Allie Stuckey (center, with blonde hair) poses with members of GCU’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter. From left, Jaron Tubbs, Connor Brinton (president and founder), Secretary Conner Teich, Breanna Marsh, Stuckey, Mike Knipp, Josh Olson, Ron Procunier (treasurer) and Ryne Darling. (Photo courtesy of Timothy Schene)

By Rick Vacek
GCU News Bureau

Sabrionna Barquet said she has been to a Bernie Sanders rally and cried when Donald Trump was elected president. 

But when she came to Grand Canyon University, her political beliefs changed — and not because she was influenced by people around her. “I’m the type who needs to think things through on my own,” she said.

As she thought more about it, her entrepreneurship major made her realize that she is a conservative when it comes to business and economics. Then her faith convinced her that, in her opinion, conservatism “makes more sense. It aligns with God.”

Stuckey said Christian conservatives need to study the Bible more and be prepared to defend it when discussing their political beliefs. (Photo courtesy of Timothy Schene)

Now she calls herself “a closet conservative,” but she does so after a long pause and with considerable hesitation, realizing that her stance is atypical for a millennial. That’s what made Wednesday night important to her and the rest of the students who packed the Howerton Hall lecture room for an event organized by GCU’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter.

They were there, spilling out the doors in back, to hear Allie Stuckey, who writes “The Conservative Millennial” blog and is a regular on CRTV. She most certainly is not afraid to proclaim her conservative views.

Stuckey’s message is that politics and spirituality are intertwined (“We don’t just have political divides, we have spiritual divides”), and while she skewers progressive beliefs as “anti-Biblical,” she also doesn’t spare Christians in her opinion of what must change.

“I have never met someone who has become more progressive and also has become a better Christian and taken their Bible seriously. Is that just a coincidence or is it a failure of Christianity?” she said. “Christians have failed to stand up to the lies we’re getting from the mainstream.”

Part of that inaction, she added, might be a correction from beliefs and practices that were too harsh, but the result is a mainstream belief in what she called a “hipster Jesus” who “just wants you to feel good.” It has caused too many Christians, in her opinion, to take a step back.

“We don’t want to go on ‘The View’ and be told we’re bad people,” she said.

What’s the answer? Stuckey said it starts with reading the Bible and really learning what it’s all about, being bold in declaring its truth, and truly loving our neighbors.

“How can we expect people to believe in a Gospel that we’re not preaching?” she said and then a few minutes later closed her talk with this: “It’s not the left, it’s the quietness and ignorance of Christians.”

The Q&A and meet-and-greet sessions that followed were anything but quiet as Stuckey first answered 14 questions and then spent time with an even longer line of wellwishers.

A large crowd turned out for Stuckey’s talk in Howerton Hall. (Photo courtesy of Timothy Schene)

“The number one thing that I heard from people was, ‘Thank you for including your faith in politics because we don’t hear that very much,’” she said. “I think that’s true, and I’m not patting myself on the back for that at all. Those are two things that I’m passionate about, and I’ve never been able to separate them. To me, they just go together so much.

“You don’t hear people talking about their faith along with politics very much except when it’s in very general terms.”

That’s what Barquet appreciates the most. She first heard Stuckey in mid-October at the Turning Point USA Western Regional Conference in Newport Beach, Calif., and she said hearing it again “gives me more depth. I don’t want to speak about how I feel unless I can give facts.”

Another student in attendance, Dillon Parrish, said he comes from a similar background – most of his friends growing up in Georgia were progressives, and he values what Stuckey has to offer. “She confirmed a lot of things I really believe,” he added.

The GCU Young Americans for Freedom chapter has 30 members, and its president and founder, Connor Brinton, said Wednesday’s crowd was typical of the turnout it gets. Stuckey’s views fall in line perfectly with those of the chapter.

“We really think this helps people understand our positions,” he said.

The ascent of Stuckey, a 2014 Furman University graduate, is a recent phenomenon. Her blog entered the political mainstream during the 2016 presidential election cycle, and now she crisscrosses the country on regular speaking engagements (8-10 this fall alone, she estimated). The night before her GCU appearance, for example, she was at Virginia Tech University.

She said she enjoys speaking to groups of all political persuasions, but visiting a Christian university was definitely a highlight for her.  

“This was a little bit different because I knew that I was talking to a predominantly Christian crowd – that’s not usually the case,” she said. “So I really liked this, really being able to be open and free. I always talk about my faith, but knowing that these are people that get what I’m saying, it was great. I loved it.”

Contact Rick Vacek at (602) 639-8203 or rick.vacek@gcu.edu.

The post Stuckey challenges Christians to know Bible, share it appeared first on GCU Today.

Story by Lana Sweeten-Shults
Photos by David Kadlubowski
GCU News Bureau

In the beginning, interacting with the Bible was a read-only proposition.

But interactions with the Good Book are a little different these days. Just ask some of Grand Canyon University’s computer science students. They are boosting how readers interface with the Bible — by going high-tech and using virtual reality to immerse users into those stories.

A team of computer science students demonstrated their work at the Undergraduate Learning Community & Research Symposium on Wednesday in the Technology Building.

Ethan Nichols (right) from the 3D Printing Biotechnology Team talks about the team’s research during the Undergraduate Learning Community & Research Symposium on Wednesday in the Technology Building.

“Virtual Reality for Biblical Re-enactment” was just one of five presentations at the event, hosted by Student Engagement and Academic Affairs. Attendees also explored poster presentations and visited with students at more than a dozen tables who were eager to share what they’ve been doing in learning communities such as DECA, TEDx, Honors STEMist and the Biblical Theology Club, to name a few.

Student presenter Mitch Rosenlof said of the Bible virtual reality project: “The objective of this, essentially, is to create a platform in which users can explore stories from the Bible in virtual reality. … Traditionally, learning Bible stories is a lot of intensive reading and specific details, especially for children with their attention span – they tend to wander. So putting the user inside of that world (using virtual reality) is a better way.”

His team, which also included Edward Lon, Trevor Gladwin and Spencer Thai, showed an in-progress, birth-of-Jesus manger scene. Rosenlof donned a pair of futuristic glasses that are actually a holographic computer called the MicroSoft Hololens. It allowed him to interact with what was on the screen. With an air click, he was able to virtually touch different objects in the screen and even interact with Mary and Joseph. He could click on menu items that read “Tell Me About Yourself” and “Who’s the Father” – an option that got a laugh from the audience.

Tommy Fowler, Thomas Gleason and Joshua Lee tell the audience about Survey Stack, a program they created to help nonprofits digitize their paper surveys.

What’s next for the team, said Lon, is implementing IBM Watson and training it to answer questions about the Bible scenes. “By the end of the semester, we will have the ability to have speech recognition, so it will be similar to Siri or Alexa.”

In “Survey Stack Hackathon,” computer science and information technology student presenters Tommy Fowler, Joshua Lee and Thomas Gleason told the audience about the project they’re working on to help nonprofit groups digitize their paper surveys and better handle the data they collect from those surveys. Oftentimes, nonprofits don’t have the ability to go all-digital, and places they visit or work don’t always have internet access.

Converting paper surveys to digital form is often time-consuming, requiring hours of manual data entry.

“We wanted it (the group’s solution) to be really easy for any nonprofit to use,” said Gleason, and so the team used a program called Docker. They also wanted it to be cost-efficient and secure.

The team started the project while competing at PayPal’s Opportunity Hack 2018. They won second place and a $5,000 prize — $1,000 of which they received after the event and $4,000 they will receive if they install their Survey Stack solution at the nonprofits’ place of business on or before Jan. 11, 2019.

Student presenters from the College of Education spoke about their work at Garcia Elementary School in the struggling Murphy School District in 2017-18.

“Many of the teachers and students didn’t utilize the library very often, and we wondered why,” said Julia Haug.

It didn’t take them long to find out why – the books in the library were outdated, and there wasn’t a big selection of books.

According to research, “students need a print-rich environment to become proficient readers,” added student presenter Lexi Bontrager.

So GCU’s teacher candidates joined with a few community partners and, in the end, were able to donate more than 2,050 books to the school – that’s in addition to other work at the campus, such as student-teaching.

This year, GCU’s COE students are at Westwood Elementary School doing similar work. They are in the midst of collecting teddy bears for Westwood students.

“We’ve very proud of our work,” Haug said.

Mallory Durnbaugh and Austin Paredes present their team’s research on finding a better way to analyze the overall cardiovascular health of individuals.

Student Wellness and Health Association student presenters Mallory Durnbaugh and Austin Paredes spoke about their work to find a way to better analyze a patient’s overall cardiovascular health.

Instead of looking at results from singular blood pressure assessments – the kind we all get when we get check-ups at the doctor’s office, “What our research group did is we wanted to use ambulatory blood pressure monitoring instead,” Durnbaugh said.

Their study involved using an ambulatory monitor to keep track of the blood pressure of 65 women who were divided into two groups – weight-cyclers and nonweight-cyclers. A weight-cycler is someone who repeatedly loses weight and gains it back again. They wore a blood pressure cuff for 24 hours that took their blood pressure every 15 or 30 minutes.

“On average, our weight-cyclers had a higher blood pressure than the nonweight-cyclers,” she said, which was a result the group did not see in the resting, singular blood pressure assessments.

“We personally believe that ambulatory blood pressure readings are truly a better representation of a person’s cardiovascular health than looking at that single blood pressure measurement,” Durnbaugh said.

Paredes spoke about GCU being a gold-standard accredited Exercise is Medicine campus. Exercise is Medicine is a global health initiative managed by the American College of Sports Medicine. He also told the audience about the campus’ HIP Clinic, where the campus community can receive extensive health testing, including the VO2 max test, the gold standard in testing one’s cardiovascular fitness.

“One of our goals is to extend the scope of the HIP Clinics. Being at the center of a lower-income community gives GCU an excellent opportunity for community outreach. Just as GCU has a strong relationship with the K-12 schools … GCU can have a direct part in improving the health of the local community,” Paredes said.

The final presenters, who have worked with Arizona-based raptor rescue organization Wild at Heart, spoke about the Desert Owl Population Improvement Project.

The pygmy and Western burrowing owl populations are of particular concern, particularly in the Southwest. Their population numbers are diving, in part, because of encroachment by humans and the loss of their habitat. The problem exists not only in trying to hatch these owls in captivity, but researchers also are seeing a decline in the wild, too.

A research team in the College of Science, Engineering and Technology wants to reverse that population trend.

Madison Strong, Sarah Saffer and Destiny Woods speak about their work to create hatch boxes for desert owls, whose populations are in decline, particularly in the Southwest.

Wild at Heart has created a synthetic hatching environment for conservation, but it hasn’t been as successful as they hoped, said the team.

“We hope to construct a box that would possibly replicate these environments (the owls’ natural environment),” said student presenter Madison Strong, who addressed the audience with Sarah Saffer and Destiny Woods. Their box will regulate the internal environment with regard to temperature and humidity and will have a live feed. It will be modified for the wild, so the team is working on two versions. They hope to have a box ready in April for hatching season and by September 2021 for the wild.

The team also is working on a lower leg prosthesis for an injured burrowing owl, who was found tied to his siblings. They’re hoping the prosthesis will not only help that owl but others. They are working to have the prosthetic completed by June.

In the hallway outside the presentation room, several poster displays were set up, such as “Occurrence and Fate of Pharmaceuticals in the Environment” and “Implications of Substance Use and Depression on Heart Rate Variability.”

Several learning communities also manned tables.

At the Speech and Debate table, Angel Cruz spoke about one of her persuasive speech topics – how insurance companies are using DNA tests such as 21 and Me and Ancestry DNA to decline coverage and how pharmaceutical companies are using those test results to raise their rates.

The Future Health Care Administrators also were at the event to showcase what their group does. President Arvinette Tamano said the club invites speakers to campus and organizes networking events

“We’re doing as much as we can for our members. … What we’re building with our club is a community and a family,” she said, adding how the FHCA is out in the community, too, representing GCU.

President Brian Mueller said at the end of the presentations, “I’m always amazed at your creativity but especially the ability to articulate your thoughts very, very professionally.”

Provost Dr. Hank Radda said this is the fifth year the University has organized the Learning Community & Research Symposium. Student presenters must go through a vetting process to be included in the event, attended by campus leaders. Students not only have to be knowledgeable about content but have to be able to make a persuasive argument.

“They’re getting better and better,” he said of the presentations, adding, “There’s real science going on … there’s real innovation.”

Contact GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu or at 602-639-7901.

The post Student research on display at symposium appeared first on GCU Today.

Story and Photos by Theresa Smith
GCU News Bureau

The savory smells of meatballs and mac and cheese filled the air as Michaela Nielsen found the end of a line of people. As she moved forward she saw baskets of toothbrushes, wet wipes, lip balm, lotion, crackers, pens and paper — the elements of blessing bags for the homeless, an outreach that added to the splendor of the Hanging of the Greens event Wednesday night at Grand Canyon University Arena.

More than 3,000 students turned out for the winter formal, featuring dining, dancing, crafting snow globes, savoring GCBC hot chocolate in four flavors, and letter writing to home with postage paid by the Canyon Activities Board (CAB), and notes to the homeless for the Can You Spare a Story initiative.

Sydney Grover, (right), founder of Can You Spare a Story, helps fellow students write notes to the homeless and fill blessing bags.

“I didn’t know this was a thing. I honestly thought it was the food line and then they said you can make a blessing bag for the homeless,’’ Nielsen said. “How sweet that they are giving back on this night. It is so lovely that they are doing this. It felt personal to write on the card and to say, ‘I am praying for you, Merry Christmas.’ I hope the Lord blesses them.’’

The senior from Omaha, Neb., took a break from final exam preparations to dress up and take photos in front of Christmas trees inside and outside of the arena.

“In this finals time it is nice for people to come together, and then to have this little surprise where you knew you could give back — and it was zero effort — that made it really special,’’ she said.

Sydney Grover gets a hug from Michaela Nielsen, who wrote a heartfelt note and filled a blessing bag for a homeless person.

After depositing her blessing bag in a stack that exceeded 100, Nielsen offered a hug to organizer Sydney Grover, who founded the nonprofit organization Can You Spare a Story in 2017.  The junior from Las Vegas, who will graduate early, next April, interviews homeless people and shares their stories and photos on her website.

“We want to change the stigma of the homeless, especially with the younger generation,’’ she said.

The blessing bags will be distributed on Dec. 22 at the intersection of S. 11^th Avenue and W. Jefferson Street. Her organization, which includes several dozen GCU student volunteers, also provides clothing and haircuts for the homeless. Its six-person board of directors includes Colangelo College of Business adjunct faculty member David Soto.

“People are writing Bible verses, words of encouragement. ‘You are loved’ is constantly heard,’’ Grover said.

Seniors Stephanie Fairchild and Jordan Brillantes enjoyed dressing up for Hanging of the Greens.

Stephanie Fairchild wrote a note and filled a blessing bag  along with her color-coordinated date, fellow senior Jordan Brillantes, whose gold bow tie matched her dress.

“I think the Hanging of the Greens is a really cool event,’’ Brillantes said. “It is nice for college kids to dress up. And to hang out on a week night. It feels nice to look nice.’’

“And it is beautiful how they didn’t just make it a dance,’’ Fairchild said. “They incorporated the arts and crafts and Can You Spare a Story. That is heartwarming.’’

The event was spearheaded by students, led by CAB Director of Special Events Kenzie Hayes and Assistant Director Ryan Nguyen.

“A lot of the ideas came from team members. We work collectively,’’ Hayes said. “We knew we wanted to involve a ministry. It is a great opportunity to give back to a ministry and get students involved on that platform. Adding GCBC’s hot chocolate bar was fun. And people talk about the food all year long. Students come for the dancing and cool activities, but they also come for the food. People have a great time and post on social media.’’

Seven members of Hayes’ team worked the event along with 16 other CAB members who volunteered under the guidance of Student Engagement Coordinator Scott Kolmer.

Students posed by the Christmas tree as they awaited the opening of GCU Arena.

The CAB team hired GCU alum Brandon Yamaguchi as the disc jockey to mix danceable songs with Christmas music.

“There is definitely a vibe we are aiming for, to let people have fun on the dance floor,’’ Nguyen said. “I think he is doing a great job; we have a great trust in him.’’

Kalea Culligan expertly moved to the beat of the Christmas music. Her date, Jake Bradshaw, enjoyed the Christmas decorations and wore festive, formal attire. Yet Bradshaw’s movements on the dance floor were nearly limited to talking to friends — that is, until “Tremor’’ and “Party till we die’’ blared from the speakers.  Barely suppressing his role as Co-President of the Havocs, Bradshaw rocked the dance floor for those tunes. The familiar songs, pre-game Havocs staples, further electrified the energized crowd.

The dance floor filled up quickly for the Hanging of the Greens.

“I love how they played the Havocs songs,’’ Bradshaw said. “That was the best time. We had so much fun.’’

Contact Theresa Smith at (602) 639-7457 or theresa.smith@gcu.edu.

***

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The post Students mix fun, giving at Hanging of the Greens appeared first on GCU Today.

Editor’s note: This story is reprinted from the November issue of GCU Magazine. To view the digital version of the magazine, click here. 

Story by Rick Vacek
Photos by David Kadlubowski
GCU Magazine

The reverberations of the Center for Worship Arts are being felt all over the Valley, and not just from the latest Canyon Worship album.

Though the program is only in its fifth year at Grand Canyon University, it is starting to become a feeder system for churches in Arizona and beyond. Sure, some students have shown signs that they will turn their training into singing careers, but worship ministry careers will be far more impactful in the long run.

“We’re thrilled,” said Dr. Jason Hiles, Dean of the College of Theology, “because we sense that’s the sort of student who’s really going to connect with the sorts of things we’re doing – the core of the program.”

Mallory Denson was hired this summer as Worship Pastor at Paradise Church in Phoenix. “We’re absolutely thrilled to have her,” Lead Pastor Abby Jones aid.

Two of those students, Mallory Denson and Aaron Bolton, have that in common and much more. Both graduated last April with degrees in Worship Arts. Both sang on the Worship Team, which performs at Chapel. Both have gone on to worship leader jobs at Valley churches. And both have a fine appreciation for the program’s combination of instruction in music and theology plus its sense of community.

“Oh man. It changed my life,” said Denson, who in August took over as Worship Director at Paradise Church in Phoenix. “By having professors who were so intentional and so helpful to your spiritual life, academically and spiritually, GCU completely made me secure in my calling and made that affirmation happen in my calling, especially when I got onto the Worship Team as a worship leader. That grew me so much. “GCU really impacted my life in ways that I never would have imagined. I got to know who God was in such a different way.”

Bolton, Associate Director of Worship at Gateway Church in Scottsdale, had this assessment: “I think a real cool part of the Worship Arts program is the community that’s there. One of the awesome things I was able to bring from that into my new job is just a community of people and other musicians that I can lean on for support. If we need a last-minute fill-in, there are people I can ask, ‘Hey, are you free this weekend?’”

To be sure, it is a much more difficult transition than just finding an extra musician or two. “You’re not doing schoolwork anymore. You’re doing life,” Denson said.

Aaron Bolton (left) said of his job at Gateway Church in Scottsdale, “I love it, but it has been a learning and growing process for sure.”

Instead of classes and exams, her days are filled with meetings, scheduling, overseeing technical issues and managing the other musicians. And that’s just for one service a week – imagine if the church expands that number, something she said it’s praying on.

“Even if you’re not in the office, you still are doing your job because you’re being there for people, you’re praying for people, you’re meeting with them, knowing about their life and how to pray for them and how to be there for them,” she said.

Bolton started attending services at Gateway in his freshman year at GCU and began working there soon after, so he had a head start on what he’s doing now. But that hasn’t minimized the challenges.

“I love it, but it has been a learning and growing process for sure,” he said. “I feel like God has brought me to a completely new place that I was not at in college, and it’s been difficult but really good.”

One of the requirements of the Worship Arts program – that students have a significant relationship with a local church – has paid dividends. Worship Arts students don’t just learn how to write a great worship song or perform for an audience. They also receive a strong spiritual education, and becoming a worship pastor puts all those skills to work.

“The Worship Arts program does very well at giving you the understanding of why worship is important and the reason we do it,” said Ronnie Petkovich, another April graduate working as a worship pastor at an Arizona church (Living Faith in Prescott).

Bolton’s worship pastor at Gateway, Matt Birkenfeld, said of these opportunities, “It’s a great way for those students to apply what they’ve learned.”

Canyon Worship 2018 is available on iTunes, Google Play and Spotify.

But as the learning curve has continued in their new jobs, Denson and Bolton have found that there’s so much more to figure out. Abby Jones, Lead Pastor at Paradise Church, said Denson has done a great job of bringing people together in worship – and “she instructs us in such a worshipful way.”

“We’re absolutely thrilled to have her,” Jones said. “She’s a strong leader, and she’s done it with such a good heart.”

On a recent Tuesday night, a crowd of more than 100 got a chance to hear the Canyon Worship 2018 student artists, including Denson and Bolton, perform their songs. It is the third full-length album produced by the program but was the first such concert to celebrate their work.

It might as well have been a job fair, too.

“I’ve already picked two or three of them I’d want to hire,” said Kirk VanMaanen, Pastor of Christ Church Peoria.

He might have to get in line.

Contact Rick Vacek at (602) 639-8203 or rick.vacek@gcu.edu.

****

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The post Worship Arts students filling needs in local churches appeared first on GCU Today.

GCU biology professor Dr. Galyna Kufryk (right) noticed that some of her students were struggling with exponential and logarithmic functions in her microbiology courses. So she worked with GCU adjunct math professor Dr. Filippo Posta (left) to come up with a math module to help them.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

Anatomy, chemistry, biology — those disciplines make sense to students in the sciences. They sit squarely in the science comfort zone for them.

But math, on the other hand, isn’t necessarily paint by numbers for everyone.

“A lot of them, once they get into a college program that relies on math to a substantial level, if they feel they can’t perform the math, they just drop out. They can’t get through the math, and then it kind of creates a big roadblock for them,” said Grand Canyon University biology professor Dr. Galyna Kufryk, who has spent the past three years trying to knock down that roadblock.

She and GCU adjunct math professor Dr. Filippo Posta worked together to create a math guide to help her students get through the math in her microbiology courses. Three years of data have shown this integrative approach to teaching to be a great success.

“The difference between student performance is remarkable,” Kufryk said. “We saw the exam scores go up by 10.5 percent on average among the group of students that were actually using the math guide we created and proposed for them. Now we’re looking to present it to other educators.”

Kufryk and Posta presented their data, for the first time, at the Association of American Colleges & Universities conference in Atlanta earlier this month in an innovation/ideation session called “Interdisciplinary Asynchronous Integration of Math and Improvement of Student Performance in a Microbiology Course.”

“We were happy to be selected,” Kufryk said.

Their proposal received high rankings and positive comments from the peer reviewers:

• “This is a very interesting approach to address an issue almost all institutions face.”
•  “A specific example of a collaborative approach by course instructors in a mathematically intensive course (microbiology) to develop just-in-time math remediation for students to use asynchronously.”
• “Lot of strengths. Tied well to research/theory, strong research questions, and I feel this could be adapted elsewhere.”

It was in the 2015-16 academic year that Kufryk noticed students were struggling with some of the math in her microbiology classes, specifically when it came to working with exponential and logarithmic functions.

One of the math lesson worksheets for Kufryk’s microbiology students.

“When we talk about bacterial growth, it’s described as an exponential function. That’s one part of the course where they have to be comfortable working with exponential functions,” Kufryk said.

Another part of the course deals with the efficacy of antimicrobial treatments. When students test how efficient a disinfectant might be in killing bacteria, that’s something students must describe mathematically. Students plot their results in a semi-logarithmic scale, in which the number of cells is logarithmic and time is linear.

“Students are usually struggling. By the time you need to plot something, they’re not comfortable with it. A lot of times, in their high school, for example, they would not have the lab attached to the biology course. And even if they had a lab, they did not actually have to open an Excel spreadsheet and have to plot data and make a graph. When it comes to logarithmic functions, very few students are prepared to do that.”

Kufryk decided to do something to help her students and approached Posta about creating a learning module that would target, specifically, what students need to know when it comes to exponential and logarithmic functions.

It wasn’t the first time she has taken this integrative educational approach. She also worked with Dr. Klaus Mortensen, a professor in GCU’s physics department, to come up with a learning module to help her microbiology students understand how radiation can be used to control microbial growth.

What Kufryk and Posta have done is a little different than other approaches in that it hones in on specific mathematical concepts rather than refer students to whole textbooks and “suggested reading” from those textbooks.

“By the time students come in and they see the textbook that looks that thick,” Kufryk said, her index finger and thumb 3 inches apart, “they don’t feel like that’s something they want to do. They’re thinking, ‘This isn’t a math course. This is a biology course. Why do I have to start reading a math book?’ Oftentimes they don’t have the time, or they kind of just shy away from it. They feel like, ‘Is this relevant?’

“What we did was create a tool that is small. It’s not overwhelming for the student. They can do it on their own, and yet it’s enough.”

The math module isn’t a requirement. It’s self-paced and something students can choose to do on their own as a refresher or as an introduction if they never have studied those mathematical concepts before.

It also is noninvasive, Kufryk said: “We are not trying to interfere with what you would like to do, but we’re offering you a tool that we see is helpful.”

Students take an assessment to see where they stand with the math.

“They have the chance to identify where their weakness is and fix it and go back to study the materials that we provide. Or they can go back to the instructor, if they need, so that we can get them up to speed by the time they need it, because I offer this in class well before they actually need to use these materials,” Kufryk said.

Students follow up with another assessment to see how far they’ve progressed.

What’s beneficial about this approach is that students tackle the math module on their own time, and they can take as much time as they want so that they aren’t overwhelmed.

“Which is very good if you have a heterogeneous population of students,” Kufryk said, “because in class, if you have somebody who kind of already got it, you don’t want to be taking time to explain the concepts and then these students feel like they’re there (in class) but not gaining much.”

Kufryk and Posta have been collecting data over the course of three years. They have offered the math lessons to more than 500 microbiology students in that time, gathering feedback and adjusting the math lesson to make sure the intervention fits students’ needs.

The results have spoken loudly to the two professors.

The 10.5 percent increase, on average, on exam scores for students using the math guide shows that “the numbers do support that it has a positive impact on their exam grades.”

“The 10 percent increase was indeed a nice surprise, especially given all of the statistical analysis that we did to confirm it,” said Posta.

Looking at the bigger picture, helping students get through the math could help with retention in the STEM disciplines.

“The data shows that 48 percent of students that choose to major within STEM disciplines, they’re going to switch to non-STEM or leave college without completing a degree if they’re not doing well in math,” Kufryk said.

This integrative math-science approach is a bright note, considering the Program for International Student Assessment reported in 2015 that the United States ranks 39^th in math internationally, with scores being at least 62 points below the average scores of the top five performing nations: Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Japan. PISA looks at the performance of 15-year-olds in math, science and reading and releases its report every three years.

Kufryk also noted how the World Economic Forum ranked the U.S. 10^th among 137 countries in 2017-18 in the quality of math and science education.

She said when she saw her students struggling with the math in her microbiology courses, she had two options — either to gloss over the math or to teach it.

She chose to teach.

“Our goal is to make sure students are truly comprehending,” said Kufryk, and added, “The idea is to be confident in how this works.”

Contact GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu or at 602-639-7901.

The post Math lesson a plus for microbiology students appeared first on GCU Today.

Adjunct clarinet professor Tim Haas (second from right) talks to Andre House core staff member Ana Chavez before the Clarinet Studio’s performance.

Story and photos by Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

You don’t need to bring joy to the world, at least not in its entirety. But you can bring moments of happiness to a little part of it.

Grand Canyon University’s Clarinet Studio did just that Sunday evening during dinner service at Andre House of Arizona, a Catholic charity that serves about 550 meals a day to Phoenix’s poor and homeless populations, though some days that number can reach 750 meals served.

As the sun starts to wane, across the gated campus from St. Vincent de Paul and its Urban Farm, a white truck sputters slowly down the street. A woman driving asks a man outside Andre House, one of dozens of people gathering there, if he would like a sandwich — a prelude to the 5:30 p.m. dinner service inside.

Clarinetists Bryan Toll (front row left) and Jonathan Smith (front row right) perform during the dinner service Sunday evening at Andre House.

It’s where the Clarinet Studio, an ensemble of GCU musicians, most from the University’s Pep Band (though some are alumni), have filled one corner of the dinner room under a portrait of St. Andre Bessette with the words “Pray for Us.” Their music stands are up. Their purple shirts — and red Santa hats and reindeer antler headbands — are on. Their sheet music is out. They’re ready to go.

“I remember the last time you played for us. It was back in April. It was my birthday. You played ‘Happy Birthday,’” Andre House core staff member Ana Chavez said with a smile to Tim Haas, the adjunct professor of clarinet who helms the Clarinet Studio.

As dinner guests started to stream in, carrying trays of fried chicken and steamed broccoli, the group launched into “Dance of the Reed Flutes” from The Nutcracker Suite, “Away in a Manger,” “Good King Wenceslas,” “Christ Was Born on Christmas Day” and other familiar Christmas tunes.

“God bless you!” said one man, raising his bread, as others applauded after the end of one of the songs. “Sounds nice.”

This is the second time the Clarinet Studio has played for Andre House.

“I love doing this,” said Clarinet Studio musician and GCU junior biology major Allissa Hernandez, who performed with the Pep Band for two years. “It’s important to give back to your community — giving your time to give them joy and give them happiness.”

Hernandez said the clarinet ensemble is unique; not many all-clarinet ensembles perform in the community. The group has played, not only at Andre House, but at Merriment on Melrose, a community outreach event and fundraiser for school music programs.

The @gcu Clarinet Studio is brightening the season at Andre House of Arizona during Sunday dinner service. pic.twitter.com/oIfb9bRAoz

— Lana Sweeten-Shults (@LanaSweetenShul) December 3, 2018

“I like that we’re encouraged to do this (volunteer to perform at community events),” music education major and clarinetist Vanessa Smith piped in, adding, “I like that it gives a sense of joy to people who maybe aren’t in the best place in life, especially right now.”

It was a thought echoed by her son Jonathan Smith, a high school sophomore at Moon Valley High who also plays with the ensemble: “I like giving back to the community. … I like helping them feel better in their life and be happy.”

The 15 members of GCU’s Clarinet Studio volunteer their time at various community events.

Chavez said it’s not often that musical groups perform at Andre House, though sometimes on Saturdays a custodian will DJ. “He calls it his Holy Boom-Boom,” she said with a laugh.

“A lot of times things are so systemized,” she said. “This (music) brings a lot of joy.”

Longtime Andre House volunteer Father Duane Balcerski said he wasn’t so sure how well a clarinet ensemble would sound among the busyness going on in the dining room. He himself played clarinet in high school and knows how squeaky the instrument can be.

“But they are excellent,” he said with a smile. “Have you seen the people here stand up and applaud?”

One of the clients who just finished his meal stopped to speak with Father Duane to thank him and the rest of Andre House. “When I get my apartment, I’m going to give back to this place,” he said. “You guys have been wonderful.”

Clarinetist Bryan Toll, who graduated from GCU in 2017, didn’t hesitate to heed Haas’ call to play on Sunday.

“I just love sharing our spirit with the people here and giving them that joy,” he said.

Even as volunteers from Intel, dressed in their blue T-shirts, were wiping down tables during the dinnertime wind-down, the clarinetists still played — and even took in a request from Chavez to perform “Happy Birthday” one more time for one of the core staff members.

Haas said Sunday’s performance was the Clarinet Studio’s second at Andre House, which serves some of Phoenix’s neediest populations.

Haas is proud of the musicians in the group, who often show up for rehearsals as late as 8:30 p.m. — sometimes the only time musicians are able to meet, considering their busy schedules.

“They make my job really easy,” he said. “… These are good human beings with big hearts.”

Contact GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu or at 602-639-7901.

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Starting today through Dec. 12, GCU will be collecting new toys for children of all ages, as well as items for adults, including household wares, personal care items, blankets and tools.

By Debbie Accomazzo
For GCU News Bureau

“When Grand Canyon University steps up to make a difference, things happen!” Phoenix Rescue Mission Community Relationships Officer Pamela Morrison said, and now is our time to join the PRM mission in easing the burden of families in need of hope, healing and transformation.

Last year, almost 18,000 people in Maricopa County were homeless — 40 percent of them in families. During a season that brings joy to so many of us here at GCU, our aim is to help spread that sense of merriment to children and families whose desires closely mirror ours … a sense of stability, the hope for prosperity and the gratification of peace in one’s heart.

For the second year, GCU will support the Phoenix Rescue Mission Christmas Winter Wonderland Event from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 15, at the Community Solutions Center, 1801 S. 35^th Ave. On this special day, the community is invited onto the PRM campus to rejoice in the season. Those who would otherwise go without celebrating Christmas due to financial strain will be greeted with a carnival-like environment where they can just have fun together. You can be part of creating this wonderful Christmas experience in several ways.

See below for opportunities:

• Donate to toy/gift drive — Dec. 3-12: In addition to cookie decorating, fun activities and hot chocolate that will be abundant at the Winter Wonderland event, parents will be able to “shop” for presents for their children, and kids even get the chance to return the favor and pick out a present for their parents. Starting today through Dec. 12, GCU will be collecting new toys for children of all ages, as well as items for adults, including household wares, personal care items, blankets and tools. The need for gifts this year is immense, as PRM is hoping to serve 1,200 children, which represents 700 families. If you’d like a collection box for your department or to drop off a donation, contact: Building 71, Sue Boyle, or main campus, Debbie Accomazzo. Gift list
• Volunteer your time — openings throughout the month of December: Phoenix Rescue Mission’s abundance of volunteer opportunities include the Winter Wonderland event and also many openings at their Hope for Hunger Food Bank at 5606 N. 55^th in Glendale. The number of families being served at the food bank is increasing daily, so your contribution of time would be welcome and much appreciated, and could also serve as a meaningful holiday team builder. The food bank shifts are from 8 a.m. to noon Monday through Thursday, during which volunteers engage with clients and families receiving food boxes. To explore openings, click here to visit the PRM Volunteer Hub home page, and set up your online profile. To schedule a group volunteer event, email Jayna Watts.
• Champions on the court — attend GCU women’s basketball game on Dec. 11: The women’s basketball team takes on Portland State with the goal of defeating more than its on-court opponent. The Lopes also will be hosting special guests from PRM that will include employees, volunteers and, most importantly, clients who are working hard to transform their lives and combat the foe that is homelessness and poverty. Attend the game, meet representatives from PRM and drop off your toy or household gift before cheering on the Lopes.

For more information or to request a collection box, email GCU Community Outreach Manager Debbie Accomazzo. To learn more about Phoenix Rescue Mission’s work in providing Christ-centered, life transforming solutions to persons facing hunger and homelessness, visit their website.

Thank you for finding your purpose through partnering with the Phoenix Rescue Mission and touching the lives of so many in our community.

The post Toys, gifts, time — be a Claus for a cause appeared first on GCU Today.

By Theresa Smith
GCU News Bureau

The heartbreaking opioid crisis in America can be avoided, according to Grand Canyon University senior Xanthia Clow. Her argument about the unnecessary prescription of opioids after wisdom teeth extraction was voted the most persuasive speech in the Pacific Southwest Collegiate Forensic Association Fall Championships on Sunday at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif.

Xanthia Clow won first place.

Along with Clow’s first-place finish, Tommee Gleason placed third in three events and Keliann Nash, a senior from Ventura, Calif., finished third in impromptu speaking as three of the Lopes’ five speech competitors received medals in a tournament featuring 38 college and university teams.

“Their hard work and dedication is paying off,’’ said Michael Dvorak, GCU’s director of forensics and an instructor of Communication.

It was Clow’s fourth first-place finish as a college speech performer, including a top finish in September.

“I emphasized how the opioid crisis is stemming from the dental field rather than the medical field in general,’’ she said. “After wisdom teeth extraction, dentists prescribe opioids rather than ibuprofen and acetaminophen.’’

 Using studies from the American Medical Association, Harvard Medical School and the University of Michigan, Clow successfully argued in her 10-minute time allotment that opioids are prescribed unnecessarily.

The senior from Yucca Valley, Calif., a double major in psychology and communication, was thrilled with her performance.

“I was really excited to win with a speech that I had never won with yet,’’ she said. “It is wonderful to blossom in college and be able to talk in front of people with no notes cards and no tools for 10 minutes. It is a skill I am happy I have learned.’’

Tommee Gleason won third place in three events.

Gleason, a senior from Phoenix majoring in Computer Science, placed third in extemporaneous speaking, communication analysis and persuasive speaking.

He has performed in the latter for three years.

“I have a lot of practice with it and I have been able to work with a lot of my coaches on it,’’ Gleason said. “Specifically, this one was a topic coach Dvorak brought up to me. I thought it was an interesting topic, so I picked it up and ran with it.’’

Gleason persuaded the judges that many couples aren’t financially able to support marriage.

“They end up getting married because they think they will benefit financially from it and then end up having to get a divorce because they are not able to sustain it,’’ he said.

The assumed logic is that when two people combine resources, for example renting one apartment together as a married couple instead of two apartments while dating, they will save money and afford marriage.

Gleason’s Communication Analysis topic was about how the asexual community is left out of the LBGTQ community.

 “They overlook the idea that it is OK not to want to have sex or not to necessarily be attracted to anyone,’’ said Gleason, who used an artifact analysis about former British Prime Minister Edward Heath, who claimed he was asexual to try to avoid sexual assault charges.

“So the main idea was focused on the rhetorical implications of claiming that you identify with a marginalized sexuality as a way to avoid sexual assault charges,’’ he said.

Gleason’s third competitive area was extemporaneous speaking, wherein he and the other competitors are assigned different, random topics and allotted 30 minutes to gather research. Then, they are asked to perform a seven-minute speech with just one note card listing sources.

In one round he was assigned the topic of whether or not Saudi Arabia should seek political reform. Another topic focused on whether or not California should be doing more to prevent wild fires. The final topic centered on the economic relationship between China and the United States.

 “I think we did awesome,’’ said Gleason, the captain of the speech team. “We brought five competitors and three of the five came up with five top three finishes. We put on a fantastic show with such a small group.’’

Keliann Nash placed third in impromptu.

Nash, a psychology major with an emphasis in trauma, participated in impromptu. She was given a random quote and 90 seconds to prepare a five-minute, 30-second speech about the expanded contexts and implications of the quote.

With no notes or research, impromptu speaking requires the speaker to use their reading and background knowledge and to think on their feet to come up with narratives and examples to support the theme of the quotation.

“You have to have a wide range of knowledge for impromptu because all you have is what’s in your head,’’ Gleason said.

The next tournament for the speech team and the debate team is the Concordia Irvine Jannese Davidson Tournament on Jan. 25-27.

Contact Theresa Smith at (602) 639-7457 or theresa.smith@gcu.edu.

***

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Story by Rick Vacek
Photos by David Kadlubowski
GCU News Bureau

The greatest thing about the Canyon Worship Songwriters Showcase on Monday night was that it had so many great things.

The first performance of the Canyon Worship Songwriters Showcase, by Braden Paul, had the big crowd standing and clapping as Paul really got into it.

There was the music, of course. Students from the Center for Worship Arts at Grand Canyon University continue to build upon the talent that now is a staple of the Canyon Worship albums.

But there also was the Canyon 49 Grill venue, again a winner for its intimacy and atmosphere.

And the huge turnout that packed just about every inch of the Grill’s patio.

And the number of graduates of the program who came back to hear their former classmates one more time and discover some new talent.

And the number of current Worship Arts students who came out to show their support even though their songs weren’t chosen for the Showcase.

The attendees were packed in, and the performers had their full attention.

And it was hard for anyone familiar with Canyon Worship not to notice that only three of the 13 songs were by performers who have appeared on the annual albums.

And you also couldn’t miss the ever expanding variety of sounds – the 13 songs performed (out of 70 submissions) featured a wide variety of genres, from contemporary Christian to folk, hip-hop and rap.

Maybe the greatest part of all, however, was the way the big crowd got into it. There never was a dull moment on a night filled with clapping and rejoicing and ovation after ovation.

“I think that’s the telltale sign, when you can see people really engaging with the music,” said Dr. Randall Downs, the new Worship Arts coordinator. “Their eyes aren’t glazed over, they’re not in a trance. They’re sitting there and they’re taking it in and enjoying it.”

As impressed as Downs was in his first chance to witness a Showcase, it was even more astounding for Dr. Jason Hiles, Dean of the College of Theology. He remembers well the first Showcase, in December 2014, the first year of the program.

Amanda Riffe performs her song, “Isaiah 55.”

“We were really proud of what the students did in those days,” Hiles said. “But it’s at such a high level now, it’s hard to imagine the distance they’ve come. They’re collaborating, they’re starting to find a style, and I see the same artists working together on multiple projects. We’ve seen them come a long way in four years.”

Newcomers to the program are coming a long way just to be part of it.

One of the performers Monday was freshman Amanda Riffe from Grand Rapids, Mich., who first heard about what GCU was doing when she attended a Kari Jobe concert. She visited the campus, fell in love with it and happily left behind her winter coat and scarf, but the climate was only an added bonus.

“The weather is so nice here, so much sunshine, but mostly I’m here because of the program,” she said.

This is a performer who’s already pretty accomplished – she produced her own CD, “The Journey,” earlier this year – but what she likes best about the program is the camaraderie.

“I’ve been really surprised at how not competitive it is,” she said. “You can just walk in the Recording Studio and people will help you with your songs. You can play stuff and people will give you feedback. Even the vibe tonight, everyone was just so encouraging and uplifting. That’s something really cool to come into as a freshman.”

Elaina Marchegger was visiting GCU as a high school senior two years ago when she learned that there just happened to be a Songwriters Showcase that night. So she went – and right away she knew what her college choice would be.

Elaina Marchegger (right) was joined by (from left) Joseph Vaught and Taryn Nellermoe in singing “Has a Name.”

“I saw that this is the presence of Christ,” she said. “How all the students drew in to the room was just, like, wow. That’s really what I was looking for in a program was something that wasn’t as music-centered as it was Christ-centered. I’m sure you saw it tonight – everyone’s heart is just praising Christ.”

Marchegger was the only performer chosen to do two songs, but even that wasn’t the highlight of her night. Her parents, Marcus and Lisa Marchegger, surprised her by coming to Phoenix from their Carson City, Nev., home to support her.

“It was amazing,” she said. “My mom and I had just been talking about how I committed at the Showcase.”

She also noticed the number of students in attendance who aren’t even in the Worship Arts program, but equally head-turning was the turnout of graduates.

“It’s like they can’t get enough of it,” said Eric Johnson, who manages the Recording Studio. “They feel such a connection to their family, they want to be here in support of what the family is continuing to do.”

The long list of new faces was startling as well. Even Harrison Russell, whose song “Rhythm” is the top attraction of Canyon Worship 2018 (more than 30,000 listens on Spotify alone), said he found himself trying to put names with faces at the Showcase.

Harrison Russell’s performance of “Praises” was an appropriate ending for the evening.

“It’s crazy. I feel like every song I’m asking, ‘Who’s that?’” he said, laughing.

Appropriately, Russell’s newest creation, “Praises,” was the closing song, and it was another show-stopper. But the crowd wanted more – people chanted for Russell to play “Rhythm.” Right on cue, Johnson had the sound board technician dial it up and play it … and the crowd sang along and danced to it, knowing the words by heart.

That shows how much the program has grown – the attendees have their favorites. But if Monday night is any indication, they soon will add some new ones.

“I feel like every year it’s just growing so much,” Russell said. “Now we have a full-grown program, and there are such talented people every year in every class.

“It’s cool to look to the future and think in four years what it’s going to look like.”

There’s only one bad thing about all this growth: If this keeps up, they’re going to need a bigger venue for the Showcase. If that’s your biggest problem, you’re doing great things.

Contact Rick Vacek at (602) 639-8203 or rick.vacek@gcu.edu.

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Dr. Deb Wade

By Dr. Deb Wade
GCU Vice President, Counseling and Psychological Services

I think it’s safe to say that we live in a celebrity culture. Whether we’re talking about sports figures, musicians, politicians or television personalities, we easily can find ourselves reading about them, talking about them, dressing like them and being fascinated by all that surrounds their lives.

Oh, we know logically that they’re “just people like us,” but we’re often willing to let them be larger than life anyway. Sometimes these celebrity enchantments can be completely innocent; however, sometimes they can actually feed our most basic insecurities and self-esteem issues. So … let’s proceed with caution!

Take, for example, professional sports figures. They can impress us easily with their skill, swagger and strut, and we know they may be among the best at what they do. What we don’t easily acknowledge to ourselves, however, is that while success is a matter of consistent skill and effort, these sports figures are nowhere near PERFECTION.

A golfer will push a lot of shots wide of the fairway; the basketball player will shoot an airball; a baseball/softball athlete will foul a lot of balls into the stands; and the quarterback will have an occasional incomplete pass.

Additionally, there probably has never been a superstar athlete who didn’t also know how it felt to pace the sidelines or sit on the bench, frustrated with his/her own play. Ah … but the glamor of the sports and the extreme talent of the athlete can cure a lot of ills in our mind’s eye.

So when was the last time that you made a mental error at work, or you made an unwise decision, or you guessed wrong on a snap-judgment call, or you just “goofed?” Who hasn’t?

Yet we can let those things become fodder for self-condemnation, negative and critical self-talk, and self-chastisement. As these negative responses swirl in our brains, they can take on a larger-than-life power that eventually will affect our self-esteem, our self-confidence and our ability to rebound from our own messes.

Michael Jordan, arguably one of the greatest basketball players of all time, said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” 

If we elevate any sports figure’s sayings, let’s consider this one: If only we could cut ourselves some slack! NOBODY gets everything right all the time! What can we do?

• Be fair with yourself today! Don’t let a little “popup” keep you from swinging for the fences next time!
• Be kind to yourself today! If a .300 batting average (three hits out of 10 chances) can place a major league ballplayer in the Hall of Fame, perhaps you (and I) are Fame-worthy as well!
• Be aware of what you say to yourself today! “Better shot next time” is so much more positive than “Here we go again; I can’t seem to do anything right.”
• Be willing to “delete” negative images of yourself today! The best athlete sees him/herself as always on a road to excellence, NOT stuck in the mud of defeat!

The allure of famous personalities can be huge! However, we need to remember that everything they touch is not golden … there may be some rusty iron in there somewhere.

What good news for “all of the everyday people.” The rust can be knocked off, the “goofs” can be corrected, and we can keep waiting for the next opportunity to shine! Don’t collect and harbor the mistakes; rather, correct and dismiss them. Then take the next shot with confidence! Bull’s-eye!

The post Dr. Deb’s Mental Health Vitamin: Don’t fear failure appeared first on GCU Today.

Story and photos by Theresa Smith
GCU News Bureau

Her student-teaching requirements were completed on Nov. 29, yet Nichole Flink has returned to her seventh-graders the past three days to grade their essays. She will continue until Friday, when she expects to complete all 129 essays.

Nichole Flink displays the alumni pennant presented to every COE graduate.

Flink’s dedication is indicative of graduates of the Grand Canyon University College of Education, who celebrated the completion of their student-teaching assignments Monday night, ahead of their graduation on Dec. 14.

“You can tell the difference when you go into classrooms of our GCU-prepared teachers,’’ said COE Dean Dr.  Kimberly LaPrade. “They are literature rich, they are decorated, they are alive, there are things on the walls and there are posters. It is a rich learning environment; our instructors model that all the time, even in a celebration such as this.’’

Along with LaPrade, members of the COE faculty celebrated with the 60 soon-to-be teachers by feeding them pizza and showering them with arts and crafts décor for their classrooms, GCU alumni pennants and framed inspirational wall hangings.

“It is so exciting,’’ LaPrade said. “They are excited to launch into this career. The majority have jobs before they graduate, so it is a wonderful way to come and celebrate this momentous occasion. They are a success because they did it.’’

Dr. Kimberly LaPrade, the Dean of the College of Education, congratulated the graduating teachers.

Upon completing a program exit survey, Flink shared her experiences with English Language Arts students in the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) class at Kyrene Aprende Middle School in Chandler.

“They were quick to catch on,’’ she said. “I was prepared for regular education kids. I was prepared to deconstruct everything, but you would tell these students what to do and they would said, ‘yup, got it’ and they would go right to work. So you had to make the lessons a little harder. And you had to make them engaging.’’

Flink also shifted her thinking between group work and independent work.

“Part of being gifted is that some students don’t like group work as much they prefer solo work,’’ she said.

As required, she put accommodations into place, facilitating solo presentations and writing on paper rather than the electronic blog on Google Classroom that was utilized by most of her students. In raising the bar, she assigned 50 pages of student choice reading per week.

“Some students struggle with literary devices, figurative language and imagery, so we want them to get more accustomed to it by reading fiction,’’ she said. “They can read nonfiction, but it has to be a biography.’’

Angelica Robles shows her Lopes Up.

Written essays connected to the 50 pages of reading were due every Thursday.

“I was actually awkward at teaching writing,’’ Flink said. “I know how to write, but to have to break it down for a seventh-grade level was different. So I learned a whole lot in that aspect. And I learned more about planning lessons. The planning had to be so high a level that they had a totally different curriculum from regular standards.’’

Although the essays can be graded electronically through Google Classroom, Flink prefers to print each one and make notes on them, using symbols that indicate upper case error or pronoun error or format issue. She uses a rubric, provided by her host teacher.

“We don’t want students to destroy their entire grade because of grammatical errors, so we grade in three areas: focus and organization, development of ideas, and conventions,’’ said the senior from Covina, Calif.

She surprised her host teacher by staying beyond her student-teaching time frame.

“I wanted to help my students by completing the essay grading with a lot of feedback,’’ she said.

Flink was modeling COE faculty, along with her peer, Sarah Schalick, who felt thoroughly prepared for her first-grade student-teaching assignment.

When asked to highlight a trio of teachers who provided extra guidance, Schalick was stymied — because they all did.

All of the graduating teachers and College of Education faculty.

 “To be completely honest, I have loved each and every single teacher I have had here,’’ she said. “They have been so passionate about teaching future teachers, and it is so inspiring to me that I have been guided by those who not only love to teach but love to teach future teachers. The teachers here have guided me to be the best teacher I can be.’’

 Assistant professor Paul Danuser falls into that category. The former high school English teacher prepares aspiring teachers at the secondary level, grades 6-12.  On Monday, he blessed all the students with a heartfelt prayer.

“We are so very proud of you and thankful for you,’’ he said. “We are so very excited for you. You are already making an impact on the community.’’

Schalick, an elementary education major with an endorsement in theatre, made her impact on 26 students at Field Elementary in Mesa.

“The student-teaching experience in the fall is such a blessing to be starting with the students, because they are new and so am I,’’ she said.

Sarah Schalick shows off the teacher swag she will hang in her class room.

Despite years of preparation, Schalick experienced an epiphany.

“I knew teachers did a lot, and I knew how much I loved and appreciated them, but you don’t really, truly understand how much you love teachers until you have to be in the position to teach,’’ she said.

Her most daunting challenge was classroom management, convincing pint-sized students to write or read or add or line up for recess.

“They might act out because they are lacking something at home,’’ Schalick said. “So the most love and kindness that you can bring to that class might be one of those areas they are lacking in at home. They can see that in your firmness and with your consequences that you can be loving, you can be passionate and you can be kind.’’

When one particularly willful child would not follow directions, Schalick explained the benefits of participating, gave him extra choices and offered positive reinforcement.

Among her proudest moments was gaining the trust of her first-graders.

“‘Who can say that they need something harder?’’’ she asked, repeating a question she asked her students. ‘Or who can say that they have no idea how to do something?’ They always want to say, ‘I can do it all and I don’t need help.’  But I am proud of the fact that they can now say, ‘Miss Sarah, I have no idea how to do this. I need more help. I need more examples.’ And it is good because they can be honest with themselves and they can self-regulate.”

Eugene Sanders already has a job teaching children with special needs.

Eugene Sanders will apply that advice as a newly minted teacher. After spending the fall semester as a student-teacher of special needs at Cactus Wren Elementary in the Washington District, he will start the spring semester as the teacher of record in the same classroom at Cactus Wren.

“One thing I have taken from GCU is, ‘don’t be afraid to ask for help,’’’ he said.

LaPrade reminded her new teachers of “The Promise’’ — a guarantee that GCU will assist any teacher graduate experiencing difficulty in their first year of teaching. It can be as simple as reaching out via email or a phone call to meeting with a faculty member to map out strategy over coffee to inviting a faculty member for a classroom observation.

“Some of your schools and districts will have great induction programs and others will not have as many resources,’’ LaPrade said. “Remember, you are not alone.’’

Contact Theresa Smith at (602) 639-7457 or theresa.smith@gcu.edu.

***

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The post Dedicated teachers ready to launch appeared first on GCU Today.

Connie Colbert

By Connie Colbert
Director, Canyon Health and Wellness Clinic

The holiday season is accompanied by the pressures and expectations of home decorating, home cooking and holiday parties coupled with the navigation of the overcrowded malls and parking lots. ’Tis the season for stress, emotional eating and chronic fatigue.

A stressful environment can contribute to problems such as headache, stomach ache, sleep disturbances, short temper and difficulty concentrating. Chronic stress can result in anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure and a weakened immune system.

It also can contribute to health conditions such as depression, obesity and heart disease. Compounding the problem, people who experience excessive stress often deal with it in unhealthy ways such as overeating, eating unhealthy foods, smoking cigarettes, and abusing drugs and alcohol.

With so many people dreading the stress of the holiday season coupled with the stress of a normal day’s work, it can feel overwhelming and lead to an increase in the physical symptoms mentioned above.

What can you do to control some of the unwanted effects of stress?

• With all the demands of holiday parties and events, we often spread ourselves too thin and deprive our bodies of much needed sleep. Sleep is essential for our bodies to repair and regroup. If you are sleep deprived, even the smallest issues can seem like huge disasters. A good night’s sleep (7-9 hours) has amazing restorative powers and can help you maintain your resilience to handle the expectations of the season. If you need to say “no” to a late night party or excuse yourself early, your body will thank you! And so will those around you!
• I know, I know … “eat your veggies” is not what you want to hear right now. BUT it may be necessary to plan a few meals that are rich in fresh veggies to sustain your energy levels during the busy holiday season. Eating only cakes, cookies and pies will not only zap your energy but also may lead to depression and stomach issues.
• Go for a walk. While it may be difficult to stick to your normal workout routine, you still can reap the rewards of physical activity by going for a walk. If you have friends over, invite them to walk the neighborhoods looking at the Christmas lights. The benefits of walking outside observing the beauty of nature are even more beneficial to decreasing stress as well as increasing physical activity.
• Set a budget. Work toward coming out of the holiday season financially fit. It’s important to take a realistic inventory of what we have to spend and set a budget for each person on our list. It isn’t worth binging on gifts if we are only going to suffer from the credit card hangover in January. Set realistic expectations on what gifts are essential. Most people will not even remember the gift you bought in a week, but you may be stuck with months (or more) of debt. Remember the reason why we give. Homemade, personalized gifts can give lasting heartfelt memories. Toys and gadgets break and wear out, but our memories remain.

Remember, the spirit of giving is not about how much we spend but how much of ourselves we give to others:

• Schedule time to relax. No matter who you are and what your personality type is, you need to rest and recoup. Make sure you are scheduling downtime. That could mean something as simple as a quiet afternoon on the couch watching Christmas movies or catching up over coffee with a friend you have not seen in a long time.
• Avoid high traffic times and try not to procrastinate. Get up early and get to the store before everyone else does. Then you can take a nap in the afternoon while everyone else is out!
• Establish boundaries. This is probably the hardest for most of us because we often feel the need to do it all and please our friends and/or family members, BUT we must take care of ourselves in order to be good to others. Say “no” when you need to say “no.”
• Think and speak positive thoughts about the Christmas season that remind you of Christ’s love for us: Today I look for the beauty in everyone and everything. Today I take a moment to count my blessings. I am loved deeply.

Whatever your stressors may be during this busy season, make the most of it by implementing safeguards to decrease the physical and emotional effects of stress.

At any time, if you feel as if it is too much to deal with and you are having depressive feelings or physical symptoms, reach out to a health care provider to discuss a plan to help you overcome these obstacles.

The post Fitness Facts: Controlling stress over the holidays appeared first on GCU Today.

Students perform in the Ethington Dance Ensemble’s Winter Dance Concert in 2017. (File photo by Kaitlyn Terrey)

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

Humans have a tendency to cover up.

With shawls and coats and jackets.

Various dance genres will be performed. (File photo by Jenny Gerena)

Hats and sunglasses and sunscreen.

With makeup.

And little white lies.

But Grand Canyon University’s dance department will shed the cover-ups for its Winter Dance Concert, “Uncovered.”

The concert, to be presented by the Ethington Dance Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Ethington Theatre, “will expose the raw beauty of dance,” College of Fine Arts and Production Dance Director Susannah Keita writes in her program notes.

The idea is to expose all sides of the human experience as the dances in the show converge around the theme of being uncovered but diverge stylistically and in artistic interpretation.

It’s what almost 50 dancers and 10 choreographers will do, taking the audience through 11 dances that will span emotions and styles and, as Keita said, the human experience.

Work on the Winter Dance Concert started even before the semester started.

Ten choreographers and about 50 dance students worked on the pieces that will come to life on the Ethington stage. (File photo by Kaitlyn Terrey)

For the first time, the department organized a presemester residency with Miguel Perez, who worked with students on technique and artistry and also choreographed a piece called “The Novel” for the concert.

“I had some stuff I already had in my head – my ideas,” Perez said in August, when he was on campus for the residency. “People think it takes four or five full days (to create a new piece), but it was a total of 12 hours.”

He added, “The piece represents when you go through life being visible, but along the way, people shift that perspective of yourself. You get a little bit lost.”

The work will spotlight a dancer breaking out of her old self, then being manipulated and taken in different directions before going back to being herself and realizing: “That is enough,” Perez said.

“It’s a very contemporary piece. We expect it will be a crowd-pleaser. His movement is very dynamic – a lot of partnering,” Keita said, and because the performers will wear socks – a trend away from modern dancers to go barefoot – “there’s an oozy quality to it.”

Eleven dances will be performed for the Winter Dance Concert. (File photo by Kaitlyn Terrey)

Yet, she added, it’s also a complex, layered piece by the choreographer, who has worked with Celine Dion, Donnie and Marie Osmond, and Cirque du Soleil in his career.

The other guest artist, Yvonne Montoya, turned in a piece that Keita said is quite a contrast. Montoya worked with 17 seniors in the program, some of whom are dancing on the Ethington stage for the final time. She brainstormed with them to come up with “Uprooted,” performed to Aztral Folk’s “Chakravartin.”

“It’s sculptural, in a sense, with very clear floor patterns and precise lines,” Keita said.

The Arizona Republic in November recognized Tucson-based Montoya on the Who’s Next in Arts List.

“Uprooted” expresses something different for each dancer, Keita writes in her program notes, as they try to figure out not only where they are going but where they came from.

Keita knew she wanted to work with GCU dance faculty choreographer Leanne Schmidt, known for her comedic improvisational work, after hearing the songs “Scissors, Paper, Stone” by Skeewiff and Stephen Gray, and “Black Venom” by The Budos Band. 

“I thought, ‘This would be so fun to do a piece to,’” said Keita. “The music sounds kind of sneaky, like there’s some sort of undercover detective. … There’s all sorts of shenanigans.”

In faculty choreographer Alicia Nascimento’s “Resistance and Solidarity,” performed to “Serendipity March” by Kangding Ray, “The Prevailing Wind” by Yasume and “Data.Matrix” by Ryoji Ikeda, dancers will look as if they’re walking on the wall.

The theme of this weekend concert is “Uncovered.” (File photo by Kaitlyn Terrey)

“It’s extremely physical,” Keita said. “It’s for anybody that loves to see dancers do something that seems physically impossible.”

A cast of 20 dancers will bring to the stage dance faculty Angel Crissman’s piece, “increased exponentially.” What’s neat about the work is it emulates the infinity illusion, where an infinite number of the same image is infinitely repeated through the use of mirrors.

Keita added, “We have a beautiful ballet work, as usual,” by GCU dance instructor Scott Martin, who is choreographing two pieces for the show. There’s also a piece by faculty dance instructor Molly Schenck, which Schenck said “explores our hard-wired need to fight, to flee, to freeze and to fold.”

Other works to be performed will include faculty choreographers Rebecca Blair Price’s “Pedestal” and Kevin Godfrey’s “Preludes” and “Colony.”

Contact GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu or at 602-639-7901.

IF YOU GO

What: “Uncovered,” the Winter Dance Concert

Where: Ethington Theatre

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday

Tickets: $12. Can be purchased and reserved through Ethington Theatre Box Office. General admission also can be purchased online here. Discounted tickets are available for seniors, military, GCU and GCE employees, GCU alumni, children 12 years and younger and GCU students.

Information: 602-639-8880 or ethington@gcu.edu

****

Related content:

GCU Today: “Guest artist keeps GCU dance on its toes”

The post Raw beauty of dance ‘Uncovered’ at concert appeared first on GCU Today.

Photos by Theresa Smith and Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

Hungry and stressed students sipped hot chocolate and munched on granola bars along the Promenade on Wednesday. They were eager to take advantage of Fuel for Finals, courtesy of the Grand Canyon University Welcome Programs and parents from the GCU Parent Council.

“I was very satisfied with my granola bar,” said Joshua Onwordi.  “And I took one when I went to class as well, so I have eaten two granola bars today. I am fueled for finals.”

The sophomore from Chandler took his first final on Tuesday and a second one on Wednesday.

Along with providing snacks, drinks and encouragement, the semiannual event featured a prayer request board, prompting students to publicize their prayers, including asking God for successful final exam experiences.  The two-day event ended on Thursday at 2 p.m.

The post Slideshow: Fuel for Finals appeared first on GCU Today.

The Canyon Chorale will perform Arnesen’s 25-minute “Magnificat” and other works Thursday night at the Music Department’s annual Christmas concert.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

The Canyon Chorale will go for glorious at the Grand Canyon University Music Department’s annual Christmas Concert, which comes on the heels of the department’s presentation of another glorious work – Handel’s indomitable “Messiah.”

The 45-member, collegiate Canyon Chorale, which will perform along with GCU’s Critical Mass from 7 to 8:30 Thursday night at First Southern Baptist Church of Phoenix, will dive into a relatively new work for the concert, Norwegian composer Kim Andre Arnesen’s “Magnificat.”

Arnesen wrote the 25-minute work, commissioned by the Nidaros Cathedral Girls Choir, in 2010. It made its debut at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway, and a recording of the composition, released in 2014, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album in 2016.

“Magnificat” centers around the text of Luke 2, which tells of the birth of Jesus.

“It’s a slow-moving piece, so the challenge is to bring in the emotion of the text – to experience the conflict Mary was experiencing in herself: the awe, the expectation, the fear and the joy, all at the same time,” said Assistant Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Production Dr. Juan de Dios Hernandez.

A Pentatonix medley, works by Dan Forrest and more will be part of Thursday night’s Critical Mass repertoire.

In addition to the Canyon Chorale, also taking the stage will be Critical Mass, a group of 12 vocalists whose repertoire is wide-ranging and whose performance reach is wide-ranging, too. You’ll notice the ensemble at everything from commencement to Family Weekend.

On the repertoire for the evening for Critical Mass will be two Dan Forrest pieces.

One is “See Amid the Winter’s Snow” and the other is “The Work of Christmas,” an a cappella piece whose text is based on a poem by educator, theologian and civil rights leader Howard Thurman. The poem challenges us to live out the Christmas story in practical ways: “When the song of the angels is stilled/ When the star in the sky is gone/ When the kings and princes are home/ When the shepherds are back in their flock/ The work of Christmas begins,” go the lyrics.

The group also will perform “Glow” by Eric Whitacre, which was first performed by the 700-member World of Color Honor Choir at Disney’s California Adventure Park; “Ecce Novum” by Ola Gjeilo; “Ding-a Ding-a Ding” by Greg Gilpin; and the “A Pentatonix Christmas” medley arranged by Mark Brymer, an eight-minute medley of tunes from the popular a cappella group’s Christmas albums that will include “Coventry Carol,” “God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen,” “O Come all Ye Faithful” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”

The Forrest, Whitacre and Gjeilo works will be performed with piano and string quartet.

Hernandez said the concert, as it does annually, features traditional choral music in a wide variety of styles. A couple are a cappella numbers. Two classical pieces by contemporary composers will be performed, and two Christmas carols are among the mix as well.

Hernandez said Christmas presents the perfect time for the choir to embrace the mission of the University.

“The primary purpose of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of the Savior,” Hernandez said.

“It’s a rich and very meaningful time of year.”

IF YOU GO

What: Music department’s annual Christmas Concert

Where: First Southern Baptist Church of Phoenix, 3100 W. Camelback Road

When: 7-8:30 Thursday night

Admission: Free

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GCU Today: “GCU goes big — Hallelujah! — for ‘Messiah'”

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The post Hark! GCU’s choirs sing, celebrate season appeared first on GCU Today.

Mindy Weinstein conducts a LinkedIn workshop for GCU students.

By Rick Vacek
GCU News Bureau

Mindy Weinstein was surprised recently to find her name on a Digital Summit promotion listing “Women Marketers Not to Miss.” But maybe her lofty status is the result of making sure she doesn’t miss any breaking news in the industry.

“I have to read all the time,” she said. “I can’t get in front of 200 people at a workshop and have someone raise their hand and say, ‘The Google update happened this morning,’ and I say, ‘Whaaaaat?’”

Mindy Weinstein

Weinstein, who joined the Colangelo College of Business (CCOB) full-time faculty for the 2018-19 Grand Canyon University academic year after two years as an adjunct, isn’t in demand solely for her speaking skills. She also owns her own digital marketing company, Market Mindshift, and is making news as a writer as well.

Search Engine Journal has published her column since 2015, and her piece titled “A Technical SEO Checklist for the Non-Technical Marketer” received the website’s Highest Page Views award for a recent month. It was viewed more than 9,000 times, according to the website.

It was a classic case of using your expertise and not overthinking it.

“I didn’t know what to write,” she said. “I had my deadline, and I thought, ‘Well, OK, what do I know off the top of my head?’ The reason I get asked to these conferences is that I explain some very technical terms to a nontechnical audience. That’s my thing. So I put it all out there, and people gobbled it up.”

A sampling of her work for Search Engine Journal and another publication that features her work, Street Fight Magazine:

• Small Business SEO Checklist: 11 Ways to Improve Rankings Today
• How to Know Your Audience to Master Your Marketing Campaigns
• 7 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I Was New to SEO
• A Look at Google’s ‘Quality Rater Guidelines’ Over Time: How to Put Information Into Action
• SMB Content Marketing: Avoid the Backward Approach
• 4 Ways to Track Traditional Local Media Using Digital

Her written accomplishments aren’t limited to the digital side. She also has co-authored with Deborah McNaughton two books on personal finances, “Rich and Thin: How to Slim Down, Shrink Debt, and Turn Calories Into Cash” and “Money Trouble: Surviving Your Financial Crisis.”

But it was Weinstein’s impact as a presenter at industry workshops that helped create those opportunities.

Weinstein is a frequent speaker at industry workshops.

“I always tell the students that it is all about who you know,” she said. “I know it’s a cliché, but that’s huge. I mean, some of the jobs I’ve gotten are because I knew someone. I didn’t apply, I was asked.”

Talk about pressure: She worked for a large search-optimization company with clients such as Facebook and The Weather Channel, and she also did training for industry professionals – 30 people, eight hours a day, five days a week. They would have complex questions, and she had to have the right answer. Faulty advice could have crashed their website.

She did all that even though she insists she’s an introvert.

“I have no issue with public speaking at all because I know my subject and I’ve been doing it for so long. I give my students a lot of public speaking tips. They’re often nervous being in front of class, and I always tell them it’s practice. The more you practice, the better you are.”

Weinstein and her husband, Mike, have lived in Arizona for 18 years. They have two sons – Quentin, 12, and Bryson, 9.

She is teaching four classes at GCU, including two “Principles of Marketing” courses and two “Promotions and Advertising” courses, and is set to start teaching a new Digital Marketing class in the spring semester.

She urges students to read, read, read, just like she does. She even brings in industry journals to make sure they’re looking at the right material.

“Marketing changes all the time … all the time,” she said.

The biggest trend? Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“That’s all over everything,” she said. “It’s getting so specific on how you can target someone. From a marketing perspective, it’s exciting. From a consumer perspective, sometimes it’s a little terrifying. You can get so personalized, so targeted, get directly to that person, get the message when they need the message, and convert them.”

Bringing in someone of Weinstein’s caliber is hardly new in CCOB. Dr. Randy Gibb, the college’s dean, makes it a hiring practice to find industry experts.

“Mindy has brought so much to our college and marketing program – she helps us go to the next level with her industry experience, network, and expertise,” he said. “Mindy is the perfect instructor for our Colangelo College of Business, loves to teach, owns her own business, and is personally involved helping our students get great jobs.”

Weinstein recently did a LinkedIn workshop that packed the lecture hall, but she shares more than her own expertise. She also brings in prominent local executives as guest speakers.

Her impression of GCU?

“I love it,” she said. “It’s actually been everything I thought it would be and more.”

From the looks of things, a lot of people are saying the same thing about her work.

Contact Rick Vacek at (602) 639-8203 or rick.vacek@gcu.edu.

The post They’re buying into instructor’s marketing acumen appeared first on GCU Today.

Students listen to a speech by Keliann Nash at the Speech and Debate Showcase.

By Theresa Smith
GCU News Bureau

Members of the Grand Canyon University Speech and Debate teams presented a lively showcase  Wednesday evening for an audience of approximately 60 students. Brian White, Tommee Gleason, Xanthia Clow and Keliann Nash delivered speeches, and Joseph Madere, Matthew Calderwood, Benjamin Streubel and Lexi Baskin participated in a mock debate about various aspects of campus life.

Nash prepares for her speech.

Prompted by a moderator posing topics, the debaters showed the ability to think and speak with no preparation time. Gleason, who placed third in three events at the Pacific Southwest Collegiate Forensic Association Fall Championships on Sunday at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif., showed the audience his quick preparation and writing skills by writing a speech about United States-Saudi Arabia relations on his computer – projected on the large classroom screen for all to see – and then he performed the speech.

Nash ended the event on a passionate note, with a moving performance she dedicated to her brother, who dealt with the need for males to properly express emotions.

“I was proud of all of the hard work that the students put in,” said Michael Dvorak, GCU’s Director of Forensics and an instructor of Communication. “Several members of the audience were moved by the performances they saw, and that speaks to the power the students have in conveying emotions via their performance.”

Contact Theresa Smith at (602) 639-7457 or theresa.smith@gcu.edu.

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Bill Palowski, Iridian Padilla, Koddie Becker and Christina Herman (from left) present their work at the Java Boot Camp Showcase to guests in the technology industry.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau

In a 23-year career with the Air Force, Bill Palowski inspected.

He oversaw.

Bill Palowski, who recently retired from the Air Force, will start work with a large technology consulting firm in February as a solution analyst. He landed the job before even graduating from GCU’s Java Certificate Program.

Ensured compliance.

Implemented technical training.

But he wanted to do something different.

“I wanted to get into the computer industry, the tech industry,” said Palowski, who retired from the military a little more than a year ago, then was laid off from a contract job at Lockheed Martin.

He thought, “Oh, great. What am I going to do now?”

Even though he earned his bachelor’s degree in information technology, squeezing in classes wherever he could around his military job, he wanted to code. He tried to learn coding himself online, but that wasn’t working for him. Then he saw an advertisement online for Grand Canyon University’s Java Programming Certificate Program.

He called. Thought he could take night classes.

But when he found out the camp was an immersive 9 a.m.-5 p.m. commitment, five days a week for 16 weeks, he balked.

“I was, like, so I can’t work?”

But after he thought about it, he did what he thought he couldn’t do. He decided to sacrifice a steady paycheck and signed up for the University’s first Java boot camp, which falls under the helm of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology.

“It’s probably the best decision I’ve ever made,” Palowski said. “It’s been a little rough keeping up with all the bills, but it’s well worth it now.”

Christina Herman (left) changed her major at GCU three times and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do as a career. After completing GCU’s 16-week-long, intensive Java coding camp, she will start a job with a large technology consulting firm in February.

Palowski, along with fellow boot camper Christina Herman, did the improbable by landing jobs in the industry before even graduating from the camp with their certificate.

Both will start work in February for a large technology consulting firm and also will receive hefty sign-on bonuses. 

It’s a coup for the program, which was preceded by a pilot Java course in the spring to test the curriculum.

“I’ve done boot camps before,” Palowski said. “Trying to learn it online without anybody there to watch is a lot harder. So the opportunity to actually come and sit and watch an instructor do it here is one of the best experiences I ever had.

“The camp’s amazing. I know it’s young, and it’s going to have a lot more to grow on as they go and do more and more. But it’s been great for me.”

The Java program is the latest in the University’s efforts to establish itself as a leader in STEM education. Just four years ago, it launched its engineering program — the first engineering graduates will walk the commencement stage in April — and it has partnered with such organizations as the Arizona Cyber Threat Response Alliance and added a master’s degree in cyber security.

Java certificate programs aren’t anything new. But GCU’s program, a collaboration between CSET and Strategic Employer Initiatives, is distinctive.

“Being tied to a university like GCU is what makes it totally different,” said Rob Loy, head of nondegreed programs, during one of the Java classes.

The classes are kept small intentionally. The current class touts seven students.

The class’ capstone project was to create a program for the nonprofit group Back to School Clothing Drive.

“We obviously have a smaller group here,” he said. “We’re dedicated to making sure they get the personal knowledge and attention. We really care about them being employed.”

The focus also is on students who, like Palowski, have earned a degree, are established in a career but are looking for a career change.

That focus makes for a unique classroom dynamic. Students in the class range from a retired military material supply manager, a couple of college students, a sales representative, a graphic designer and also cement truck driver Eric Stoll, who said he struggled to learn coding by himself before signing up for GCU’s Java program.

His dream, he said, is to work remotely so he and his wife can travel and work from anywhere in the world.

“Hopefully, in 10 years or so, we can do that dream,” he said.

Herman racked up quite a few credit hours as a student at GCU: “I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanted to do for a while. I’ve always liked computers. Beforehand, I kind of jumped around majors, and I was working in a boutique. I didn’t want to do that anymore.”

So, like the others, she found her way to the Java boot camp.

“Diversity — that’s what we’re aiming for,” said boot camp instructor Stephen Williams, who taught the camp with Loy and associate IT professor Glenda Dilts.

Loy said one big change, going from the pilot program to this first camp, is moving from teaching Java Script, a front-end technology — and what most similar coding boot camps teach — to Java in the back end.

“They’re completely different technologies. Industry has told us, ‘We can find 10 people to do Java Script, but we can only find one person that does Java.’”

“I really like that it’s hands-on from the start,” Herman said of the camp. “I feel like in regular college classes, it takes a bit of time before you actually start writing code and getting into it.”

The students in the class spent a lot of time whiteboarding, in which they solve programming problems by writing code by hand on a whiteboard. They’ve done pair programming, in which one student writes the code and the other reviews each line of code. They listened to industry speakers and learned interviewing and resume techniques, too. Palowski and Herman actually landed their jobs after meeting representatives at GCU’s Engineering and Technology Job/Internship Fair in September.

They also talk about “I Do,” “We Do” and “You Do.” The instructor first covers concepts by writing code to solve a problem, while the students watch; then the instructor and students work on a solution to a second similar problem together; then the students solve a third similar problem individually, without instructor assistance. The instructor reviews a solution for the last problem after sufficient time for students to solve it on their own.

The new Java coders also created a shopping list application and a banking database to show industry leaders at the Java Boot Camp Showcase.

“It’s probably one of the best learning models I’ve ever seen in a boot camp-type setting,” Palowski said.

“It’s a great learning model, it really is,” said graphic designer and coder Koddie Becker. “On the ‘You Do,’ you figure out what it is exactly you don’t understand really quickly, so that way you have a chance to get help and ask somebody, ‘OK, I’m not getting this. I thought I got it.’ And then you go and try to do it yourself and you’re like, ‘What am I supposed to do?’”

Students showed what they can do at a showcase Wednesday for faculty and industry leaders.

They presented three projects — a shopping list app; a banking database, in which the user can create a customer, add savings and checking accounts, and the like; and then the big capstone project, which was to help a nonprofit.

For the capstone project, students built a program for Back to School Clothing Drive that merged information from two databases — Salesforce and the Magneto Shopping Cart — into one report.

“They wanted us to build a program where they could sit there and they could pick out and generate reports based on their customer orders, customer information, order information,” Palowski said. But the information they needed is split into two databases. “… We had to design the piece that would grab from each database, collectively put the data together, then put it into an Excel format or PDF format.”

The team had one week to complete their capstone project.

Collabera National Account Manager Alicia Weitzel, who recruits for the IT industry, said she was amazed by the students’ presentations: “I’m very impressed. When you get in front of those interviewers, I can’t tell you how many times they will put you on the spot. You’re going to be so much further ahead (than other job candidates).”

Just ask Christina Herman what it was about this camp that helped her secure a job.

She just smiled and said, “Everything.”

You can reach GCU senior writer Lana Sweeten-Shults at lana.sweeten-shults@gcu.edu or at 602-639-7901.

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The post Java boot camp helps students launch new careers appeared first on GCU Today.

Photos by Slaven Gujic
GCU News Bureau

Grand Canyon University’s Ethington Dance Ensemble performed 11 dances by 10 choreographers for its Winter Dance Concert, “Uncovered.” About 50 dancers brought the works to life on the Ethington Theatre stage Dec. 7-9.

The post Slideshow: Winter Dance Concert appeared first on GCU Today.

By Theresa Smith
GCU News Bureau

Mathematics instructor Huy Dinh is known for his sense of humor. He makes his classes fly by on the strength of jokes, even corny ones. For example: “You have to be odd to be number one.” Or “Dear Algebra, please stop asking us to find your X. She’s never coming back and don’t ask Y.”

For the recent Poker Day, Dinh and his colleagues ratcheted it up a few notches. As they were dealing cards and cracking jokes, their students were applying the probability and statistics concepts of Expected Value, the Gambler’s Fallacy and the Law of Large Numbers and Counting, according to Associate Professor Ben VanDerLinden Department Chair in Mathematics for Secondary and Higher Education.

Instructor Huy Dinh deals cards to poker-playing students.

The semiannual event, inaugurated last spring, lasted for six hours in its most recent iteration and included three tables of Texas hold ’em and one table of blackjack. More than 180 students participated with approximately 30 students playing for one hour each although some students stayed longer. Dinh, VanDerLinden, Jeff Springer, Molly Elmer and Nick Schoonover dealt cards. Joshua Denis, President of the Math Ed club, and Jonah Beaumont, a faculty adviser, also participated. 

“It is a 100 percent so much better to learn that way,’’ said sophomore Luz Cardenas. “It helps with double-checking my answers and when estimating. I know with poker I have to use math skills to know what will happen with the next card coming. It helps me think about proximate answers.’’

A pre-med major from Phoenix who was studying for her pre-calculus final, Cardenas enjoyed seeing faculty members in an unfamiliar setting.

“Playing poker with professors dealing makes me see them differently,’’ Cardenas said. “They are serious in class; they are your professors and you have to respect them. But at the same time, seeing them there having fun with the students, interacting and teaching them in a fun environment is definitely a different perspective.’’

Instructor Molly Elmer watches over the poker proceedings.

Computer science major Jeremy Mog concurred: “It is fun to see the professor as a person instead of a teacher.’’

The freshman from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., goofed on his Texas hold ’em hands a couple of times.

“I learned that going all in without looking at your cards is probably a bad idea,’’ he said. “You would be surprised how many times it has worked in the past.’’

To increase those odds for students, faculty members distributed a chart with the ranking, frequency and probability of various poker hands.

“We also give hints based on probability,’’ said Dinh, who makes similar applications in the classroom.

In casual Friday attire, Instructor Huy Dinh stands in front of his office door, which is decorated by math jokes.

For example, he asks the students this question: “If you drop their backpack on the floor and a pencil rolls away, what is probability that the pencil will roll no farther than 2.5 meters away?’’ 

The answer: 95 percent.

Among the changes in the second running of Poker Day was the introduction of “firmer’’ rules and the inclusion of the Math Ed club. A persistent aspect was the building of community away from the classroom.

“It was a chance to do something fun,’’ Dinh said. “Even though we instill humor in the academic setting, this is different. One reason I really enjoy it is because it involves all the staff members in the math department. And involving the Math Ed club gave them a chance to not only interact with our students in a different way, but also perhaps help recruit more students to the Math Ed club.’’

The event was timed for the same week that probability was introduced in the MAT-144 College Algebra and MAT-154 Application of College Algebra classes.

As a finals wrap-up, students seeking help from Dinh are greeted at his office by a door covered in math humor and references, some collected by Dinh and others provided by colleagues who appreciate his sense of math humor.

“Humor definitely eases the stress of math,’’ Dinh said. “And the other thing that eases the stress is to relate it directly to something students encounter, like poker.’’

Contact Theresa Smith at (602) 639-7457 or theresa.smith@gcu.edu.

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