The Mason Spirit

The Mason Alumni Association inducted the first class of members into the new Golden Quill Society on Wednesday, May 18. The society, which the association formed earlier this year, recognizes outstanding graduates prior to graduation and cultivates their leadership within the alumni community after graduation. “Our student leaders make a tremendous impact on the life…

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How many employees can say a war fought 150 years ago is just now adding to their workload? Well, for one, Nicole Osier, MA History ’09, can. Osier is the senior manager of Education Programs at the Civil War Trust. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization strives to protect the massive amount of history that…

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Most students are used to struggling for their art, but getting kicked out of Target is a different matter entirely. Still Mason senior Lindsay Hawks was not at all troubled by the store’s request. Instead, Hawks and her partners in art, Alex Straub and Peter Lee, moved on to the Walmart in Burke to conduct…

Continue Reading Mason’s Barcode Orchestra Rocks the Walmart

Recently Dean of Admissions Andrew Flagel invited me to join him and a group of students for lunch over at Boxwoods in the Mason Inn. I was especially intrigued by his invitation because he mentioned that he had specifically invited students who are active on Twitter, the social media application. In the recent issue of…

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The stories in Right of Way (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2010)describe fictional Cleave Springs, a gentrifying neighborhood in the nation’s capital. These insightful stories introduce the neighborhood’s dazzling variety of characters—longtime survivors and new arrivals, preservationists and visionaries, black people and white people—as they navigate the complexities of diversity and change, and strive to realize…

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The Big Book of Christian Mysticism (Hampton Roads Publishers, 2010) celebrates the beautiful and profound tradition of experiential and conscious spirituality within the Christian faith. From the recognition of mystery in the New Testament to the austere spirituality of the desert fathers and mothers, to the insights of the great visionaries and contemplatives of the…

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Born a Refugee: A Novel of One Palestinian Family (CreateSpace, 2010) is about two brothers and their widowed mother living in the Kalandia Refugee Camp and how they survive and even triumph over the hardships of poverty and oppression. This novel seeks to humanize the Palestinian refugee narrative, which is often reduced to a controversial…

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What causes childhood obesity? Mason College of Health and Human Services researchers Panagiota Kitsantas, Lisa R. Pawloski, and Kathleen F. Gaffney believe that obesity risk factors begin even before a child is conceived. Pediatric obesity affects one out of every seven low-income, preschool-age children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To understand…

Continue Reading Mother’s Pregnancy Weight Linked to Childhood Obesity

Pop quizzes are not the only things to fear in anthropology professor Jeffrey Mantz’s new course Zombies. Launched last fall, the course is a literary and cinematic look at the living dead’s place in modern society.

Continue Reading Seven Questions for “Zombies” Professor Jeffrey Mantz

“Show me the money” as Rod Tidwell says in the movie Jerry Maguire. In this economy, knowing how and when to negotiate your salary is literally worth thousands of dollars. Here, Michelle Marks, MS ’93, PhD ’98, associate provost for graduate education in the Provost’s Office and associate professor of management in the School of…

Continue Reading Top Five: Tips for Salary Negotiation