Almost 30,000 students will graduate from Grand Canyon University later this month, marking the third time the school has produced this many alumni in a year.
“We are blessed to be able to celebrate the accomplishments of another record class of graduates who are meeting the needs of today’s workforce and fulfilling their purpose as servant leaders throughout the world,” GCU President Brian Mueller said in a statement.
On April 25-26, GCU will hold commencement ceremonies for 5,388 traditional students on the Phoenix campus, while the 23,597 graduating online students will have commencement May 1-3. The total number of students in the graduating class is 28,985, including those who completed their degrees in Summer 2023, Fall 2023, and projected graduates from Spring 2024.
In the 2022-23 year, 29,116 students graduated, while 30,000 graduated in the 2021-22 year.
“While enrollment numbers and graduation numbers are declining nationwide, we have continued to produce a significant number of graduates who are impacting industries throughout the country,” Mueller said.
Of all graduates, 15,580 completed their undergraduate degree, and 13,405 were graduate students earning master’s or doctoral degrees.
The Honors College had 682 graduates, raising the total to more than 2,500 since the college started in 2013.
In the 2023-24 academic year, enrollment at GCU surpassed 25,000 on the Phoenix campus, with another more than 92,000 studying online. Additionally, GCU grew from nine to 10 colleges when the College of Science, Engineering and Technology split into two, forming the College of Engineering and Technology and the College of Natural Sciences.
GCU also opened a physical location for its Grand Canyon Theological Seminary in the fall. The 17,000-square-foot Seminary offers GCU’s Master of Divinity program and provides a meeting space for local pastors.
The Phoenix-based university also created the Center for Workforce Development and added two more Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program sites, bringing the total number of sites to six. GCU is on track to open three more sites in the 2024-25 academic year.
Mueller attributed the growth to students, faculty, and above all, God.
“That is a testament to the extraordinary power of education when delivered creatively across multiple platforms and taught from a Christian worldview perspective,” Mueller said. “It is also a reflection of both our outstanding students and the support they receive from our faculty and staff.”
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
Students at Arizona State University reportedly held anti-Israel demonstrations on campus Friday.
Videos shared by local free speech advocate Ann Atkinson on X show students yelling “Free, Free, Free Palestine” on the Old Main Lawn, which was covered in tents, signs, and protesters.
BREAKING – ASU students are reporting what appears to be anti-Israel demonstrations setting up on ASU’s Old Main lawn, across the street from the Presidents office.
How will ASU handle this? Will the demonstrations remain peaceful or will they draw inspiration from the ivy… pic.twitter.com/OPj0KnPGMr
Arizona State police handcuffed multiple people amid the protest. Protesters started to form a group in front of Old Main near College Avenue and University Drive on the ASU campus around 9 a.m.
ASU prohibits encampments on property that are outside of university-sanctioned activity.
“Individuals found setting up unapproved encampments will be directed to dismantle them immediately,” an ASU spokesperson told ABC15. “Failure to comply may result in being trespassed from campus and possible arrest. We prioritize the safety and well-being of the campus community and uphold policies to ensure a welcoming environment for everyone.
When police first approached the scene Friday morning and ordered the students to stop protesting, demonstrators chanted, “Hey Hey, ho ho, those damn pigs have got to go.”
Arizona State University joined various universities and other academic groups in issuing a statement in support of Israel in October following the initial Hamas attack, which killed around 1,200 Israelis and foreigners.
“We are horrified and sickened by the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas,” the statement read.
The protestors issued a list of demands asking the university to change its pro-Israel stance.
Here is the list of demands from the protesters: they want ASU to cut all ties with Israel and for ASU president Michael Crow to resign pic.twitter.com/bwvuxKopwi
Demands included asking ASU to issue an official statement condemning the zionist genocide of Palestinians; disclosing all investments made with student money; divesting from companies tied to Israel or complicit in the occupation of Gaza; ending partnerships with groups tied to Israel; providing amnesty for students and faculty disciplined for supporting Palestine; and ending investigations on pro-Palestinian groups.
The protestors demanded that ASU President Michael Crow immediately resign and called for the ASU police to be abolished.
Atkinson suggested that protesters may have wanted to clash with the police.
“Current reporting indicates the protesters did not follow basic rules and are being accused of trespassing,” she said on X. “You would think organizers of a protest like this, which is supported by some ASU faculty and community organizers, and is also set up across the street from the university presidents office, would be smart enough to follow the rules. Perhaps their objective was a conflict with police.”
ASU is one of many schools to face unlawful anti-Israel protests from students.
More than 100 students were arrested last Thursday at Columbia University. Since then hundreds of students have set up similar encampments from California to Massachusetts.
Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill organized tents, tarps, and air mattresses in a central courtyard, while students at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan set up an encampment Thursday inside the college’s Goldman Center.
Police arrested 36 people Thursday night when hundreds of Ohio State University students, faculty, and community members set up tents outside the student union. Almost 60 were arrested after protests at the University of Texas.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
The largest Christian university in the U.S., Grand Canyon University (GCU), defended itself against “disturbing and defamatory” public comments made by the U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
“Mr. Cardona’s inflammatory comments, which are legally and factually incorrect, are so reckless that GCU has no choice but to demand an immediate retraction,” the statement says. “He is either confused, misinformed or does not understand the actions taken by his own agency.”
At the House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Cardona said “we are cracking down not only to shut them down, but to send a message to not prey on students.”
The Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of GCU in February due to the Biden administration imposing a $37 million fine on the school. The conservative think tank claims the administration has refused to provide documents that explain why it fined GCU.
“GCU has been asked repeatedly why it believes it is being targeted by federal agencies of the Biden Administration,” the school’s statement reads. “Here’s what we can tell you: Mr. Cardona’s inflammatory comments make very clear the Department of Education’s intentions and their disdain for institutions that do not fit their ideological agenda. What’s also clear is that ED has no lawful grounds to carry out those intentions based on their disingenuous and factually unsupportable allegations.”
The Education Department’s conduct extends normal regulatory activity, the statement says.
“It epitomizes the weaponization of federal agencies’ power against a private Christian university,” according to the statement.
GCU is confident an impartial court of law would exonerate it from the allegations.
“GCU’s intent is to fight these accusations all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary,” the statement says. “The Department of Education’s intent, based on the frivolous nature of its accusations and defamatory statements from ED officials, seems to be to damage the university’s reputation, use its ‘findings’ as a rationale to seek loan forgiveness for students under the borrower’s defense to repayment program and impose unprecedented fines and legal fees. In other words, regardless of the inevitable legal outcomes in GCU’s favor, the process becomes the punishment.”
GCU has more than 118,000 students. The Phoenix university says it will continue to thrive.
“With 118,000 students and growing, GCU is thriving and will continue to thrive. In an industry that is struggling and slow to change, GCU has created a model that has allowed it to freeze tuition on its ground campus for 16 straight years, increase diversity and social mobility by ensuring that higher education is affordable to all socioeconomic classes (over 40% of GCU’s ground campus student body are students of color), maintain lower student loan default rates than the national average and lower student debt levels than other private universities, and produce nearly 30,000 graduates in each of the past three years.”
The statement continued, “If a government-run institution produced those kinds of outcomes, it would be applauded. At the largest private Christian university in the country, it draws unwarranted threats from the Secretary of Education and the ire of the federal government.”
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
A Democratic Arizona congressman waved a Ukrainian flag on the House floor after the approval of additional Ukraine aid, though the Grand Canyon state is facing a crisis of its own.
Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Phoenix, waved a Ukrainian flag on the floor of the U.S. House on Saturday as members of his Democratic Party chanted “Ukraine.” Stanton joined a minority of Republicans in approving $60 billion in additional military aid for the Ukrainian government.
Phoenix radio personality, James T. Harris, raised questions about Stanton’s priorities. Arizona is currently the number one hotspot for illegal border crossings.
“Why [is] Congressman Greg Stanton from AZ waving a Ukrainian flag? What about the invasion on his Southern border?,” Harris said on Twitter.
Why Congressman Greg Stanton from AZ waving a Ukrainian flag? What about the invasion on his Southern border? pic.twitter.com/jzB1l1mUE2
During the first four months of fiscal year 2024, Border Patrol recorded more than 250,000 migrant apprehensions in the Tucson sector, the most of any region patrolled by the agency, according to federal government statistics.
Even House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who pushed the aid bill, denounced the flag waving.
“These are not normal times here in the House or around the world, as we all know and we saw a disturbance on the House floor just a bit ago,” Johnson said of the demonstration. “I just want to say simply that I think most people around the country understand and agree we should only wave one flag on the House floor, and I think we know which flag that is.”
The bill, tying military aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan with humanitarian assistance for Gaza, was a victory for Johnson after he brought the proposals to the floor despite objections from his party. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is leading a movement to oust the speaker.
The aid package passed on a 311 to 112 vote, with Arizona Republicans Juan Ciscomani and David Schweikert joining Ruben Gallego and Stanton in approving the measure. Gallego reportedly held a Ukraine flag but did not wave it.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
Arizona is the state with the third best economic climate, according to a new report from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
“Arizona’s high ranking is a direct result of significant pro-growth income and property tax reform that has supercharged our economy,” President of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club Scot Mussi told AZ Free News. “In the last decade we have slashed our income tax rates in half, cut taxes on capital gains, and significantly reduced the property tax burden on small businesses.”
Utah and Idaho surpassed the Grand Canyon state for best economic climates. New York, Vermont, and Illinois placed in the bottom three.
Arizona has moved up from 13th place in 2021 to third in 2024. Arizona’s population increased by 115,900 from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, estimates from the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity show. This translated into 1.6% growth, much faster than the U.S. at 0.5%.
Arizona ranks third for tax expenditure limits, first for being a right-to-work state with the option to join or support a union, first for estate/inheritance tax levied, and first for remaining tax burden.
It also ranked second for public employees per 10,000 of population and eighth for average worker compensation cost.
Mussi said Arizona is on track to continue its route of economic growth.
“As long as we keep these reforms in place, Arizona will remain a destination for both families and entrepreneurs,” he said.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
