We visited Grand Canyon University on October 10. It is one of a private insititution, which is church related. They celebrate the 50th anniversary of the inititution this year.

We started with an welcome speech by Dr. James Helfers, the Dean of Liberal Arts. After introducing overviews about University Structure and faculty role by Dr. Lenna Hall, Professor David Reiter, and Professor Douglas Dye, We met Beth Dawinkins and Hyung Choi as faculties in the department of Mathematics. We discussed several topics related to the roles of faculty in the department of Mathematics at Grand Canyon University.

The majority of the Mathematics department responsibilities are teaching. They usually teach more than 15 hours each semester. In this semester Beth, the chair of Math. department, is unusually teaching 25 hours. They offer courses from lower division ones like intermediate algebra and college algebra to upper division ones like complex analysis and abstract algebra. They have more than 50 students in a lower division class and around 10 students in upper one. Since they cannot offer all upper division courses every year they need to advise a schedule for a student carefully, who want to study Mathematics.

Research is not a main responsibility in Math. Department. But Hyung is involving a dynamical system lab and doing research. Their service roles are typical ones like becoming a member of a committee and representing the university at community events etc.

We also discussed several issues like processing for a tenure position, their sports activities, roles as a chairman, running a Math tutoring lab, subbatical, wages, and so on. One interesting thing I was told is the following. They hire only a Christian with any denomination. Because of this, no state or federal funding is coming. It means that their budget is tution driven.