From student leaders to parents and staff, hundreds give their time to make move-in feel like coming home
Somewhere in the swirl of high-fives and cheering, Annabelle Espinoza is doing what changed her life as an incoming Grand Canyon University student. Her mission as a Welcome Week head orientation leader, along with the 450 other volunteers and staff, is making sure no one steps onto campus feeling alone.
“The second that I got dropped in the culture that is GCU, I fell in love with it,” Espinoza said. “I just want people to have the same experience that I had when I stepped on campus. I was just in awe of how outgoing these volunteers are.”
That sense of awe has turned into a passion for the senior pre-med major from Kingman, Arizona, now serving her second year with Welcome Programs. Experiences like Espinoza’s are what fuel the vast, layered volunteer structure that powers one of GCU’s most visible traditions.
Head orientation leaders like Espinoza train and supervise the orientation leaders, or o-leaders, who guide new students through orientation groups Monday through Wednesday. The Welcome Crew – the individuals scattered across campus in purple shirts and yellow vests – handles the front lines of move-in, directing traffic, parking, carts and couches.
The work is largely voluntary. For many, that’s the point.
Welcome Crew volunteer Eduardo Del Toro Jr., a sophomore nursing major from Modesto, California, always will remember being on the receiving end of the warm welcome.
“I saw all the people outside by the front gate … really excited just to welcome everybody in. I was like, you know what? I want to help next year.”
For Del Toro, that looks like noticing the nervous students who try to slip past the noise.
Calling for “Lopes Up!” always starts the conversation, then it’s Del Toro’s job to go beyond small talk. He invited one student to church and Bible study. If the incoming freshman needed a ride somewhere, Del Toro would be ready. Or if students need a place to cook, Del Toro’s apartment is open.
“Just being welcoming to people really goes a long way,” he said.
Each volunteer student serves at least two shifts, some starting at 5 a.m. and running through the late evening. While students manage much of the curbside welcome, staff from Student Affairs, about 100 people, fan out to handle high-level traffic issues, late arrivals and check on volunteers with coolers of water and snacks.
Behind the scenes, Garrett Abeyta, GCU’s director of Welcome Programs, is coordinating the logistics that make those moments possible.
“It’s important to GCU in a lot of ways that we are setting a really good sense of community and a sense of hospitality as students are coming to campus, whether new or returning,” he said. “We get to be the actual first face they see when they come onto campus.”
Some of his favorite moments are the quiet ones.
“Sometimes the most important thing we can do is stop driving a golf cart for five minutes and spend time with a family or a student,” he said. “Slowing down and being interruptible is something we really value during Welcome Week.”
For Carrie Castano, a government major with an emphasis in legal studies, Welcome Week is an opportunity to show gratitude. She grew up in the Phoenix suburbs and was the first in her family to go to college.
“I didn’t know anybody,” she said. “I was really scared, like I was crying before we pulled up to GCU, and the Welcome Crew and o-leaders calmed all of my nerves. They answered all of my questions.”
Castano’s younger sister, Myella, moved in this year as a freshman knowing she would be met with everything she would need to help GCU feel like home.
The welcome net extends beyond students and staff. GCU’s Parent Council, a group of about 23 volunteers from at least 10 states, focuses on easing the hardest part of Welcome Week: leaving.
Andrea Lockett, from southern Oregon and the Parent Council’s secretary, remembers her first time on the promenade.
“I had to say goodbye to my kids and just felt hopeless and prayed to the Lord, please give me peace,” she said. “This woman just caught my eye and prayed with me and gave me everything that I needed, and she actually was a member of the Parent Council.”
When she saw applications open, she knew she had to apply.
“It’s amazing being here as a parent of seniors, remembering what it was like for the freshman parents, and just being able to come up and support them and pray with them and be with them,” she said. “GCU as a whole, the bones of it, has just been in Christ. Everyone is just supportive and encouraging.”
This year, the council piloted a parent mixer after Parent and Family Orientation. Classrooms were stocked with snacks and staffed by council members split by region, from the Pacific Northwest to the Southeast, to answer questions and connect families.
“We just want to make sure parents and families know that they’re fully supported,” Lockett said.
For incoming students, the wall of sound and smiling faces can be overwhelming in the best way.
Brian Jaquith, a freshman criminal justice major from McMinnville, Oregon, had visited campus before because his sister is a student. He thought he knew what to expect. It was better.
“It was awesome. People actually cared that I was here, which is really cool,” he said. “People standing outside in the rain for hours. Usually, nobody wants to do that. But they’re volunteering to do that to make Welcome Week easy for everybody else. That’s really important and special.”
GCU News senior writer Jason Gonzalez can be reached at [email protected].
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