Recent News

After earning a $500 Grand Canyon University STEM grant to help fuel their passion for robot, a team of four Valley boys known as the “Phoenix Lights” team received some additional support from the University to fund their travels to Louisville, Ky., this week for the 2015 VEX Robotics World Championships. GCU Today has a story about how the University’s Alliance Program for Homeschool Achievement (ALPHA) has stepped up to help foster STEM passion with the Phoenix Lights boys and others.

Several Grand Canyon University faculty members will be making presentations related to their academic research from 3-5 p.m. today and Thursday at Howerton Hall as part of the annual spring research colloquia.

Faculty and students both turned out in large numbers Tuesday and Wednesday to hear Dr. J.P. Moreland, a prominent Christian philosopher from Biola University who takes delight in refuting neuroscience’s claims about the soul.

By popular demand, Phoenix sports business icon Jerry Colangelo, for whom the University’s College of Business is named, on Wednesday addressed about 450 GCU managers, directors, faculty, deans and administrators. Colangelo answered questions and shared inspirational quotes and guiding principles, including this familiar one: “Your relationship with your Lord, your family, your business is the pecking order. When people get messed up it’s when that order gets messed up.”

Like a memorable performance in a stage play or choir concert, Ashley Laneri won’t soon be forgotten, it was apparent during her memorial service Saturday on campus. About 450 family members, students, faculty and staff and others gathered to pay tribute to the life of the GCU senior who died March 13 from injuries she sustained in a car accident in Phoenix.

Story by Cooper Nelson Photos by Darryl Webb GCU News Bureau Grand Canyon University President and CEO Brian Mueller had one quest for students Thursday night at the 13th annual Mr. GCU, a male beauty pageant that was themed, “Mission Possible.” Said Mueller, “Find ‘Bae.’” To kick off the popular event in GCU Arena, Mueller was depicted in a black and white video, filmed like the popular Tom Cruise movie “Mission Impossible” from which the pageant got its theme. In the video, Mueller, after deliberating with members of the University’s executive staff, tasks Dean of Students Pastor Tim Griffin with helping students finding the missing bae. (Before we reveal who won the prestigious title of Mr. GCU, we probably should start by defining the object of the mission. Unless you were one of the nearly 3,500 students at the event, you may not know what a “bae” is. We’ll let emcee Julia Bates, GCU’s student activities coordinator, have the honor.) “To find the definition of ‘bae,’ you have to look in the dictionary … unfortunately, it’s not in the dictionary,” Bates said. “So I had to ask a student, and the true definition is your babe or significant other.” After the 12 contestants performed in a talent competition and a “Baewatch” swimsuit fashion […]

Grand Canyon University’s award-winning speech and debate team will perform its top student speeches, including those that champion stronger awareness of child sex slavery and mental illness, at the second annual campus Speech Showcase on April 15.

Dr. Noé Vargas, director of Grand Canyon University’s counseling programs, is hosting a workshop on the roots of childhood trauma at the 11th annual Cesar E. Chavez Behavioral Health Conference at Arizona State University West in Glendale, which is hosted by Terros.

Story by Janie Magruder Photos by Darryl Webb GCU News Bureau In the best sense of the word, Brad Scruggs, Ahmad Saleem and Brian Scruggs are taskmasters. The recent biology graduates of Grand Canyon University put medical school on hold six months ago to jump aboard an international phenomena fueled by the popularity of Uber, the mobile-app-based transportation service. They created a software application that matches people who need tasks done sooner rather than later with people who have the know-how, desire and time — now — to do them and launched Joblyt. The young entrepreneurs needed funding, and they got it Tuesday when the judges selected Joblyt the grand prize winner of the 2015 GCU Canyon Challenge, which was hosted by the Colangelo College of Business before an estimated crowd of 400 in GCU Arena. The Scruggs brothers and Saleem, instructional assistants in the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, received a $7,000 check for first place plus $4,000 more for nabbing 49 percent of the votes in a 20-hour texting campaign drawing nearly 5,200 voters. That’s 11 grand that goes, you guessed it, back into the business. “You can’t patent an idea,” Brian Scruggs said of a concept that […]

Grand Canyon University’s Honors Institute has emerged as a hub for creative problem-solving. In its second year, the Institute’s students — which could total more than 600 by fall — are already working on projects to generate ideas on how to integrate academics and issues facing the University community. Some of those projects, including a look at how to enhance GCU’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity, will be on display Saturday at Antelope Gym lecture halls and the first-floor meeting rooms at the Student Union.