@Mason

The One to Watch

It’s been an exciting few years for the Mason community. From chasing hoop dreams to making progress in AIDS and cancer research, it’s been quite the ride. And now Mason’s received another feather for its cap: This year, George Mason University took the No. 1 spot in a listing of universities to watch in U.S.News & World Report.

The magazine asked academic experts from around the country to name the “schools that have recently made the most promising and innovative changes in academics, faculty, students, campus, or facilities.” Seventy schools were identified, with Clemson University in South Carolina, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Arizona State University in Tempe, and University of Maryland–Baltimore County rounding out the top five.

Bringing History to Life

Web site provides multimedia resources to history teachers everywhere

Mason’s Center for History and New Media (CHNM) has launched the National History Education Clearinghouse, an online project that gives U.S. history teachers high-quality support and resources.

In October 2007, the U.S. Department of Education awarded a $7 million contract (if fully funded over five years) to CHNM, in partnership with Stanford University, the American Historical Association, and the National History Center. The new clearinghouse is funded specifically under the Teaching American History Program, which was created to raise student achievement by improving teachers’ knowledge and understanding of traditional U.S. history.

Using the latest advances in digital technology, the clearinghouse provides teaching tools and resources such as lesson plan reviews, guides to working with primary sources, and models of exemplary classroom teaching. The interactive web site allows teachers to ask questions, comment on topical issues, and share information on what and how they teach.

The clearinghouse is available  at teachinghistory.org.

Photo of Kate ZieglerGo for the Gold

Mason Olympians compete in Beijing

Mason sophomore Kate Ziegler (right) made her first Olympic appearance in Beijing this summer. She was named to the 2008 U.S. Olympic swim team after finishing second in the 400-meter and the 800-meter freestyle events at the Olympic trials in Omaha, Nebraska.

Ziegler, who struck gold in the 2007 World Championships in the 800-meter and 1,500-meter freestyle in Melbourne, Australia, is a professional athlete, which makes her ineligible to swim for Mason. She does, however, serve as a volunteer assistant coach for and trains with the university’s swim team.

Three former Mason track and field standouts also traveled to Beijing in August. Richard Phillips, BS Information Technology ’06, Maurice Wignall, BA Psychology ’01, and Cydonie Mothersill competed in the final round.

Wignall and Phillips, competing for their native Jamaica, finished sixth and seventh, respectively, in the men’s 110-meter hurdles. Mothersill competed for her home country of the Cayman Islands in the women’s 200-meter dash.

Phillips holds Mason’s school record in the indoor 60-meter hurdles (7.68, 2005) and the outdoor 110-meter hurdles (13.48, 2004).

Wignall holds claim to one of Mason’s men’s track and field national titles with his win of the indoor long jump with a distance of 26-feet, 1.5-inches (7.96 m) in 1999. Wignall holds the Jamaican national record of 13.17 in the 110-meter hurdles, set at the Athens Olympics.

Mothersill was named an All-American twice at Mason. She holds the indoor and outdoor school records in the 200-meter dash.

Art from studentsGo West, Young Gunston

The university mascot is providing scholarly inspiration to California grade school students

Gunston has gone west. A class at Agua Caliente School in Cathedral City, California, has adopted Mason’s furry mascot and taken an interest in the university.

A letter to Mason from second-grade teacher Amy Kudlac led to a partnership between the university and her students, who are participating in a schoolwide initiative called “No Excuses University,” which is designed to encourage college aspirations among its students. Each class at Agua Caliente adopted one college.

“A lot of them didn’t even know what a college was when I first introduced the project,” Kudlac says. “Agua Caliente is in a very low-income area. Most of the parents don’t speak English, and college isn’t really talked about.”

“When we heard about the idea, we thought it was really cool, and we said we’d love to help,” says Lisa Snyder, BA Integrative Studies ’01, associate director of the Leadership and Development Office in University Life.

Snyder started a pen pal program between the students at Agua Caliente and Mason students on the Leadership Empowerment and Motivation Team. The team came up with the idea for “Flat Gunston,” a takeoff on the Flat Stanley book series. As the story goes, a basketball player fell on Gunston during a game, making him a flat mascot. He was therefore able to travel through an envelope to visit with the students. The Office of University Life also sent the schoolchildren a box of Mason gear, including t-shirts, temporary tattoos, pencils, and stuffed baby Gunstons.

“Every Monday, we all wear college T-shirts to school,” says Kudlac. “They all really enjoyed [the letter writing], and they learned college vocabulary words, like what a dormitory is and what it means to graduate. They are already say-ing things like, ‘I’m going to get a scholarship, I’m going to go to Mason.’”

Goodbye, PV... Finally

Photo of the Patriot VillageWidely appreciated by the student body for its secluded, social atmosphere, Patriot Village—a student housing community located behind the PE Building on the Fairfax Campus—is no more.

With the construction of new on-campus housing, Patriot Village was no longer needed, so this summer, the module apartments were dismantled and hauled away after nearly 25 years of service. The few modules that remain will be used for administrative purposes.

The neighborhood consisted of 17 modules and 100 suite-style housing units. At full occupancy, which was often the case, the community housed 226 upperclass students. When the units were put in place in summer 1984, they were intended to be temporary. But over time, they became a seemingly permanent subdivision.

Plans to remove them had been in the works for roughly 15 years, according to Jana Hurley, executive director of Housing and Residence Life. “For as long as people can remember, every year was going to be the year they were going to come down,” she says.

The improved housing infrastructure at Mason isn’t the only reason Patriot Village finally found its way onto the chopping block. A new road will soon be built close to where the units once stood, connecting Route 123 to the future Hotel and Conference Center (see story on page 13). The road will also create direct access to Patriot Circle from Route 123.

Innovative Programs Graduates First Class

The first group of students to participate in Mason’s China 1+2+1 Program graduated from Yunnan University in Kunming, China, this summer. Mason president Alan Merten had the opportunity to speak during the ceremony. The 15 students spent their first year of college at their home university, their sophomore and junior years at Mason, and their final year at their home university. Seventy-one students in all and five U.S. universities participated in the international degree program.

Instruments in the Attic

Dust off that flute from high school and give it a new home

What’s hiding in your attic or closet? An unused clarinet, trombone, or sax left from your marching band days? Your great-aunt’s violin? Turn past into present by participating in Instruments in the Attic, a new tax-deductible instrument donation program at Mason.

The program is designed to meet the current needs of music education students and provide additional instruments to school districts in which Mason music students complete their music education practice teaching.

Mason music graduates make up 45 percent of the Washington area’s music teachers. Each music education student must achieve proficiency on at least eight instruments to complete his or her degree. At present, there are too few department instruments available for consistent and thorough practice.

All instruments, new, used, or in need of repair, are gladly accepted. For more information, contact Brian Marcus at 703-993-8607 or [email protected].

CSI: Fairfax

An interest in forensics fuels academic programs

Mention the word “forensics” to someone and it likely conjures up images of beautiful people miraculously solving crimes in convenient 60-minute periods while driving fast cars and removing their sunglasses at particularly dramatic moments. The latest technology is always available in the lab, and the resulting data provide iron-clad proof of guilt. If you talk to the real professionals, however, you get a different picture of what it is like to work in the field of forensics.

The College of Science recently approved a new graduate certificate in forensics. This certificate was created partially in response to the growing national student interest in forensics fostered by popular TV shows such as CSI, Cold Case, Bones, and others, but it was also created to meet the substantial local and regional demand for graduates trained in the technical and legal aspects of forensic science. For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs for forensic science technicians are predicted to grow faster than other professions from 2006 to 2016. 

The college is working closely with forensics agencies at the local, state, and federal level to ensure that students receive up-to-date instruction that includes regular interaction with, and instruction from, current forensic practitioners. Students who complete this 18-credit certificate will be well-prepared for jobs in forensic science.

Two concentrations will be offered. Students applying for admission into the forensic science concentration should have an undergraduate degree in biology or chemistry, whereas those applying to the general forensics concentration may hold a bachelor’s degree in any field.

For more information, visit cos.gmu.edu/node/2674.