Amazon Premium Videos Thanked Me - In a Round About Way

 

GCU Swimming Pool

I heard a conversation at UOP about Grand Canyon University wanting to become a Christian version of UOP. Some businessmen bought the school when the Arizona Baptist Foundation lost 85% of the money invested by faithful members and GCU's endowment fund. 

I worked on a potential position there, online for about two years, while they were getting ready to be online. Some time later, they added their seminary and additional degrees. I visited the old campus early on, and I seemed to have come from outer space. "Online instructor? Oh." I was the only online faculty that came to that meeting. 

A parent in Arkansas told me that GCU had grown incredibly with buildings and programs. I just kept teaching, mostly Old Testament. Brian Mueller had been my online boss at UOP, and he came to GCU to be the new president. Long ago he was LCMS and a basketball coach at Concordia University. Think of that, LCMS colleges!

Apparently GCU was down to 1,000 students before things changed. The current figures are 25,000 students on campus and 90,000 online. When other schools panicked over Covid changes, GCU just switched the campus to online in short order.

 GCU - Division 1 basketball

The funny thing is, I have never seen any new buildings first-hand. We left Phoenix in 2009 and all communications were online. The school is non-profit, and keeps the tuition cost level.

The Amazon video  narrator thanked all the parents, students, and faculty for building up GCU. So I said to the screen, "You are welcome!" 

When I saw a chance to study Hebrew at Waterloo Seminary, the dean said, "Why? It's not required for graduation." I said, "To read the Old Testament in the original..." my voice trailing off. I could not believe what he said. But when I officially graduated from Waterloo, I was at Yale studying Genesis in Hebrew, so the seminary had to mail the diploma and stole to me. The extra Hebrew might be why I ended up teaching Old Testament.

GCU volleyball