Colangelo College of Business

Photos by David Kadlubowski GCU News Bureau The Friday afternoon ceremony of spring commencement at Grand Canyon University featured 912 online graduates from the Colangelo College of Business, the College of Fine Arts and Production, the College of Nursing and Health Care Professions, the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, and the College of Theology. To watch a replay of the ceremony, click here.     

It’s a day of celebration on campus, but spring commencement 2019 is about more than just conferring degrees on worthy graduates. It also is another reminder of the sense of community that fills the campus. “One of the things that I’ve appreciated the most about that growth is just seeing how the culture of who we are has remained intact,” ASGCU President Noah Wolfe said.

The Eta Chi chapter of Delta Mu Delta, the international business honor society, keeps growing by leaps and bounds, and Monday afternoon it officially inducted another large group. The event wrapped up a big year highlighted by achieving Star Chapter status, signifying that it is in the top 5% of chapters.

The idea for the April issue of GCU Magazine actually was hatched in 2015, when we told the stories of some of the incoming students in the Class of 2019. Now they’re graduating, and it was time to see what their four years were like. The answer: It was a head-spinning time of growth, both on campus and for the students themselves. This issue also features the University’s first graduates from its engineering program and its Students Inspiring Students initiative, a look at how GCU teaches computer programming differently, the heartwarming story of Jesse Dalla Riva‘s transformation from drug addict to graduate, and a My LopeLife piece by another 2019 grad. There’s more: what’s ahead for the GCU men’s basketball program, the increasingly important communication tool utilized by online instructors and students, and yet another heartwarming story — this one on recent GCU Hall of Fame inductee Sharky Baker. To read the digital version, click here.  

A large gathering turned out Thursday night for the Latino Student Union’s meeting, which featured a talk by award-winning journalist Mary Rabago and a performance Costa Rican accordion player Tatiano Crespo, whose appearance at TEDxGrandCanyonUniversity was such a hit. It was just another sign of the success the Latino Student Union is having with its inclusive approach.

Learning and Living Communities are designed for GCU freshmen who prefer to share a residence hall room, suite or floor with students of similar academic interests. Along with the connections they make organically, there are organized activities in Juniper Hall, the building housing six LLC’s: Honors, Colangelo College of Business (CCOB), College of Science, Engineering and Technology (CSET), psychology from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS), and nursing and athletic training through the College of Nursing and Health Care Professions (CONHCP). “It has a different feel,” Kayla Warren said of her freshman year in Juniper. “It is academically centered, where we were all in the same mindset.”

As the Colangelo College of Business Building wraps up its first academic year, it’s interesting to look back at how the 150,000-square-foot structure has centralized everything the college is doing. But one thing hasn’t changed: It’s “Lopes First” commitment.

The new roller hockey rink in the Canyon Activities Complex opened Thursday, and it didn’t take long for members of the club hockey teams to feel right at home. They figure to soon be joined by lots of other students enjoying the facility, built and funded by the Arizona Coyotes. It’s another sign of the hockey team’s growing relationship with the University.

Areahna O’Rea spent more than two years preparing her startup idea, Ninjobi, for the Canyon Challenge, and it paid off Wednesday morning when she took home the $5,000 awarded the winner of the competition. Not only was her presentation well done — one of the judges, Dan Schultz, described her job-placement application as “something unique.”

Washington High School senior Juan Ballez has watched his father struggle with mobility in his hand and, for years, wished there was a way he could help. Now, on the cusp of graduating, he thinks he knows a way — by becoming a biomedical engineer. His dream of helping people, like his father, came closer to fruition Tuesday at GCU, when he found out he was one of 43 students in the neighborhood surrounding GCU to receive the Students Inspiring Students scholarship. “It feels like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders,” said Juan after receiving the scholarship, which covers four years of tuition and books. “… I was determined. I was like, I can’t have my parents pay for it (college). I don’t want that burden on them.”