The Mason Spirit

George Mason University students come from all 50 states and 130 countries, and they are making a difference in ways big and small.

It isn’t surprising that many of Mason’s alumni have been working on the front lines of the pandemic. Here are a few who have come to our attention.

During two weeks in March, Mason faculty and staff made the Herculean push to move everything online.

Former CIA deputy and acting director Michael Morell shared advice and provided feedback to students in Justin Gest’s PUBP 500 Theory and Practice of Public Policy class.

Kelly McNamara Corley, JD ’89, was the 2018 Winter Graduation speaker at the 10 a.m. ceremony.

Mason doctoral student Blake Klocke has been interested in amphibians for as long as he can remember. He talks about growing up in Minnesota, where he shared his bedroom with a few dozen frogs, snakes, and geckos, as well as the insects he cultivated to feed them.

Mason’s computer game design students are working on games that will help train people in various fields and might one day save lives.

Saskia Clay-Rooks, executive director of Mason’s University Career Services, is constantly updating the programs and web resources offered to ensure they are timely and relevant to students in their career search. While plenty of resources are available online, she looks to provide students and recent graduates with other opportunities—the biggest of which are the connections her staff is able to facilitate between students and employers, alumni, or faculty.

From the sound wave fire extinguisher that made it on to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to a prosthetic arm built especially for a young violinist, Mason Engineering students are taking on big projects for their senior capstones and succeeding with them.

Rion Amilcar Scott, MFA Creative Writing ’08, my friend and fellow MFA grad, won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction for his story collection Insurrections.