Honors College

The Honors College, which started as a student community of 59 in 2013, has grown to become GCU’s ninth college and this fall welcomed more than 1,000 freshmen, bringing its total to more than 2,250 with no signs of slowing down. “As the culture shifts year after year, as we get these new waves of exceptional leaders coming in, each year can look like a completely different story,” Associate Dean Breanna Naegeli said.

Move-In gets the year started off right for incoming GCU students, but it has the same effect on the volunteers who help them. Whether they’re helping for the first time or are seniors and have done it every year, they treasure the excitement. “It’s my third year, and it’s always the same energy,” said one.

Welcome Week at GCU is many things besides the wild scene at Move-In. Incoming students get acclimated to the campus in a variety of ways through activities that go well into the evening, and this year they’ll get to try out an interesting new one — Silent Disco.

It’s not every day that a university accepts the incoming application of a 15-year-old applicant, but Shreya Muthu isn’t your everyday student. Muthu skipped both eighth grade and her sophomore year of high school and will attend GCU for the fall semester. “I’m super excited, I love the atmosphere here and I’m excited to see the opportunities that it brings me,” she said.

Through four different trips this summer, 79 Honors College students benefited from some eye-opening experiences in 13 different countries in Europe, Central America and Southeast Asia. “You can see that these students start to think on a global perspective,” Program Manager Dennis Williams said. “They start to think about the world as a whole and start to think about ways that, whatever it is that they do, how they can have an impact in their local community in whatever way, in our nation but even globally.”

When Luke Elliott started his internship with Avnet this summer, his main interest was strategy. But then the Honors College senior and a co-worker competed at an event where they had to brainstorm, design and create an app, and they won the Salesforce Most Innovative Team award. “It’s definitely a good reinforcement and kind of solidification that I’m doing well, and this is where I belong,” he said.

When Brian Mucyo was 6, his parents had to send their son to a country more medically equipped to care for the deterioration of his vision. With only 10% visibility left in his left eye and a prosthetic eye for his right, Mucyo lived in Belgium for several years before moving to America to complete high school and eventually enroll at GCU. Now he’s an Honors College student and uses the skills he has developed in his travels (specifically, the four languages he now speaks fluently) to help other international students create the confidence to speak and learn English.

Jacqueline Thomas competed in the Miss Arizona competition regularly during her time at GCU, finishing second in 2018, and now she has taken the next step. She won the title last weekend and will represent Arizona as she vies for the Miss America title. She credits GCU’s Honors College for helping her succeed. “Everything that I did once I joined the Honors College, from internships to jobs to other extra-curricular activities or opportunities within the Miss Arizona organization, was all because of the foundation that the Honors College laid out for me,” she said.

Honors College students gathered in GCU Arena on Saturday night to celebrate all of their achievements during the 2018-19 academic year. Assistant Dean Breanna Naegeli said the Honors banquet is one of her favorite events of the year. “It allows us all an opportunity to take a moment to reflect upon and acknowledge all the exceptional work and efforts of our students. These students not only take Honors courses and commit to the rigor in the classroom, but they continually go above and beyond outside of the classroom as well,” she said.

It was innovation on parade at the Engineering Building on Thursday, where dozens of computer science, computer programming and mechanical, electrical and biomedical students on about 35 teams presented their yearlong projects as part of the Engineering and Technology Capstone Showcase.