Welcome 7 days is right here, and the Transfer-In is quick

Go-In started Monday early morning across the GCU campus.

Tale by Rick Vacek
Pics by Ralph Freso
GCU Information Bureau

“I’m not carrying something. This is straightforward!” the mother of an incoming first-calendar year university student at Grand Canyon University claimed Monday morning as she adopted the Welcome Crew into Acacia Corridor.

Yet another mom walking out of close by Ironwood Corridor mentioned that the car by now was empty at 7:03 a.m. … immediately after the appointment was at 7. “So simple,” she reported.

It was a delighted arrival system for mom and dad of incoming pupils.

Certainly, the aid was uncomplicated to see as another Welcome Week dawned and GCU started the method of filling the campus with a history 9,000 incoming learners and 23,500 total.

The new appointment procedure was functioning effortlessly, for moms and dads as a great deal as everyone. But it points up a basic simple fact about Move-In: It is not just for the incoming students, in particular these going away to higher education for the initially time. It’s about placing their parents’ minds at relieve, too.

“Parents are incredibly nervous, definitely, when their sons and daughters are freshmen and are leaving residence forever for the to start with time,” GCU President Brian Mueller reported.

“So when they occur to campus and they see how welcoming the ambiance is for the learners, I assume they sense welcome, as well. It feels cozy. I think it’s a lot a lot easier for them, as a final result of that, to be able to flip all-around and go residence.”

Moms and dads like Mark Escandon. He currently experienced accomplished the toughest aspect of the journey – driving to Phoenix from his residence in Kent, Washington. Now he was sipping from his cup of iced tea as he walked casually into Juniper Hall.  

GCU President Brian Mueller invested a lot of his Monday greeting mom and dad as effectively as college students.

“Today was amazing,” he reported. “We pulled in at our time. Three learners arrived out to enable us, and I just stepped again. They took every thing out of the auto and set it in the cart. I just parked the auto in the garage and am going to assist begin moving stuff about the home.”

This could have been much far more nerve-racking for Escandon taking into consideration that he was performing a Shift-In two-fer Monday. Not only was his son Mitch coming in as a freshman his daughter Nellie, a transfer college student, experienced an appointment for afterwards in the working day on the other side of campus.

Two at when? How does that materialize? Like this: Mitch used a good deal of his time through the pandemic applying to faculties, and just one of them was GCU. Then he visited campus.

“He arrived down listed here and he cherished it,” his dad explained. “Just the experience he acquired from it, the vibe.”

Nellie also was hunting for a college and learned that GCU had the software she was seeking, way too. All it took was Mitch’s nudge.

“GCU is exactly what she requires,” he advised his mom and dad.

The up coming phase was to determine out how to get them equally to Phoenix. Mark and Nellie drove the packed-to-the-gills motor vehicle, and Mitch and his mom, Shannon, flew – with 6 suitcases. The vehicle will be still left with the kids, and Mark and Shannon will fly back again to Washington on Tuesday.

Users of the Thundering Listened to Pep Band share the GCU spirit with arriving households.

It also was really a trip for Beth and Jeff Straley. They came all the way from Castle Rock, Colorado, but this is their next little one to appear to GCU – so they realized what to anticipate Monday.

“The Welcoming committee produced us experience like we were aspect of the practical experience,” Beth explained of when they moved their daughter Lauren in earlier.

“We felt loved and welcomed,” Jeff chimed in.

“Yes, we felt cherished and welcomed,” Beth agreed. “We were being offering a piece of our heart away.”

Beth also liked the orientation session for mother and father and pupils in GCU Arena, which she jokingly known as a “boo hoo/yahoo.” But that assisted, far too.

“It was actually exciting to be reassured and get that local community feel,” she reported.

That’s one more aspect of welcoming dad and mom to campus: Their little ones are signing up for a local community, and the moms and dads are element of it, far too.

“Really, actually important,” Mueller mentioned of orientation. “It’s a way, in a team setting like that, to get the students all set for what this is. We’re an event-driven campus. We get with each other in big groups all the time.”

Lauren Olive, resident director in Acacia Hall, was eager to make mother and father feel comfortable with where by their small children will be residing.

But there also requirements to somebody there for them on a particular degree in their spot of home. Which is in which the resident directors appear in – these as Lauren Olive, who has taken over as the RD in Acacia Corridor.

Olive graduated in April with her sociology and social do the job degree, but she did not want to depart. Right after 3 a long time as a resident assistant, now she’s in charge. And significantly of her working day Monday would be expended greeting mothers and fathers.

“A large amount of them occur to the desk and want to chat to us,” she mentioned. “They just want to know that their youngsters are heading to sense at house below and they’re going to be relaxed and they’re going to be safe and sound listed here. What ever we can do to reassure that, we attempt to present.

“I keep in mind when I moved in, my mother and father ended up very anxious about me coming on to the campus. But when they observed the Welcome Crew and all people cheering and unloading stuff and helping us out and seeking to interact with us and meet up with with us, they felt a whole lot far more at ease and snug.”

The pandemic included to parents’ fears, but it also has included to the anticipation for the new tutorial year.    

“This calendar year I feel like the electricity is unquestionably on yet another amount,” Olive reported. “Everyone is tremendous fired up to be back again on campus, and issues are open up. You can just explain to with the citizens coming in – they are enthusiastic to see faces and they are energized to converse and communicate with people. A whole lot of them, this is their very first time observing folks in a actually extended time.”

Said Mueller, “Last yr was a very good yr, but it was not uncomplicated. There were being problems. It wasn’t the very same as it often is. And, of study course, with the delta variant this summer months, men and women were being anxious. There is been a large amount of perform place into all this. Our pupils want this to be back to the way GCU was commonly, so all people is thrilled for all of what’s going to happen this year on campus, and I believe doubly so simply because of how complicated very last yr was.”

But as motor vehicle soon after automobile traversed campus byways Monday to start the Go-In method, many family members previously have been organizing for the long run. Mark Escandon, for example, presently experienced thought ahead to the fantastic temperature Phoenix will appreciate at Thanksgiving.

“We ended up wise and stated, ‘Why provide them house for Thanksgiving? Why really do not we go down there?’”

Straightforward … just like the Shift-In method.

Call Rick Vacek at (602) 639-8203 or [email protected].

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