Grand Canyon University

Like the laces of a tightly wound baseball, a powerful bond has developed between GCU baseball and the firefighting community in the Valley. More than a dozen former Lopes baseball players have transitioned into local firefighting. The lessons they learned as student-athletes have transferred exceptionally well to their service-oriented and challenging careers, and they are drawn to the plethora of similarities between baseball and firefighting. Reprinted from the August issue of GCU Magazine.

Like the laces of a tightly-wound baseball, a powerful bond has developed between GCU baseball and the firefighting community in the Valley. More than a dozen former Lopes baseball players have transitioned into local firefighting. The lessons they learned as student-athletes have transferred exceptionally well to their service-oriented and challenging careers. They are drawn to the plethora of similarities between baseball and firefighting. Reprinted from the August issue of GCU Magazine.

They’re thousands of miles away from home, but the Hawaiian students at Grand Canyon University have found a second family here among their fellow Hawaiian students, and among the GCU student body. They have found support in the wake of Hurricane Lane and fellowship during the recent Little League World Series win.

An early pre-event start and a power outage sent a frenzied crowd of over 7,000 students into an even higher energy level of dancing, clapping, singing and cheering at Thursday night’s Lope-A-Palooza at GCU Arena. The Thundering Heard Band, Cheer team, Dance team, Thunder and the Havocs leaders put on an unforgettable show to kick off the academic school year and pump up new and returning members of the Havocs to support athletics, including the men’s and women’s soccer teams who made an appearance prior to their home opening matches tonight.

The roar of voices in hundreds of conversations permeated Thunderground on Wednesday afternoon, a testament to the success of the Out-of-State Social. Students from Maryland to Minnesota to Miami met and talked, creating new bonds. Over 400 students attended and stayed double the scheduled time, thanks to a willingness to meet each other amid an assortment of dynamic activities, including Uno card games, bowling, billiards, Foosball, ring game and Jenga.

How do thousands of GCU students and their families make their way in cars, vans and U-Hauls from the perimeter of campus to their well-appointed residence hall rooms? Thousands of volunteers welcome them and move them in under the direction of Charity Norman, Director of Welcome Programs. GCU senior writer Theresa Smith embedded with Norman on Tuesday. One day earlier, she was shadowed by a video crew. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at Move-In.

Miguel Perez has worked as a dancer for Celine Dion, Donnie and Marie Osmond, and Cirque de Soleil. But he recently turned his attention to working with GCU’s dance students during a guest artist residency. Dance students arrived on campus two weeks early for the first time and got in some important work with Perez and their GCU instructors.

GCU’s Theatre Department is in rehearsals for its first play of the season, the dreamy, fairy tale-like comedy “Ring Round the Moon.” The department will change pace for its other submissions for the 2018-19 season: the Shakespeare tragedy “Macbeth,” Peter Pan origin story “Peter and the Starcatcher,” Holocaust drama “Who Will Carry the Word” and bright, shiny musical “Godspell.”

A GCU online learner has been nominated for an excellence in clinical research award by the hospital at which she works. Jean Cheek, forensic nurse examiner coordinator at Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, said the health system has implemented changes based on her research at GCU.

DNA necklaces and DNA code bead bracelets just might be the unlikeliest type of jewelry. But they were a couple of the academic jewels made by seventh- and eighth- graders Monday at the Thunder Vision Biovision STEM Day Camp. It’s just one of four such camps — the others are Cybervision, Robovision and Technovision — unfurling this week on the GCU campus, courtesy of Strategic Educational Alliances. The camps serve SEA’s mission to support kindergarten- through 12th-grade students and educators while fostering a college culture.

You’ll often find Grand Canyon University Costume Designer Nola Yergen and Assistant Costume Designer Sarah Levinson in their rabbit hole — GCU’s Costume Shop on the second floor of the Media Arts Complex. They’re gearing up to start work on “Ring Round the Moon,” the theater department’s first play for the 2018-19 academic year. But they also ventured to Costume-Con this summer, winning two Best in Show awards for their “Alice in Wonderland”-themed costumes and their catacomb saints entry.