Grand Canyon University

Grand Canyon College Becomes GRAND CANYON UNIVERSITY

Text by Carole Stensrud Photographs by Fred Griffin Kemper Arena, Kansas City, March 22, 1988: With time out and 15 seconds left in overtime, Grand Canyon coach Paul Westphal turns to forward Rodney Johns and suggests, "Find something to do."

Johns does. His shot swishes through the net just before the buzzer, and the Grand Canyon College Antelopes edge Auburn-Montgomery in a heart-stopping 84-82 win. They are the 1988 basketball champions of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.

That hard-earned victory was a shock to many sports fans. Coming off a 376 record but seeded 11th in tournament play, the little-known 'Lopes played their first three Kansas City games late at night to thousands of empty seats. But game after game, the team outlasted the competition; and finally, playing in "prime time" in the semifinals and finals, the Antelopes from Arizona won the coveted crown.

Facing long odds yet winning was nothing new to Grand Canyon College. Neither was lack of recognition. Sometimes called the "best-kept secret in Arizona," the four-year private liberal arts institution has quietly piled up numerous achievements. Now it has reached another milestone: this fall it opened its doors to the school's 40th freshman class as Grand Canyon University.

Founded in 1949 with an enrollment of 95, Grand Canyon was then and is still the state's only private, traditional academic college. Five years ago, long-range planners projected a 1989 enrollment of 1,800 and suggested a limit of 2,500 students-a figure they didn't expect to materialize until the year 2000. Today the student body already numbers almost 2,000, supported by an annual operating budget of $11.6 million. Since 1981, enrollment has grown by 55 percent and, despite $10 million worth of construction and renovation completed in the last seven years, space is at a premium. The school has added an apartment complex for married students and single upperclassmen, a nursing building, and a fine arts complex, and has refurbished student services and administration buildings.

Despite the recent expansion, administrators still hope to limit the university's size to about 2,500 students. "Beyond that," says Dr. Charles Maxson, vice president for academic affairs, "the nature of the school changes. It becomes less personal, and life centers around the individual colleges rather than the university as a whole." Moreover, the school could not accommodate more than 2,500 without major new construction.

Grand Canyon College was founded when Arizona's Southern Baptists responded to a wave of patriotism after World War II with an admirable objective: to offer of Natural Sciences, physiologist Jim Witherspoon. He has procured three pairs of cadavers for the school in the last four years, enabling premedical students to begin advanced physiological studies and laboratory work before they get to medical school-an opportunity rare for undergraduates.

In concert with Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, Grand Canyon pre-engineering students may enter "The 3:2 Program," which yields two baccalaureate degrees. After three years of classes at Grand Canyon, they move to one of the state universities for another two years. After the first year there, they receive a bachelor's in the Grand Canyon major-say, science or mathematics. When they complete the second year, they're awarded the engineering degree.

Professor Peter Papadopol, who earned his doctorate at the University of Bucharest, is one magnet that attracts students to the mathematics department. He heads the Dynamical Systems Laboratory, where undergraduates have a chance to participate in significant research in mathematics. "Dynamical systems" entails the study of such subjects as chaos theory pertaining to irregular phenomena that contain subtle, predictable patterns, as weather formations and economic cycles-and fractals-units or elements that repeat themselves ad infinitum, like the endless reflections in two mirrors set at an angle. Six to nine students work with Papadopol at any one time; during the summer, he meets at Cornell University with a group of mathematicians and computer scientists who compare their year's work.

Another popular program, this one in the College of Business, is "human resources development," which prepares individuals to administer employee training and development activities within commercial and professional organizations. Established at Grand Canyon 16 years ago at the urging of Dr. Joyce Parker, then president of the Valley of the Sun chapter of the American Society for Training and Development, the innovative approach involved extensive cooperation with the Phoenix business community. A competency-based curriculum includes a required two-semester internship to provide practical experience.

The program's director, Dr. Rob L. Jones, points with pride to graduates placed in key professional positions from New York to California and in such foreign climes as Mexico City and Saudi Arabia. Jones credits the "real world" experience thestudents gain through the program for its success rate. “Employers have learned that our graduates can step up to the plate and bat in their first inning on the job,” he says.

Over in the Grand Canyon athletic department, enthusiasm for the change from college to university has led to new programs in women's basketball and volleyball, men's soccer, and men's and women's cross-country. The old schedule was limited to men's baseball, basketball, golf, and tennis and women's tennis.

Grand Canyon athletes have taken eight national titles in three sports over the last 14 years. The Antelopes were the first college baseball team to capture four NAIA titles and have also defeated such National Collegiate Athletic Association schools as Brigham Young, the University of Southern California, and Arizona State. The NAIA basketball championship the 'Lopes won in 1988 was their third, tying the NAIA record for most championships in that sport. That 1987-88 team set an NAIA scoring record-4,093 points in a single season. In 1981 the Lady 'Lopes won the NAIA women's tennis championship. And in 1988 Grand Canyon was named winner of the NAIA All-Sports Competition title.

Now Grand Canyon University is meet-ing compliance requirements for NCAA membership and expecting approval in 1990. Joining the NCAA will help the athletic program gain wider recognition, says Marlene Bjornsrud, assistant athletic director. “Grand Canyon is the Rodney Dangerfield of Arizona. NCAA status will help give us the respect that has been due for years.” Athletes are attracted to Grand Canyon for several reasons. “Climate is one,” says the athletic director, Gil Stafford. Students can play baseball, tennis, and golf yearround. “Also, our junior varsity programs are run in a way that gives the walk-on athlete an opportunity to win a scholarship and play on the varsity.” In 1988, when junior varsity programs without scholar-ships were added to men's basketball and soccer and to women's basketball, more than 130 students applied for the 60 positions available.

In its short history, the Grand Canyon athletic department has compiled an amazing record. There have been coaches like John Shumate (now at Southern Methodist University) and Paul Westphal (assistant coach of the Phoenix Suns). There have been players like Bayard Forrest (the Suns), Dave Stapleton (Houston Astros), and zany Dave Breshnahanwho won The Chicago Tribune's “Sports Person of the Year” award when he threw a potato instead of a ball to the catcher as a runner was headed home.

And there has been Rodney Johns.

That winning basket in Kansas City confirmed Johns as the NAIA tournament's Most Valuable Player for 1988. Later he became a third-round draft pick for the Phoenix Suns; he now plays for a team in New Zealand.

Those are remarkable achievements for a Phoenix youngster who described himself ironically as “on very familiar terms with the chief of police.” But something happened to Johns as a student at Grand Canyon.

“I found people who cared,” he says, “and I came to find that God cared. At Grand Canyon, I saw that people cared about my getting an education-not just playing basketball. They respected menot just as a basketball player, but as a person.”

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