The Crescent: George Fox University's Student Run Newspaper

In the summer of 2025, George Fox University (GFU) basketball players took a service trip to the Dominican Republic. They immersed themselves in 104 degree heat and a culture new to most in order to build a basketball court as well as bond as a team.

News cycles and the media can seem overwhelmingly negative, regardless of where one looks. This causes many to ask the question: what in the world has been going right? Fortunately, although bad news dominates headlines and is all-consuming at times, good news can be found at multiple levels.

The Seattle Seahawks skipped a rebuilding phase and shocked the entire National Football League (NFL) by heading straight to the Super Bowl and winning it all, a move that excited sports fans all over the Pacific Northwest.

A rare opportunity was presented to George Fox University (GFU) students on Feb. 13 to escape the world’s often excessive stimulation. Those who expressed interest were instructed in an email to read the first seven chapters of The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew Crawford and arrive at Lady Hill Farm and Winery at 1 p.m. in work clothes.

The season for snow sports starts mid-November and continues until mid-April. This season, the most crucial ingredient in this fun, the snow itself, has been absent.

Open social media and you see it everywhere: the 2016 trend. People have been enjoying the excuse to share pictures of themselves from 10 years ago and reminisce. Despite the quantity of these posts, they pale in comparison to the content regarding recent national events: the death of Renee Good and the intensified conflict between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and civilians. 

Golf competitions take place in the spring and fall, but for George Fox University’s (GFU) Women’s Golf Team, this sport is a lifestyle. 

Optimistic energy filled Hoover 103 on Oct. 7 as members of the George Fox University (GFU) community gathered to witness a conversation between Oregon House of Representatives Majority Leader Ben Bowman and Minority Leader Christine Drazan on bipartisanship.

This school year, the English Program created new concentrations to better prepare students for future careers. The traditional Literature and Writing concentrations have been replaced with three new options.

George Fox University’s (GFU) annual art and design student showcase is currently on display in Minthorn Gallery and Lindgren Gallery. The showcase displays work created by students within the last year and will remain on display until April 10.

Dr. Courage Mudzongo’s office is located in the heart of George Fox University’s (GFU) Roberts Center. This building houses GFU’s health and behavioral science fields and is known to be a maze for new students. Mudzongo, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, charitably provides direction to life as well as his office.

Chapel attendants on March 3 were treated to a gospel music experience in Bauman Auditorium. This Tuesday worship was elevated by a team with an idea to bring such a cultural celebration to George Fox University (GFU).

From 7 to 10 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17th, the banquet rooms of Canyon Commons became a marketplace of diverse handiwork by women. This was the annual Her Collective Market, organized by George Fox University’s (GFU) Women of Color Collective (WOCC) since 2023.

Lisa Gadinas, assistant professor of art and design, is the primary art history professor at George Fox University (GFU). Gadinas helps students appreciate not only art but also the cultures and context from which it comes.

Laurie Lieggi has been a Murdock Library access service specialist, overseeing Interlibrary Loans (ILL), for the past 15 years. She will announce her retirement in April of this year.

This academic school year, new language opportunities have arisen at George Fox University (GFU). Gatherings for Spanish, German and Latin allow students to keep their language skills from getting rusty.

The George Fox University (GFU) Crime and Fire Safety Report reveals that the university premises are generally secured from intruders. However, invasions of a different sort have crept and crawled their way into campus living spaces.

This spring, a new Run Club was started by the Department of English and Languages and meets two Saturdays a month. The ultimate goal is to run the Vernonia Half Marathon and Marathon Relay.

George Fox University (GFU) offers online classes to students through George Fox Digital (GFD). While initial options used to only be semester-long, Cornerstone-centred classes, GFD has begun to offer accelerated eight week programs for efficiency and availability.

As a current student at George Fox University (GFU) who has lived on campus with a meal plan and purchased groceries while living off campus, I still found myself resorting to fast food on busy nights in both situations.

During Welcome Weekend at George Fox University (GFU), speeches, events and community fairs make new students feel at home. Months later, students still remember comments from these events, such as: “You could be sitting next to your future spouse!” or “You’ll get your ring by spring here, don’t worry.”

With the popularization of digital media and the Amazon Kindle’s release in 2007, there has been a 20 year-long debate about which is better: physical books or digital. In a time of increasing digitization, are physical texts still relevant?

George Fox University (GFU) has a lot in common with other universities: comparable semester lengths, food services and a typical resident hall and apartment setup. Where GFU differs is in its holiday and break schedule.

As students enter college, a majority of them are also reaching adulthood. While they legally become adults at 18 years old, college acts as a buffer zone between assisted adulthood and independence.

Beneath the everyday chatter of George Fox University (GFU) students lies an infamous hub for online communication. It spreads to new students in secret, purely by word of mouth.

When I sit down to study, the first thing I do is turn on my noise-cancelling headphones and put on the playlist of the day. I do this so often that now it feels unnatural to study without music. Whether it be the library, my dorm room, the Bon or Lyrics Cafe, I feel that in order to efficiently engage in my work, I have to drown out the world.

Whether public or private, universities often bring acclaim to their cities and become central to their identity, hence the term “college town”. Newberg, home to George Fox University (GFU), is indeed a college town—though it doesn’t quite fit the stereotype.

George Fox University (GFU) recently faced backlash on social media from an alumnus of the school due to a lack of immediate response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. This raises the question of whether or not it is GFU’s place to make statements on such matters at all.

Quaker pioneers established George Fox University (GFU) as Pacific College in 1891. It was constructed by the Religious Society of Friends with the goal of providing a Christian education rooted in Quaker values.