History of Grand Canyon University

A Death and a Dream: The Canyon Story

The Grand Canyon University story began in the 1920s with the demise of a small Baptist college, Montezuma College, in New Mexico. Two or three students and faculty of that school, consecrated there to the cause of Christian education, cached away a dream of one day building another school for the glory of God. The dream resurfaced in the mid 1940s in a business meeting of Arizona Southern Baptists in Casa Grande, Arizona. Pastor L. D. White of Calvary Baptist Church plunked a shiny silver dollar on a wooden table at the front of the room and proffered its value as the first donation toward a Baptist college in Arizona. Dozens of others followed, including a widow with a jar of pennies and a Montezuma alumnus who wrote a hundred dollar check. Enthusiasm seized everyone—everyone except Dr. Willis J. Ray.

Dr. Ray, a pastor and executive secretary of the fledgling Arizona Southern Baptist Convention, thought his fellow Baptists were getting in over their heads. Asked to take up the offering, he politely declined. Events over the next few years nearly proved him right. Enthusiasm for the project waned, as problems, setbacks, debts, and discouragements accumulated. Everyone gave up on the hope of the Baptist college—everyone except Dr. Willis J. Ray. His faith crystallized even as others’ dissipated, a fact the first board of trustees began to appreciate. Eventually, they asked Dr. Ray to serve as the little college’s first president. A Montezuma alumnus, Vernon Shipp, became the first chairman of the board of trustees. Another, Dr. Roland Beck, became its first professor. And so, Grand Canyon College came into existence.

In 1949, classrooms opened to 93 students in Prescott, Arizona. Two years of financial drought followed, spelled by occasional showers of generosity and the steady, sturdy growth of academic excellence and an athletic reputation. On October 8, 1951, Grand Canyon College relocated to the present campus in Phoenix. A handful of faithful pioneers—Roland Beck in education, Betty Beck in English, Niles Puckett and D. C. Martin in religion, H. E. TenHarkle and Grace Weller in music, Shihj-Ming Wang in mathematics, Clarice Maben in history, and David and Mildred Brazell in athletics—left their respective chances for prosperity to build the tiny college into a beacon of Christian education.

Their work paid off with the announcement of regional accreditation by the North Central Association in 1968. National championships began to accrue in basketball, baseball, and women’s tennis. With the 1980s, the academic program expanded into colleges of education, nursing, business, performing arts, and arts and sciences. Masters programs were developed in education, and shortly thereafter, in business.

The 1980s also witnessed an expansion of “Canyon’s” guiding theme. “Spiritual Emphasis” weekly sermons by the Reverend Tom Wolf of Los Angeles fired the spirit and seized the imagination of Grand Canyon’s faculty, staff, and students in 1982. Wolf proposed that all Christians are commissioned to missions and missions’ support and that the college was uniquely positioned to address that commission. He argued that mission work should increasingly depend not solely on evangelists but also on laymen, who give witness while cultivating their secular professions in the international marketplace. These ideas became part of a new global emphasis at Grand Canyon University.

GCU Website

Grand Canyon University - Four Pillars

Academic Advancement
Our demanding curriculum will empower you to stretch your intellectual capacity and gain vital knowledge and critical thinking skills that will be at your command throughout your life and career. Go for it!

Christian Camaraderie
GCU is much more than classroom learning and competitive sports! You’ll immediately make new friends who become your lifelong “brothers and sisters in Christ.” And you’ll participate with them in serving your fellow students and the surrounding community. Serving Christ is not a Job…it’s an Adventure!

Extracurricular Excellence
If participating in sports makes your heart pound, we’ll give you the playing field! We offer a broad range of intramural as well as intercollegiate opportunities. Who knows, you could be our 13th GCU baseball star to play for a Major League Baseball team!

Wellness & Well-Being
Get healthy, stay healthy! If that’s your personal goal, you’ll achieve it at GCU! Work out in our fully equipped fitness center, or take advantage of our tennis and basketball courts. Our state-of-the-art health care center gives nursing and athletic training majors the perfect place to develop their care-giving skills, too.