Campus & Community

Sometimes, it takes hitting rock bottom to realize it’s time for a change. In Eric Lynch’s case, it was almost dying for the third time. 

Lynch, who grew up in Tucson, was the poster child of a good kid. He stayed busy with team sports—soccer, basketball, football and volleyball—and took part in orchestra, marching band, concert and jazz band throughout school. He enjoyed learning and was a good student. Then, during his sophomore year of high school, he was introduced to drugs.

He went from… Read more

May 8, 2019

For much of her life, Emile Eich didn’t feel Navajo enough.

For the NAU senior, who graduates Saturday with a degree in psychology, that all changed one fall day in 2016.

It wasn’t, though, the day Eich, then a sophomore who’d come to NAU because of its proximity to the Navajo Nation and the opportunities to learn about her heritage, signed up for Navajo 101, started working at the Office of Indigenous Student Services (OISS) or mentoring other Native American… Read more

May 6, 2019

Billie McBride is the first in her family to graduate from NAU.

She isn’t the first Lumberjack, though. In 1954, her father came to NAU on a football scholarship. He blew out his knee early in his career and couldn’t afford tuition, so he dropped out and got a job.

That family history has been on McBride’s mind as she re-entered the world of higher education after her divorce, earning an associate’s degree from Eastern Arizona College before finding NAU’s general and special education dual… Read more

May 3, 2019

As the final days of the 2018-19 academic year approach, ITS has some important updates to share with the NAU community.

GreenPC moves to Virtual Desk, creating an improved NAU Remote Apps experience

Did you know that all students, faculty and staff have access to more than 50 software applications through NAU Remote Apps?

Information Technology Services (ITS) has been working to improve the remote desktop experience by adding more software and a streamlined method for accessing these tools. NAU Remote… Read more

May 3, 2019

By the age of six, Mersha Bayu Kisiel had lost both his parents.

After his father’s death, he and his siblings were forced to move eight hours southeast—from the Gojjam region of Ethiopia to the country’s capital, Addis Ababa—to live with their aunt. For two years, his aunt sacrificed all she could to provide for her nieces and nephews, but it wasn’t enough. She had to give them up for adoption.

Kisiel was sent an orphanage in the city, where he would remain… Read more

May 2, 2019

After decades working as an employee of Northern Arizona University, Kevin Hayes decided to take on a new responsibility: in addition to his full-time job as a Salesforce developer team lead with Information Technology Services, he started taking classes, fulfilling a goal decades in the making.

The college track was not an obvious choice for Hayes. Born into the world of computers and software development (his father was in the field), he spent his life coding, tracking his small business appointments through advanced databases… Read more