Online Life

For Jamaica native and now North Carolina resident Garfield Hyman, getting his bachelor’s degree in Applied Management always has been about making his journey worthwhile. He said his GCU instructors helped him on his online journey: “I found support, making the experience a really good one.”

Kirk Cameron’s Fall Commencement keynote address underlines the importance of perseverance. The former “Growing Pains” star and now prominent Christian actor addressed GCU’s most recent group of graduates with congratulations and a powerful message of overcoming fear, fulfilling their mission and finishing the race. “This was really exciting,” Cameron said. “I was a little nervous, I’ve never done it before … I knew with all these Christian families, it was just really a special blessing to be part of this day that they’ll remember for their whole life.”

You want to hear about determination? Take a listen to the Colangelo College of Business graduate who has battled head and neck cancer for 10 years. Or the one who had multiple strokes and had to learn how to walk and talk again. Or the woman who didn’t think she could have children and adopted three — but then got pregnant after she started the online program.

Dennis Attawia, Associate Professor in the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, says he is known among students as someone who can take complex problems and make them understandable. Considering how he looks today, you’ll never believe the style he rocked back in the day.

GCU’s Eta Chi chapter of Delta Mu Delta, the international business honors society, keeps giving Colangelo College of Business students more reasons to join if they are lucky enough to receive an invitation. It now ranks among the top 10 chapters in the country, and this year its members received four scholarships from the organization — the first time the chapter has gotten that many. Students with 24 GCU credits and in the top 20% of their class are eligible.

Dr. Jeff Jibben, a member of the Online Full Time Faculty in the College of Theology, is an expert on the Gospel of Matthew and was a church pastor for 20 years. He is passionate about making complex material easier to understand, is a do-it-yourselfer and has a side career that feeds his love for making a house a home.

With five years left until his retirement from her career as a judge, Dexter Wimbish is working toward his doctoral degree from GCU and hopes join the full-time faculty of a university. “I love working with young people and imparting some of the wisdom I’ve gained over the years,” he said. Wimbish was on campus recently for his third and final doctoral residency and hopes to complete the program in 18 months.

A $3.2 million grant from the Kern Family Foundation will help GCU develop an accelerated pastoral training program in which students will be able to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Divinity in five years. GCU is matching the Kern Family Foundation’s investment by providing the other half of the $6.5 million needed to launch and build out the program over the next five years.

Melissa Davis has overcome an abusive childhood and young adulthood marked by drug abuse and crime to become a scholar and a model for her children. She works overnight jobs in Fresno, Calif., so that during the day she can home-school three of her eight children and study online for her master’s degree in English at GCU.

The desire to become the first doctor in her family motivated Hestia Elmes to travel from her home in South Africa to the summer heat of Phoenix for her doctoral residency. Now that she is approaching the dissertation phase of her degree, Elmes credits the structure of the program for how prepared she feels.