Colleges

Members of the College of Education are praying for Joe Popma, an adjunct faculty member since 1994 who is battling cancer. Popma, who has been teaching for 66 years, worked as faculty in GCU’s first distance learning program, which delivered content via VHS tape, and helped develop GCU’s first online program, M.Ed. in Education Administration. He also was a faculty supervisor for teacher candidates as well as principal interns.

GCU alumni Felipe Reyes, Dylan Santos and Kevin Llamas created FADES, an app designed to make getting a haircut easier. Their ultimate goal is to link customers with mobile barbers. “It’s going to take some time (to educate people to use the app and to go mobile), but people weren’t doing taxes on their phone not too long ago, either,” Reyes said.

This year’s Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival showcased how much talent the College of Fine Arts and Production’s Theater Department really has. Three GCU students made it to the semifinals in their respective regional categories, and two took second place. Some students even came home with scholarships and job interviews. “We had teachers as well as students from all kinds of other schools stop us a number of times and tell us how impressed they were with our students,” COFAP Assistant Dean William Symington said.

Walk just about anywhere in the Milwaukee Brewers’ complex in Maryvale and you’re going to see purple-shirted GCU students working in the concession stands — they make up about 80 percent of the staff. Many of them are hospitality management majors, but they come from programs all over the University and have two things in common: They like to serve, and they’re getting great experience while also enjoying the opportunity to be at a ballpark every day.

Adrianna Gavazzo could have celebrated her eighth birthday anywhere — at her favorite pizza place, at an arcade or at a theme park. Instead, she told her mom she wanted to have her party at Run to Fight Children’s Cancer. She and about 50 of her family and friends gathered at Run to Fight on Saturday on the GCU campus for cupcakes and to hit the 5K course in honor of Cavazzo, who is now cancer-free. She was just one of hundreds of runners and volunteers who participated in the event, the largest Arizona race of its kind bringing awareness to pediatric cancer.

Students did a number on GCU’s math professors Thursday on the Promenade as they hurled pies in their face to recognize National Pi Day. The event, which also included a bake sale, complete with pies of a different kind, was organized by GCU’s new Math Ed Club to celebrate math. Associate Professor Ben VanDerLinden acknowledged how the United States performs poorly when it comes to math but is looking to the next generation of math teachers, like the ones in the club, to change that course. “These guys care,” he said.

As Grand Canyon University prepares for Run to Fight Children’s Cancer, when some 3,000 runners, volunteers and more will be on campus, the University’s Sports Medicine Club is also getting ready to take their place at the event, as they have since 2017, making sure runners’ health is well taken care of. As it turns out, March is also National Athletic Training Month, so stop by and say hi to the athletic trainers and athletic training students on campus that day.

All the world’s a stage, as Shakespeare said, and GCU’s Theatre Department is taking that to heart with a new theatre troupe, Parables, which will leave the comforts of the GCU campus and take the show on the road, so to speak, to local schools in the community. What’s also different about this performance group, actually made up of two ensembles, is that its main focus is to spread the Gospel through theatre.

Fifteen beautiful pieces of choreography premiered at the Spring Student Spotlight Dance Concert on Tuesday night in Thunderground. The show offers choreography in several different styles of dance, showcasing the wide range of talent coming out of GCU’s Dance program. The second and final night of the concert starts at 7:30 today.

Lopes Leap to Teach always draws a lot of school district representatives eager to hire GCU students. The vibe at Thursday’s event centered on the importance of creating teachers who are leaders and can fit into a faculty well — a specialty for GCU’s College of Education. Howard Paley of the Isaac School District said he has found that GCU students are “much more willing to accept a broad variety of colleagues. … They’re looking for a good team.”