College of Nursing & Health Care Professions

Purple and white leis and necklaces intertwined with shells are popular accessories at commencement ceremonies, but Kathy Taula was sporting the all-time champion of leis Friday afternoon: garlands of white carnations and orchids and a flower garland of yellow carnations in her hair, plus a garland of dollar bills that covered at least a third of her face.

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.     

Photos by David Kadlubowski GCU News Bureau A total of 865 students from the College of Nursing and Health Care Professions, the College of Science, Engineering and Technology and the College of Theology received their degrees Thursday evening at Grand Canyon University’s spring commencement. To watch a full replay, click here.  

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.  

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

Saturday’s Hall of Fame ceremony showcased several of GCU’s most inspiring stories from alumni who have made a impact on their communities and careers throughout the years. One of this years inductees was Reginald Freeman, who received his masters from GCU in 2008. Since Freeman has surpassed numerous milestones in the Firefighting field and continues to give back to his community in Hartford Connecticut. This year’s other inductees included Randi (Johns) Riggs, Hagir Elsheikh, George Holm, and Sharky Baker.

Hagir Elsheikh, one of five inductees into the GCU Hall of Fame on Saturday, is a domestic violence activist and TV and radio talk show host in Pennsylvania and has founded a staffing agency and a nonprofit that helps victims of violence. But long before she accomplished any of that, she had to flee the political violence in Sudan and survive domestic violence in her own life. She was an online nursing student before getting her degree in 2012, and she visit campus for the first time Saturday.