Honors College

Like everything else during the pandemic, the Academic Career & Excellence Centers — the go-to spots on campus for free peer-to-peer tutoring — went virtual, offering up academic support via a cable and computer screen. But the ACE Centers have returned to offering in-person academic help at its six locations, including a new location at the Colangelo College of Business.

For a university that places such a high emphasis on giving back to the community, adding GCU’s first annual Day of Giving to the calendar just made sense. More than 2,000 donations were made during the 24-hour blitz and will help fund a number of valuable causes on campus. “I’m really impressed with how many donors are interested in giving back to the community here,” Director of Annual Giving Cherylann Galdi said. “As Christians, we have a heart for others, and it really showed today.”

The Honors College has grown so much in the last eight years, one day dedicated to service events wasn’t enough. This week, it hosted its first Commitment to Service Week, providing an opportunity for multiple Honors clubs to volunteer at nonprofit organizations. “We just wanted to integrate service much more heavily and integrate this initiative into the college this semester,” Honors College Program Manager Anya Cofrancesco said. “We just decided to go big and make this a huge campaign. It’s been incredible to see their (students) compassion and just rolling up their sleeves and getting into the community.”

It’s not every day that college students come face to face with a real astronaut, but at GCU it’s just another Monday. During this week’s “A Day in the Life of an Astronaut” panel, Honors students not only got to learn about what life is like in the space exploration field, but also received some valuable advice from panelist and first Korean astronaut Dr. Soyeon Yi. “I can feel how active and passionate for science and space the GCU students are,” she said.

Callista Mendoza always had an interest in politics, even from a young age. So when she decided to come to GCU and her first choice for a degree program wasn’t available, she decided Government was the best fit. That decision would lead her to her most recent opportunity, a contracted position as a field representative for the Leadership Institute.

Every college at GCU has Lopes Live Labs. The final expanded excerpt from the cover story in the August issue of GCU Magazine features the new GCU Recording Lab (College of Theology) as well as labs in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Doctoral Studies and Honors College.

For senior Hailey Borrowdale Mendez, the opportunity to study abroad in Costa Rica and Ecuador for two semesters completely changed her life. In addition to improving her Spanish, her time in Costa Rica also helped strengthen her bond to God and establish a love for a country that she found so delightful, she hopes to return after graduating next spring. “I think it’s beautiful that GCU makes it a priority to have relationships with so many organizations and that they give their students the opportunity to get to know other cultures and to grow their perspective,” she said.

Emma Blair thought she wanted to pursue a career in education, but she discovered a love of politics after the Honors College introduced her to internships. Blair is working as a research intern for Speech First, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., that focuses on free speech on college campuses. It has given her a renewed appreciation for GCU’s emphasis on civil discourse and the First Amendment. “I think that’s one of the things that makes GCU’s campus so incredible,” she said.

Sun, sand and surf are all good, but Paige Petrine is challenging herself this summer in a different way. The Paradise Valley High School senior was furiously jotting down observations from her busy morning in the Biomedical Device Design and Protyping Lab, where GCU Biomedical Professor Dr. Jeff La Belle innovates, designs and protypes medical technologies. She is one of more than a dozen high school students who are part of the inaugural High School STEM Internship Program, developed by K12 Educational Development. They spend eight hours most days researching in various fields, from anatomy to biomedical engineering, software development and health and nutrition. They also sit in on professional development sessions organized by the Honors College. Said Petrine, “The lab is my happy place.”

In an academic year faced with a multitude of obstacles, including a global pandemic, GCU’s National Society of Collegiate Scholars made a name for themselves on a national level. For the second time since 2014, the GCU honors organization was named a Platinum Star Status Chapter for the 2020-2021 academic year and also won the second-place award for Virtual Member Engagement Star Status Merit. “It’s always exciting to achieve such an accomplishment and have this national recognition, but once you set the bar, you have a new bar,” said Honors College Associate Dean and chapter co-advisor Dr. Breanna Naegeli. “It’s not only continuing to meet those standards but to find ways to surpass that each year moving forward.”