College of Nursing & Health Care Professions

Grand Canyon University employees are top of the class. Community Outreach Manager Debbie Accomazzo knows this, and it’s why she didn’t panic when Habitat volunteering was low a couple of weeks ago. All she had to do was put out one call, and nearly 60 volunteers answered. On Friday, 25 of those trustworthy employees were at a house on 43rd Avenue. It was GCU’s second trip to the home, where employees helped with putting a new roof on the first time and painted this time.

There are times when all someone needs is a little helping hand. That’s the case for Fernanda Munoz, a senor nursing student at GCU and a single mother of two. The nonprofit organization Helping Hands for Single Moms has taken Munoz under its wing, providing her with a scholarship to get her degree and additional services to make her dreams a reality. Munoz says her children are the driving force behind her education: “My daughter, she is so little, and she is so proud of me.”

A mixture of logical debate strategies for pro-life arguments and anecdotes about the sanctity of human life highlighted GCU’s second annual Bioethics Conference, Human Dignity: Clash of World Views. One speaker refused to abort her daughter and refused to use stem cells from fetuses to aid her brain damaged son. Another speaker shared heartfelt steps to ease grief from the loss of a newborn.

The second annual Bioethics Conference, titled “Human Dignity: Clash of World Views,” is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 20, at GCU Arena and the First Southern Baptist Church.

GCU is always evolving, with new buildings rising up and offices and colleges moving to new spaces. All the change makes for an interesting first-day of class. The GCU News team fanned out on Monday to talk to students, professors and even the Success Patrol and Academic Career Excellence Centers, who there there to make sure students found their classrooms.

The College of Nursing and Health Care Professions hosted an open house Thursday to showcase the well-planned upgrades in the college’s new home, the Natural Sciences Building. The second floor features a simulation lab with nine clinical rooms for use by the college’s family nurse practitioner students, while the third floor holds an immersive simulation lab and a skills lab for pre-licensure and acute-care nurse practitioner students.

You wouldn’t normally expect to find onesies, high-heeled shoes or Burt’s Bees at a college retail store, but you will find those things peppered among the notebooks, binders and a sea of purple T-shirts at the new Lope Shop. The store, which touts Champion and Nike concept areas, a tech area, boutique and more, opened Wednesday at its new 9,500-square-foot space on the Promenade. With its floor-to-ceiling glass display windows and modern, open feel, it’s a far cry different from its much smaller space — only one-fifth as big — on Lopes Way.

For the second consecutive year, GCU made the top 10 of Niche’s Best College Campuses list, scoring a No. 7 ranking (up from No. 8 last year) for its college life — and the accolades don’t end there. The University also is No. 6 on the Best Dorms in America list and No. 7 in Best Online Colleges.

A GCU online learner has been nominated for an excellence in clinical research award by the hospital at which she works. Jean Cheek, forensic nurse examiner coordinator at Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, said the health system has implemented changes based on her research at GCU.

In 1978, Ray Arvizu led the Lopes to an NAIA basketball national championship. His impact on the community easily could have stopped there. But Arvizu dove into charity work in his hometown of Phoenix and for the past 14 years has run an event at GCU called Ninos Seguros. The back-to-school giveaway has a mission of teaching childhood safety and brings together the diverse community of Phoenix for a day of fun.