see those moments again. So he filmed his daughters on those first days of school, every year — and they’ve gone viral. The videos, put together in time-lapse montages, have been viewed by more than 100 million people. “You get tears. There is a lot wrapped up in that video,” said Scruggs of his latest video of younger daughter Madison, who is an incoming freshman at GCU (Mackenzie graduated from GCU in April). “As a dad, you get to see her life play out in a minute.”

Few people know more about the history of GCU than Faith Weese, whose has led a half dozen departments during her more than 30 years of service to GCU. And few people know as much as Facilities Manager Rich Oesterle when it comes to what buildings are going up next on campus. Weese and Oesterle, who have been called two of the most beloved employees at GCU, are retiring and were honored Wednesday with a party that Weese said felt more like a reunion of family and friends.

The Canyon Activities Complex is as huge as an airport hanger — for hoopsters who want to fly. It’s the first summer as home to Grand Canyon University’s eight basketball camps.
Earlier this month, when 160 kids entered the CAC to see 10 full basketball courts in the new, 136,000-square-foot facility, their jaws dropped. Parents were impressed, too.
“This building is amazing,” said Fabian Spencer, of Ahwatukee. “When we walked into this building, we said you don’t see this too often, maybe in California.”

The 160 athletes, ages 6-14, warmed up with jumping jacks and running drills, right after GCU assistant basketball coach Chris Crevelone provided inspiration: “Get better today. Get better tomorrow. Then you will reach your goals.”

Ashley Longoria has never been the kind of person to let anything slow down her quest to chase her dreams, even something as life-changing as adding another member to her growing family. Longoria asked to defend her doctoral dissertation early in order to complete her program before the birth of her third child. With barely more than a week to spare before her due date, Longoria successfully passed her Doctor of Education degree in Organizational Leadership program and then welcomed Declan Longoria into the world.

GCE Curriculum Developer Ruth Douthitt ran in college, but it wasn’t until she turned 40 that she returned to competitive running and entered her first marathon. Twelve years later and she has competed in six full marathons and four ultra marathons — a passion she writes about in two stories included in “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Running for Good.” The book, being released today, combines two things she loves — running and writing. Douthitt also has written 11 children’s books.

There is very little known about the mysterious “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” that has formed and continued to grow every year, but two GCU alum’s and their fellow expedition boat crew are determined to show the world what is really going on in the ocean. COFAP Graduates Joshua Munoz (class of 2015) and Corbin Marshall (Class of 2016) have both found homes in Hawaii since graduating, and will be embarking on a journey with several scientist, French-born long-distance swimmer Ben Lecomte and several others on what they are calling “The Vortex Swim” starting Tomorrow and continuing until September. Lecomte will be swimming for eight hours a day for 100 days to make up a total of 300 nautical miles, all while his crew collects data, tracks plastic movement and studies the effects of the plastic on surrounding ocean life. Munoz and Marshall will be aboard documenting the whole expedition via photography and videography, all while also taking shifts manning the helm and assisting with data collecting. Links to follow the journey of Munoz, Marshall and the rest of the crew throughout the process will be located within the story.

“Is this seaweed?” asked one second-grader on Tuesday morning at the new Learning Lounge at the Milwaukee Brewers’ baseball complex before diving into the other items nestled in a bucket before her: feathers, seashells, a crab leg. It was just one of the science activities that kept second- through fifth-graders busy at the Learning Lounge Science Camp. It’s one of two one-week camps at the new Brewers Learning Lounge, opened to expand GCU’s outreach into the community, which will be followed by two more one-week camps on the GCU campus Learning Lounge this June.

GCU’s first academic year in its return to nonprofit status was filled with so many important stories, picking just 10 was a challenging exercise for the GCU Today staff. Here’s how we voted, with links to the many stories that are worth revisiting.

It has been about three years since Michael Kary self-published what he once thought to be journals, and now his book, “Acting in Faith: A Christian’s Guide,” is being published by Kendall Hunt Publishing and distributed to other Christian institutions across the country. In it, Kary teaches students that they can still be proud Christians while also excelling in the acting profession. Kary believes that differences between the entertainment industry and Christianity have led to both sides holding misunderstood views about each other and hopes his book will help clear up some of the misconceptions that exist.