EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is part of GCU's history page. All the stories can be found here:
GCU History Page | The GCU story | Grand 'Construction' University | A campus culture like no other | GCU timeline | Then and now | Did you know…? | Brian Mueller and the 'Phoenix 50' | Pioneering online education | Rise of athletics | The next 75 years
Every fall and spring, they arrive from all over the globe, family and friends trailing in the swish of their graduation gowns into Grand Canyon University Arena. They will stop and tell their stories in many accents. How they had a full-time job, a baby on the way and finished their master’s degree; how they took care of a dying husband and still filed their assignments; how they returned to college 40 years after deferring the dream of a bachelor’s degree; how they overcame depression or cancer and could clutch a diploma and say they had made it; how they escaped civil war in Liberia or fled Afghanistan.
Then they cross the stage.
They walk carefully as elders with advanced degrees or bouncing across at young middle age with a promotion because of their new degrees in teaching or social work or business. They are first-generation students and immigrants, they are former professional athletes and famous entertainers or were once homeless.
They are the result of the vision of GCU, when its leaders decided they could use fast-emerging technology to educate the population online, to let them in on the dream.
“You could tell those students weren’t just checking a box. If they were just checking a box, why would they bring their entire family to graduation and spend all that money?” said GCU President Brian Mueller. “They had a very meaningful experience. It was a big part of their life. Most people wouldn’t believe you could do that delivering education online.”
Most people wouldn’t believe how it could happen that a small university in west Phoenix could become a national leader in online education, starting nearly from scratch 15 years ago.
When Mueller came to GCU in 2008 after 22 years of turning the University of Phoenix into the largest provider of online education in the world, he could sense the landscape of higher education was about to change.
“We believed you weren’t going to win the hearts and minds of working adults if what you did wasn’t rooted in a traditional campus that had a sense of place,” Mueller said. “Many online students don’t participate on our campus, but when a commercial comes on or our basketball team is in the NCAA Tournament, they can say to their friends, ‘That’s where I go to school. That’s where I earned my degree.’”
GCU went to the public markets in November 2008 to get access to capital and begin to build a $300 million technology system at Grand Canyon Education that others in higher education are now trying to emulate.
It started with an administrative system that improved rapidly over the first few years to quickly do all the nitty-gritty work that it typically takes traditional universities piles of paperwork and personnel to accomplish: Admissions, collecting and evaluating transcripts, building faculty schedules, financial aid, assessing learning outcomes and more.
It all is automated.
“It can take months at a traditional university trying to do that,” Mueller said. “We can do it in minutes.”
It also took advanced learning management systems to make the online experience valuable to students. A system called Angel became one called LoudCloud, which in 2022 became Halo, each better than the last.
“You don’t really think about it. It’s incremental,” said Joe Mildenhall, who helped build systems at the University of Phoenix before joining Mueller at GCU, where he retired from in 2023. “But as you look back on what you’ve built over the years and what it’s doing, you are amazed.”
What it did by March 2023 is build 264 academic programs, including 100 degree programs, 131 emphases and 33 certificate programs, for nearly 90,000 online students.
It took much more.
It took teams of employees across the country to evaluate each state’s education standards and licensure requirements, university counselors who could work closely with each student, taking them through every step of the process, and experts in online instruction who could design curriculum.
It took what many trying to make a fast dollar in the growing field of online education didn’t have. Instead of courses with hundreds of students ghosted by part-time instructors, GCU hired a team of online full-time faculty along with adjunct faculty who are experts in their industry to shepherd students in smaller classrooms through their education and quickly respond to discussions and questions.
The faculty work closely with Academic Affairs and Student Operations, sending alerts on students who are struggling so counselors can follow up with them.
“Academic Affairs and Student Operations are continuously working together to update programs, integrate processes and provide feedback for improvement,” said Kelly Palese, Senior Vice President of Academic Operations.
The consistency in curriculum is key, added Provost Dr. Randy Gibb, “so that all learners can have an engaging, productive and successful experience in terms of the teacher interaction and the social interaction with other students, while learning industry-based content.”
Students know what to expect from faculty trained in up-to-date pedagogy in an interactive process. A 40-year-old in Ohio studying between a full-time job doesn’t want to be lectured to; that person wants to be a participant.
Mirroring the on-campus curriculum, online instruction is personal and collaborative with a heavy emphasis on writing. And writing leads to critical thinking, which leads to problem solving, a key skill in the job market.
“For most people, education is social,” Mueller said. “Take the social element out, and they get disinterested.”
Students interact in online classrooms and develop bonds and networks. And they can feel connected to something larger — a Christian university whose mission is not only to help educate people across the world but elevate the surrounding community.
Online education efficiencies helped build the growing campus, where GCU transformed a neighborhood, assisted disadvantaged populations and created a renaissance in west Phoenix.
Students catch that spirit, Mueller said, “with faith.”
The evolution in online education at GCU isn’t over.
Traditional students weathered the pandemic by studying safely at home in 2020. Online academic programs, such as those in forensic science, offer methods to do lab work while studying remotely. And hybrid programs, such as the growing Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing, were created to combine online learning with in-person attendance in satellite locations.
And more innovations are on the way with artificial intelligence.
“We are taking education to people and delivering it to them on their terms, versus having to figure it out on our terms,” Mueller said.
