Colleges

The new GCU Innovation Center now has a director (Robert Vera), a home (Building 66 at 27th Avenue), a slogan (“Create your purpose”) and a GCU-oriented goal — to provide opportunities for both GCU students and local start-ups. Dr. Randy Gibb, Dean of the Colangelo College of Business, calls it “a different way to approach this start-up world.” Vera certainly knows how to approach that world as well as a lot of other ventures. He’s even a best-selling author.

Dave Smith was known as the name reader at every GCU graduation the past seven years. He had seven seconds to read the name card, and often there were names tricky to pronounce. Smith, who retires Monday as Director of Academic Excellence in the College of Education, had the reputation of a detailed man who could pull it off — and he did — along with the complex reports and data collection he helped produce as GCU grew over his 10 years here. “I’ve loved it. It’s probably the best job I’ve had,” Smith said. “I’m a very detailed kind of person, and it fits my personality.”

John Catania was close to completing his engineering degree, even landing an internship. But the deeper he dug into the program, the more he knew he didn’t feel a connection to what he was studying. He had no passion for it. So he switched his career track to nursing — a decision he hasn’t regretted. One moment comes to mind when he knew he was meant to be a nurse. It was when a patient suffered a heart attack while he was making rounds at the hospital, and he helped save the man’s life. Catania, a GCU online student from Port Charlotte, Fla., who is pursuing his master’s degree to become an acute care nurse practitioner, received the national DAISY Award this summer. The award recognizes exceptional nurses for the work they do.

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.

College of Fine Arts and Production graduates Klay Wandelear and Brenna Warren both earned a master’s degree this summer from East 15, a branch of Essex University, and enjoyed the experience so much, they’re staying in England for the time being. They said their time at GCU prepared them well. “I think I would have had a really hard time if I hadn’t spent so much time in Ethington Theatre,” Warren said. “How it worked set me up to be a dedicated and respectful actor.”

For the second straight quarter, GCU’s nursing graduates have posted the highest first-time pass-rate among the state’s major universities on a national licensure examination. They exceeded a 98% first-time pass rate for each of the first two quarters of 2019 on the National Council Licensure Examination, which determines whether a student is ready to start working as a nurse. “The fact that we’ve been able to sustain those high first-time pass-rate numbers two quarters in a row shows that we’re doing the right things,” said Amy Leach, the college’s NCLEX Success Manager. “… We’re performing well compared to what the national and state standards are.”

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.”

David Salgado knew it was a tough road to take. The Grand Canyon University graduate and IT employee wanted to pass the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), be accepted into a law school and earn a scholarship to pay for it. There were a lot of twists and turns along the way. But he managed a rarity — a full scholarship to law school. His west Phoenix parents jumped for joy. None of the extended family had ever been to college, much less law school. They had canceled vacation to plan on helping to pay for it. Salgado will go to Gonzaga School of Law on the Thomas More Scholarship.

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.

GCU and GCE volunteers fanned out to two homes in the neighborhood on Friday, digging into painting and landscaping projects and defying the July heat. Homeowner Mira Nava recalled the first time Habitat visited her home eight years ago to fix the roof. Her mother was battling cancer at the time and told Nava: “This is a reminder that God is still here.” Andrea Northup, Habitat for Humanity Faith Relations Manager, told Nava: “That’s what GCU lives by — faith.”