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A M A G A Z I N E F O R T H E G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y CO M M U N I T Y
BRAVE and
BOLD
A Conversation with Gregory Washington, Mason’s Eighth President
A N T I - R AC I S M A N D I N C LU S I V E E XC E L L E N C E | S A F E R E T U R N TO C A M P U S | I D I A L AU N C H E S
FEATURES Above and next page, students in the Dewberry School of Music have been able to make music with safety measures in place. Photos by Lathan Goumas
Cover photo by Ron Aira
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @MasonSpirit for alumni news, events, and more. ecome a fan of the Mason Spirit on Facebook for links to photos, videos, and stories at B www.facebook.com/MasonSpirit. heck our website for a behind-the-scenes look at the Spirit, more alumni profiles, and breaking C news at spirit.gmu.edu.
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A Conversation with Gregory Washington Mason’s eighth president took the helm of the university during an uncertain time as the pandemic changed everything. The Mason Spirit sat down with President Washington to find out about his vision for the university and how alumni can help.
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And Justice for All As one of his first initiatives, President Gregory Washington took steps to expand on the university’s mission of inclusion and eliminate systemic bias. More than 100 faculty, staff, and students are involved in the Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Task Force and its committees. A Whole New World When George Mason University students returned to campus this fall, things looked a bit different, but the excitement surrounding a new semester was the same.
DEPARTMENTS 2 FIRST WORDS 4 FROM OUR READERS 5 @MASON 32 INQUIRING MINDS 36 SHELF LIFE 38 ALUMNI IN PRINT 39 PATRIOT PROFILE 40 CLASS NOTES
42 From the Alumni Association President
ALUMNI PROFILES
40 Carla Thomas McGinnis, MA Arts Management ’13
43 Haider Semaisim, LLM ’17
46 Gerica Goodman, BS Psychology ’12, MPA ’15
49 MASON MEMORIES
MORE ON THE WEB When you see this graphic, follow it to the magazine’s website for more: spirit.gmu.edu. Fall 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 1
FIRST WORDS
George Mason University Is Named for a Slave-Owning Founding Father.
LET’S TALK ABOUT THAT With Confederate statues being torn or taken down and racist nicknames being dropped by sports teams, it is a good moment for people of conscience to consider the ways in which we commemorate America’s forefathers, who both created a nation based on the Enlightenment principles of individual liberty and natural rights, and were incapable of rising above the norms of their time, and thus supported and profited from the enslavement of other human beings.
PHOTO BY RON AIRA
In total, 12 of the first 18 U.S. presidents owned enslaved individuals at some point in their lives, and nine had them working at the White House. And a majority of the founders of the United States held people in enslavement, including 41 of the 56 signatories of the Declaration of Independence, and 25 of the 55 men who wrote the U.S. Constitution. George Mason—of whose namesake university in Virginia I am now not only the president but its first Black president—was one of them. I was named president of George Mason University in February and had barely started in on the job before I was asked by a reporter: Should George Mason University’s name change? The question is a legitimate one—and it’s worth considering. George Mason’s contradictory life serves as a constant reminder of our nation’s contradictions, which we must relentlessly address to close the gap between our highest aspirations and our imperfect behavior. Many people who know of him would describe George Mason as a patriot of the first 2 | SPIRIT.GMU.EDU
Yet George Mason also held more than 100 enslaved people when he wrote the documents codifying Americans’ right to liberty— and he refused to make provisions for their care or release them from enslavement upon his death. Should we then now continue to recognize George Mason and other founders as brilliant and devoted patriots? Or should we condemn them for ignoring the basic ideals by which they defined this country? We should do both, because Mason is the very embodiment of the duality of America, which we celebrate for its insistence on liberty and justice for all, even though it enslaved and segregated millions of its own people for most of its history. (And the founders, who created and united this nation, are and should be seen as fundamentally distinct from the Confederate generals who separated from this great nation and then also took up arms against it.) We can neither run away from the atrocities committed throughout this nation’s history, nor from the fact that the core principles established by founders like Mason—like fairness, equality, and liberty—were also the foundational principles employed by the civil rights movement and other calls for social justice. At George Mason University, by keeping Mason in our name, we keep both lessons of his life active in our own quests to form a more perfect union—and certainly a better university. To my tremendous pride and satisfaction, this university began balancing Mason’s lore with his actual life experiences years before my tenure as president began. In 2017—when no one was looking to or expecting anything of us—our faculty and students undertook
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
order: His authorship of the Virginia Declaration of Rights was inspiration for both Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and, eventually, the Bill of Rights, the addendum to the U.S. Constitution that serves as the framework of our rights as Americans.
A message that was left at the George Mason statue in spring 2020. the work of revealing the full story of Mason by rediscovering the identities of those people he enslaved. Our faculty and students wanted to help us all remember the names of those enslaved individuals while telling their stories—and fully adding their contributions and enduring beauty to the story of this complicated Founding Father.
needed changing. The task force will develop recommendations for us to implement within the next year, including addressing how we recruit, educate, and support students; how we hire and promote faculty and employees; how we choose the content of our curriculum, and how we teach it; and how we name buildings, plazas, and other spaces on campus.
By holding up the reality of George Mason’s experience rather than tossing it away, we can step into the complexity of the deeply uncomfortable truth he represents. As a university, we then debate, discuss, research, and teach it, all to better understand George Mason as a man, a slave holder, a founder, and an American.
I am not interested in purely symbolic gestures; we are way past rhetoric.
The Enslaved Children of George Mason Memorial project is thus emblematic of the character of the university I now lead. But don’t let us off the hook just yet— because the really hard work of transforming our institution lies ahead. It lies in evaluating and restructuring areas of our university where systems of racism and social inequities quietly took and will, without care, continue to take root, such as hiring and recruitment, curriculum development, and university business practices. I just launched a task force to tackle these inequities—large and small, obvious and subtle—and offer a concrete action plan that we can use to change that which has long
It is time we complete the work begun years ago to transform George Mason University into a national exemplar of anti-racism, to honor the fundamental contributions of our founders while simultaneously denouncing their acts of inhumanity. We can only do that by eliminating the current systemic racism that offends the very Constitution those founders created. We can and will transform George Mason University into the living embodiment of the ideals its namesake set forth with his pen, even as he undermined them in his actions. But focusing intently on the name of George Mason doesn’t do that.
Gregory Washington President, George Mason University This essay was originally published by NBC News THINK. Used with permission. Fall 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 3
MASON SPIRIT
FROM OUR READERS
A MAGAZINE FOR THE GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY
spirit.gmu.edu M A N AG I N G E D I TO R Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95
Kudos ➤What a wonderful job on the Summer 2020 Mason Spirit. From front cover to centerfold to very last page. So happy to see so much of the real future as well as our real history coming true under our brand-new president. I can only imagine the work it must have been for you and all who helped write and photograph and design and plan to the point of exhaustion to get out that lovely issue. Rose Warfield, Novato, California
We want to hear from you. Letters to the editor are welcomed. Send correspondence to Colleen Kearney Rich, Managing Editor, Mason Spirit, 4400 University Drive, MS 2F7, Fairfax, Virginia 22030. Or send an email to spirit@gmu.edu. Need to change your address or update contact information with us? Or prefer not to receive the magazine in the mail any longer? Just let us know via email at development@gmu.edu.
➤Just writing to compliment you on the recent edition of the alumni magazine, including the letter by Mason’s new president, Dr. Washington. I don’t usually pay much attention to my alumni magazines, but I guess the pandemic theme caught my attention. I am a physician county public health officer in rural California. I am impressed by the breadth of biomedical and social activity at the university related to the pandemic, and the flexibility and adaptability in the school’s response. Spirit is nicely written and laid out. Tom Boo, BS ’86
➤Kudos to President Gregory Washington for having the strength, wisdom, and good judgment in carefully wording his First Words column. The school is in good hands if he acts to advance the concept that Mason as an outstanding educational institution continues to recognize that “it is an act of a Patriot not to deny the contradictions in our history, our community, and our own lives but instead to face them, embrace them, and grow honestly through them.” His path leading to being named president of the school speaks volumes. I wish him and the university well. Let me know if I can help. Douglas Lashley, JD ’76
Share Your COVID-19 Story
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he George Mason University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC), home of Mason’s Oral History Program and University Archives, is actively documenting COVID-19’s impact on the Mason community by archiving materials related to the university’s communications and the broader community experience. Mason community members are invited to help in this endeavor by preserving a record of their personal experiences during the COVID-19 crisis, whether in words, images, videos, or other media at library.gmu.edu/covid-19. Questions? Please contact the center at speccoll@gmu.edu.
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A S S O C I AT E E D I TO R S Melanie Balog Priyanka Champaneri, BA ’05, MFA ’10 Rob Riordan, MPA ’19 E D I TO R I A L A S S I S TA N T Liam Griffin CO N T R I B U TO R S Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13 Jessica Clark, MA ‘16 Damian Cristodero Kirstin Franko Kristen Greiner, MFA ‘20 Danielle Hawkins John Hollis Buzz McClain, BA ’77 Anna Stolley Persky Corey Jenkins Schaut, MPA ’07 Preston Williams D E S I G N A N D I L LU S T R AT I O N Claire Brandt Joan Dall'Acqua David Lewis Marcia Staimer P H OTO G R A P H Y A N D M U LT I M E D I A Ron Aira Melissa Cannarozzi Evan Cantwell, MA ’10 Lathan Goumas Ian Shiff P R O D U C T I O N M A N AG E R Brian Edlinski E D I TO R I A L B O A R D Paul G. Allvin Vice President for Strategic Communications and Marketing Trishana E. Bowden Vice President for Advancement and Alumni Relations Kathleen Diemer Associate Vice President for Advancement Relations Jennifer W. Robinson, JM ‘02 Interim Associate Vice President for Alumni Relations Michael Sandler Associate Vice President for Communications Mason Spirit is published three times a year by the Office of Advancement and Alumni Relations and the Office of Communications and Marketing. George Mason University is an equal opportunity employer that encourages diversity.
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Q&A with Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm
Mason’s New Institute for Digital InnovAtion Launches
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eorge Mason University launched its Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA) in June. IDIA is the third of three university-wide institutes that together represent Mason’s strategic research priorities. IDIA will support research totaling more than $100 million annually. Kamaljeet Sanghera, associate professor in the Department of Information Sciences and Technology, has been named IDIA’s interim executive director. In her new role, Sanghera will lead IDIA, supporting the research community in the pursuit of cutting-edge work to shape the future of our digital society, promoting equality, wellbeing, security, and prosperity. “The launch of Mason’s Institute for Digital InnovAtion is a giant step forward,” says Mason provost Mark Ginsberg. “This important initiative will provide high-impact learning and research opportunities for our students and faculty, which will be highly consequential for the economy of the region and the vitality of our community.” A new headquarters currently under development for IDIA will transform the university’s Arlington Campus and become the home of the research and graduate education programs of Mason’s computing, law, business, public policy, and engineering units, as well as the programs of the university’s private- and public-sector partners. When complete in 2024–25, the mixed-use headquarters will house more than 1,200 entrepreneurs, researchers, technologists, and business leaders on the vibrant RosslynBallston innovation corridor. —John Hollis
ollege of Science dean Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm comes to Mason from the University of Maryland, where he served as chair and professor in the school’s department of atmospheric and oceanic science. He was also director of the University of Maryland’s Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies. He began his new role on July 1.
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Why is studying science so important now? When you think about the big problems the world has— climate change, poverty, violence, overall environmental degradation beyond climate change and urban development for starters—all of these problems involve science one way or the other. I think the types of problems that humanity is facing moving forward require every discipline—science in particular—to really move beyond its boundaries. I think that COVID-19 has really exposed this in a way that no living individual has seen. And it’s done so in a timeframe that is so reduced that it has really sharpened the perspective of the importance of science in societal problems. That’s something we have to harness and take advantage of over the next few years. I think the College of Science is really well positioned to do it. You’ve often spoken of “eternal learning.” Why is that so important for scientists, especially now? Problems have gotten more complex. Scientists need to step up to the challenge and need to evolve to be able to tackle them. That involves working outside your disciplines, working outside your comfort zone. In academia, you get the opportunity to reinvent yourself many times over. Why is diversity important in learning and research? This is something that is incredibly important to me. Every study we’ve seen in terms of the impacts of participation of a diverse group of people in science points to the fact that you get better results when you involve a wider diversity of people. On a more personal level, I grew up in Venezuela, and my career has been enlightened by interacting with different groups of people. I’ve come to appreciate the contributions that scientists from all over the world make in the field. —John Hollis Fall 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 5
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Curating an Exhibit
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PHOTO BY ROBERT DECAROLI
hen George Mason University students in Robert DeCaroli’s art history course left the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., on March 5, they had no idea it would be their last time inside the Smithsonian Institution museum during the spring semester. Fortunately, they had accomplished a lot that day. The 11 students in ARTH 495/599 Curating an Exhibit had been meeting with the curator of South Asian art and other professionals at the Freer|Sackler Gallery on Fridays while working on an exhibition of Indian ragamala paintings from 1600 to 1800 CE, which are part of the Freer|Sackler’s collection. Freer|Sackler curator Debra Diamond (in black) works with Mason Then COVID-19 hit, and spring break was students on the organization of their exhibit. extended. Mason classes moved online, and everything, including all museums, closed. The ragamala painting exhibit was always For the ragamala exhibit, the students each chose two planned as an online resource to be shared with paintings to research and write about. At the Freer, they were the Freer|Sackler Gallery, so that work was able to move forable to spend some time with their chosen paintings. Diaward. Sadly, the in-person gallery exhibition using reproducmond reviewed the students’ ideas for the progression of the tions of paintings, which was to take place in Buchanan Hall exhibit and how the paintings connected to each other in on Mason’s Fairfax Campus in May, was canceled. theme and content. The group then decided on the order of “I am very proud of the way the students prevailed despite paintings and finalized the number that would be included. the challenges,” says DeCaroli, who has taught at Mason “It’s about creating an immersive experience for the since 1999. viewer,” says Diamond. Curating an Exhibit is a comprehensive, research- and Art history graduate student Elizabeth Denholm blogged scholarship-intensive course that takes students through about her experience with the exhibit for the Freer|Sackler exhibition planning from idea to taking down a show. Selectwebsite. “We wanted the online exhibition to reflect our ing from a large group of ragamala paintings, the students own intimate experience studying the unframed paintings developed a concept and chose the objects for the ragamala in museum storage and to allow viewers to be closer to the exhibit. They also created marketing materials and planned artwork than they could be in traditional museum galleries,” gallery talks and musical accompaniment for their exhibit, wrote Denholm, who graduated in May. which they didn’t get to implement. The student’s online exhibition, Emotion and Devotion: The class had met several times at the Freer|Sackler where Ragamala Paintings of India’s Princely Courts, is now available DeCaroli has a professional connection. DeCaroli is a coonline at ragamalaexhibit.com. And their professors curator of the Encountering the Buddha: Art and Practice across are pleased. Asia exhibit (currently running at the Sackler Gallery through “The students created something sophisticated and ele2022) with Debra Diamond, the Freer|Sackler’s curator of gant online that would easily shine in a bricks-and-mortar art South and Southeast Asian art. museum,” says Diamond. —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95
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Webinar Series Highlights Leading Patriots
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ith the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdowns across the country, most industries needed
to pivot and explore new and innovative ways to stay
have the shared connection of Mason,” says Alumni Association president Sumeet Shrivastava, MBA ’94. With topics ranging from government contracting to
connected. To learn how business leaders are adapting
sports and society to financial management, and more
to COVID-19 and planning for the future of their organi-
webinars planned for the months ahead, Leading Patriots
zations, the George Mason University Alumni Association and Executive Development came together to create the Leading Patriots webinar series. Launched in June, the effort is part of the Patriots Helping Patriots initiative, where the Alumni Association and the Office of Alumni Relations have worked to compile resources for alumni and their families during the pandemic and beyond. “Leading Patriots gives a platform to our alumni and friends who are leaders in their respective industries to discuss the challenges they are currently facing and share their plans for the future. It also provides our alumni net-
has highlighted speakers and content from across the university’s disciplines. “It was such an honor to come back to Mason virtually as we all ‘pivot’ to our new normal,” says Sara Ramaker, BA ‘93, who spoke on the Arts and Entertainment panel. “The highlight was reconnecting with [College of Visual and Performing Arts dean] Rick Davis, who is the reason I am where I am today.” To find out more about the Leading Patriots webinar series and Patriots Helping Patriots, please visit alumni. gmu.edu/phpresources.
work with the opportunity to connect with others who
—Kristen Greiner, MFA ’20
She Played On
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Amy Melki
PHOTO COURTESY OF AMY MELKI
Watch the video at bit.ly/melkipiano
ay Abboud Melki’s home was in shambles following the massive August 4 explosion in Beirut, Lebanon. Glass shards from blasted windows and debris filled her home, and nearly everything she owned had been damaged. Everything, that is, except for her piano. Thanks to Melki’s granddaughters, including Amy Melki, MA Global Affairs ’20, beauty and resilience were seen amidst the chaos, as a video they shared on social media of their grandmother playing “Auld Lang Syne” on the piano surrounded by rubble went viral and made international headlines. “It’s her form of therapy,” says Melki, who received the video via text from her mother in Beirut. “[During the Lebanese Civil War, my grandmother] found something in her music and often reverted to playing Amy Melki the piano as a way of coping with loss.” Comments on the video have spoken to how Melki’s grandmother embodies the Lebanese spirit. “The symbol of true Lebanese resilience isn’t just found in [my grandmother]—it’s found in our nation,” says Melki, who works at Mason’s Global Terrorist Trends and Analysis Center. “I’m just so proud that she was the one to carry that message and remind people that even in your darkest, most desperate times, we will be able to rebuild.”
POINT of PRIDE More than 160 Mason researchers are working on 32 COVID-19 related projects. Since April, Mason has received seven National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research grants designed to get researchers into the field and lab quicker than the traditional grant process.
—Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13
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PHOTO COURTESY OF SHELBY ADAMS
Shelby Adams and David O’Connell
Two People, One Vision
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t’s difficult to imagine now, but Shelby Adams says that as a George Mason University freshman she was so shy, “I didn’t want to speak to anybody because I was afraid anything I said would sound weird.” Now, she is student body president. “Mason helped me grow into the person I am today,” she says. “I wanted that change. I wanted that growth, and Mason was the perfect place for that.” Adams, a criminology, law and society major and junior, and her vice president, David O’Connell, a government and international politics major and senior, say they are all about change—changing the amount of information the student body gets through Student Government, and changing the way their fellow students consume that information through social media. That, they say, is the best way for everyone to understand and weigh in on the university’s most important issues. “Student Government is just a select number of students,” O’Connell says. “We need to make sure all students know what’s going on. We need to hear from the whole population.” Adams, from Lorton, Virginia, and O’Connell, from Rochester, New York, might not seem like a natural pair.
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As chair of multicultural affairs in Student Government, Adams was keenly focused on bringing diverse communities together. As chair of the University Life committee, O’Connell was more focused on Title IX issues, athletic events, and school spirit. They really didn’t know each other, either. But Adams says she noticed O’Connell’s work ethic and passion for his job. So when she decided to run for president, she sat him down one day after a Student Government meeting and asked him to be her running mate. They also found they have a shared sensibility— helping people. For Adams (who followed her sister, Sydney, BA Art and Visual Technology ’16, MS Management ’19, to Mason), it comes from her family’s ethic of advocating for vulnerable communities. For O’Connell, it comes from Mason becoming a home away from home. “We do come from different backgrounds,” O’Connell says. “But we’ve always had the same goal of creating the best possible environment we can at Mason.” —Damian Cristodero
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PHOTO BY RON AIRA
Jane Flinn accepting the David J. King Teaching Award.
Jane Flinn: 50 Years of Service
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sychology professor Jane Flinn has achieved something few Mason faculty have: She’s celebrating 50 years of service. Flinn is only the second Mason professor to meet this milestone; English professor Don Gallehr was the first in 2016. Here are some fun facts we learned about her: She was originally a physicist. Flinn started teaching physics at Mason in 1969. She could only teach part time on Tuesdays and Thursdays while her young daughter was in preschool, and she felt very fortunate to be hired “at a very new and very young” Mason. She was born in England and educated at Oxford. Flinn originally came to the United States for her graduate studies. While working on her PhD in physics at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., she was able to audit some psychology courses and loved them. She decided to pursue a second PhD, this time in social psychology at George Washington University (GWU), which she worked on part time while teaching at Mason. After completing her second PhD, Flinn taught in both departments for almost 10 years. She created Mason’s undergraduate neuroscience degree program. While at Mason, Flinn served as chair of the Psychology Department and director of the undergraduate neuroscience program she helped to create, among other duties. She also has been recognized with numerous accolades and awards including the David J. King Teaching Award, the university’s highest teaching award, and a University Mentoring
Award. She is currently director of Mason’s Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience Program. She loves her field of research. During a required physiological psychology class at GWU, she had an “a-ha moment” about her career. “I think that the professor and I were the only two people in the room who really understood the physics of neuronal conduction,” says Flinn. “I suddenly felt I had come home. I discovered the subject I love, which combines both hard science and behavior.” Flinn’s current research focuses on the role of certain metals in learning and memory, especially pertaining to Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury. She thinks you should get moving. Flinn is a huge advocate for brain health. One of her favorite classes to teach is one she designed: The Brain in Books and Film. “I think it is important to understand how your brain works,” she says. And that includes the essential role that exercise plays in brain health. Flinn recently started adding a five-minute break to her classes during which she and students exercise using a video by Wendy Suzuki, author of Healthy Brain, Happy Life. “Interacting with young people on a daily basis is something that is valuable and perhaps keeps one’s brain going,” she adds.
Watch the video at bit.ly/janeat50
She believes education is transformational. Each year, Flinn mentors undergraduate and graduate students in her lab and says she finds it very satisfying when her students find success. “Education opens doors, and at Mason it opens doors for students who might not otherwise have this opportunity.” —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95 Fall 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 9
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Supporting Entrepreneurs during the Pandemic
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he George Mason University-based Virginia Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network is helping a record number of community entrepreneurs navigate their response to the COVID-19 financial crisis and prepare for economic recovery. Between March 20 and September 1, the Virginia SBDC Network trained more than 11,600 people by webinar— 240 percent more than were trained in person in all of 2019. SBDC advisors across Virginia assisted more than 5,700 small business owners during this period and helped them access more than $85 million in financing to keep employees paid and businesses open. The Virginia SBDC Network comprises 26 offices statewide, including four Northern Virginia-based Mason Enterprise Centers, and advises community business clients via phone, email, and web conferencing. The SBDCs are educating, advising, and assisting small businesses with applications for Emergency Injury Disaster Loans and the CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program loans, as well as formulating postCOVID strategies. “The SBDC advisors are at the forefront of helping small businesses respond to the COVID crisis,” says Virginia SBDC state director Jody Keenan. “The team pivoted quickly to work remotely with business owners who needed immediate guidance to access federal disaster assistance financing.”
Plans for business recovery assistance are also underway. Additional Small Business Administration funding of $4.5 million was allocated to support expanding SBDC capacity through September 30, 2021. The Virginia SBDC Network also supports economic development organizations, trade associations, chambers of commerce, and special interest organizations that represent small businesses. The Mason-run network has locations at three other universities, six community colleges, and six chambers of commerce or economic development organizations throughout Virginia, with a focus on helping community entrepreneurs start and grow companies, creating new jobs. In addition, the Community Business Partnership—supported by Mason, the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, and the Fairfax County Small Business Commission—is managing a $2.3 million microloan fund that opened for business April 28 and a $60 million small business grant program that launched June 1, and will provide grants of up to $20,000 to more than 4,000 Fairfax County businesses. “The Mason-led business assistance programs are collaborating with local economic development organizations to help support and sustain the small business economic base,” Keenan says. “We’ll be working together on recovery and resiliency initiatives for the foreseeable future.” —Preston Williams
A Helping Hand to Small Businesses Affected by COVID-19
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he Community Business Partnership (CBP), a program within the Mason Enterprise Center, is helping Fairfax County administer $46 million in grants to help small businesses and nonprofits affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Almost all the money comes from the federal government’s Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The grant manager is Dana Mariano, JD ’01. Of the 15 application reviewers she has hired, five are graduate students from Mason’s School of Business. Scott Sizer, BA Geography ’95, who is Fairfax’s public/private partnerships coordinator and is leading the county initiative, reached out to get the CBP involved. “I’ve worked with Mason on a whole variety of things,” Sizer says. “Mason is always actively seeking ways to engage in the community. There is a long-standing relationship between the county and Mason, so this made a ton of sense.”
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Sizer said 6,280 applications were made to the program, with 2,300 approved for grants from an original pool of $26 million. Now, with another $20 million to administer, those applications first waitlisted will get another look. Grants can be as much as $20,000, depending on the size of the business, with 83 percent going to businesses with 10 or fewer employees, 49 percent going to minority-owned businesses, and 41 percent going to women-owned businesses, according to the county. “All the [Mason] grad students I’ve been working with have been fantastic,” says Mariano, who is also a chief financial officer for technology startups in the area. “They’re quick learners, and their educational background with Mason has been a key component to the success of the grant review program.” —Damian Cristodero
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The Hylton Center Marks 10 Years
Take a Giant Step
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Are you looking for ways to support arts education in this community and beyond? Consider participating in the Hylton Center’s Take a Giant Step campaign. Gifts to the campaign will be recognized on a beautiful new artistic installation, representing jazz saxophonist John Coltrane’s masterwork “Giant Steps” in the Hylton Center’s new Education and Rehearsal Wing.
heaters remained dark across America this summer, but that didn’t stop the Hylton Performing Arts Center from streaming light and joy to hundreds of its supporters. That was the goal of the Hylton Center’s 10th Anniversary Celebration, a virtual gala held on July 18 that raised more than $200,000 for the arts, including the center’s Education Initiative. In lieu of an in-person event planned for April, Hylton Center staff quickly pivoted to an online celebration after learning that sponsors, patrons, and performing artists were still eager for a way to show their support—and celebrate. “We couldn’t, and we wouldn’t, let this global pandemic stop us from marking the Hylton’s 10th anniversary,” said Hylton Center executive director and College of Visual and Performing Arts dean Rick Davis in remarks during the event. “There’s too much to celebrate, too many people to thank and honor, and frankly too much work to do to let this moment go by quietly.” Ticketholders watching from home were treated to two memorable performances. Jazz vocalist and Mason professor Darden Purcell and pianist Mike Noonan were recorded on the Merchant Hall stage inside the Hylton Center. Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr., original members of The 5th Dimension, performed live from their home studio in California. The husband and wife duo sang several of their famous hits, including “Up, Up and Away” and “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.” President Gregory Washington provided congratulatory remarks, and a brief video profiled the Education Initiative, which has served more than 140,000 schoolchildren with free or low-cost programs over the last several years. The event included a tribute to this year’s honorees, Odin, Feldman & Pittleman PC, for their many contributions to the Hylton Center, the university, and the community, through their ongoing philanthropic support and volunteer leadership. “Part of our job is to keep working on what that beautiful little phrase ‘the arts create community’ really means,” says Rick Davis. “We know we can do a better job of making our community more inclusive, more diverse, more exciting, and more representative of this dynamic place we live in—and you have our pledge and our promise that this work is front and center in our thoughts.” Many regional businesses and individual donors supported the event, including presenting sponsor Compton & Duling, as well as Odin, Feldman, & Pittleman PC and Amazon Web Services.
For more information, visit hyltoncenter.org/give/take-giant-step-0 or email ekenned9@gmu.edu.
POINT of PRIDE George Mason University recorded its second-highest fundraising total ever in 2020, as 11,779 donors contributed nearly $118.1 million in gifts and pledges during the fiscal year that ended June 30. Nearly half of those donors (5,083) are alumni, a slight increase over last year.
—Rob Riordan, MPA ’19, and Kirstin Franko Fall 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 11
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Forecasting the Region’s Future
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Jeannette Chapman talks with Renee Hamilton of the Virginia Department of Transportation before a panel discussion with Amazon.
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PHOTO BY LATHAN GOUMAS
PHOTO BY LATHAN GOUMAS
hen it comes to making informed decisions for government, businesses, and the community, it’s important to have lots of information. For the Greater Washington, D.C., area, leaders in those spheres rely on reports and analyses to ensure the best choices are made for the region’s future. In many ways, they are relying on Jeannette Chapman, MPP ’15. Chapman, the director of George Mason University’s Stephen S. Fuller Institute, is a leading analyst who provides critical insight on the region’s economy. In July, she was recognized as a Top 40 Under 40 by Washington Business Journal (WBJ). “One of the things I always appreciate about the [WBJ] list is that they do find the people who are behind the scenes,” says Chapman, a Richmond native. “It’s a fantastic recognition and I’m very pleased to be in such good company.” Nominations for the list come from WBJ readers and the region’s business community. Alumni of the 40 Under 40 program and WBJ editors then evaluate nominees based on “the impact each individual has made within their industry and the work they have accomplished in the community through philanthropic work,” says Emily Van Zandt, WBJ special projects editor. Chapman, who has worked at Mason since 2013, became director of the Fuller Institute last year, after the center’s namesake retired. “Jeannette has convincingly settled the issue [of] whether anyone could ably replace the great Steve Fuller after his five-decade run as the leading analyst of the D.C. regional economy,” says Schar School of Policy and Government dean Mark J. Rozell. “The Fuller Institute has not missed a step with the transition to her leadership.” Others who have worked with both economists agree.
“Having worked closely with Steve Fuller for more than 10 years through the 2030 Group, I can attest to his thorough knowledge of our region and regional economy,” says 2030 Group president Bob Buchanan. “Jeannette was Steve’s assistant who learned so well that she was everyone’s choice to succeed Steve upon his retirement.” “Equally important was the appreciation of Jeannette’s youth, energy, and commitment to comprehend the unprecedented transformation going on in our region at this seminal time,” he says. On any given day, Chapman researches what she calls “the fundamentals”—trends facing the housing market, employment, or demographics. She also explores time-sensitive topics, such as government shutdowns or the arrival of Amazon HQ2. Recently, she has focused on how COVID-19 is impacting the economy. “It’s exciting,” says Chapman. “At the end of the day, we will all need this information.” That’s especially true for evaluating public policy. “The goal is to frame two scenarios—in the absence of an intervention and with one,” she says. Her analysis has impact, but it is not easy. Depending on the topic, the research can take more than a year. That’s par for the course when analyzing abstract problems, Chapman says, but she’s passionate about it. “I like not knowing what I’m going to learn each day,” she says. “I go in with a research question, and I don’t have an answer. That’s the ideal situation.” —Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13
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MEET THE M ASON N AT ION Khaseem Davis
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
Job: Director, Early Identification Program
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ince 1987, Mason’s Early Identification Program (EIP) has been a valuable resource for college-bound, first-generation students throughout Northern Virginia, providing academic enrichment, personal development, SAT test preparation, seminars, and coaching sessions. As the director of the program, Khaseem Davis works to ensure students have the tools they need to be successful—even in a pandemic. UNLIKELY BEGINNINGS: The Early Identification Program is not something that Khaseem Davis had access to growing up. Davis grew up in the Queensbridge Housing Projects in New York City, and his upbringing gave him a heightened awareness of just how beneficial such a program could be. “I remember thinking throughout the interview process—what if I had an EIP growing up,” Davis says. “What if my friends had a program like this and access to mentors?” The opportunity to help students in need drew Davis to the program in 2007. “When I learned of all the resources EIP offered and the impact it was having on the lives of diverse students, I said ‘This is where I belong!’”
FEELING THE IMPACT: Seeing the program’s impact on students is Davis’s favorite part of his job. “We are able to change the life circumstances of these young men and women because of Mason,” Davis says. “Talk about success stories—we are full of them, and Mason has been the common thread in their
lives.” EIP alumni have found success in a variety of fields. They’ve become immigration attorneys, PhD students, and even Mason professors, as Afra Saeed Ahmad, BA Psychology ’08, MA ’08, PhD ’16, did. “To watch students grow up and mature into scholars is very fulfilling.” CHALLENGES: Still, Davis’s job is far from a walk in the park. The COVID-19 pandemic had a particularly harsh effect on his students. “About 25 percent of our students did not have access to a reliable device to engage in distance learning,” Davis says. “And many were nervous about learning online.” The EIP team was undeterred. “We sprang into action and worked with our public-school partners to secure devices for students. We were able to get more than 140 students connected to engage in distance learning this past summer for our Summer Academy.” FOR THE LONG HAUL: EIP is vital to the region, something community members tell Davis all the time. “When they learn of the work we do with students throughout Northern Virginia, their faces light up with pride,” he says. In addition to its partners in public schools, EIP relies on community and corporate partners such as Northrop Grumman and Bank of America. Because of this support, Davis and his team will be helping students in need for years to come.
If you would like to add your contribution to that of hundreds of donors who support the Early Identification Program, please give online at advancement.gmu. edu/iul08.
—Liam Griffin Fall 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 13
A CONVERSATION WITH GREGORY WASHINGTON Mason’s eighth president talks about leading the university during a pandemic and a national crisis.
PHOTO BY RON AIRA
B Y P R E S TO N W I L L I A M S
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Gregory Washington accepted the position as the university’s eighth president in February— before the pandemic and the resulting economic downturn, and before the national racial reckoning that has swept the country. Since joining the university July 1, Washington has adapted his vision to address these simultaneous crises. First, he led a Safe Return to Campus planning process that resulted in Mason students returning this fall for a modified reopening. He launched the university-wide Task Force on AntiRacism and Inclusive Excellence to identify and correct inequities in university policies and practices. And he is determining how Mason can have the greatest impact in the post-COVID era, not only for new students, but to serve a displaced workforce.
“This state—mind you, the country—needs a Mason, needs this institution probably more than it’s ever needed it,” says Washington, the former engineering dean at the University of California, Irvine. “My vision now is to position us to take on the responsibility that’s associated with that need.” Mason Spirit caught up with Washington to learn more about his “locally oriented, globally focused” vision for the university, including the opportunities for research and experiential learning and the necessity of alumni advocacy on behalf of the university.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Hometown: New York City
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Education: Bachelor’s (1989), master’s (1991), and PhD (1994), all in mechanical engineering, from North Carolina State University
PREVIOUS POSITIONS Dean, Henry Samueli School of Engineering, University of California, Irvine
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Interim Dean, College of Engineering, Ohio State University Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering, Ohio State University Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Ohio State University
FAMILY Wife, Nicole. They have two sons.
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FACTS President Washington has conducted research for the National Science Foundation, NASA, General Motors, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the U.S. Army Research Office, among others.
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President Washington was the first African American dean of engineering at any University of California campus. At UC Irvine, President Washington raised more than $100 million in public and private philanthropy for the engineering school.
PHOTO BY LATHAN GOUMAS
Follow President Washington on Twitter @GMUPres.
President Washington prepares for a live chat with students on his first official day. President Washington conducted live conversations with students, faculty, staff, and alumni from the GMU-TV studio.
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PHOTO BY RON ARIA
President Washington takes questions at the announcement of his appointment in February.
You’ve been on the job now for a few months. What’s your impression of Mason? It’s a great place with lots of good people. You find out a lot about people when you’re in crisis, right? Overall, I’m pretty happy with the staff that’s here. There are some world-class faculty here, and they’re doing outstanding things. I just need to figure out how I can put the right mechanisms in place to support them. I knew it was a good student body, but seeing the level of commitment to change, seeing the level of commitment to their overall well-being, and seeing a level of maturity in terms of understanding the issues around them wasn’t what I actually expected, wasn’t what I had seen in other students of similar age. Students here have been educated [in] and subjected to hardship, and they have internalized that, turned it into fuel, and are using it to really promote the direction the campus should move in. For example, it’s easy for a group of students to say, “There’s Mason’s statue. He owned slaves. Tear it down.” But you see a level of maturity in the students who say, you know, he had issues, and we’re not going to celebrate that. We’re going to commemorate him for what he’s done, but we’re also going to recognize those who helped and supported him. We’re going to figure out a way to tell the complete story. To me, that’s Mason. The fact that you can have the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and the Antonin Scalia Law School [next door]—try that at some of our more prestigious campuses in the country. Try to have those entities coexist. It just wouldn’t happen. This is the true definition of a “big tent.”
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This is a difficult time for all university presidents, but especially for those just getting started. What has it been like for you? In the short time that I’ve been here, I can see the impact that Mason is having, not just on the state, but on the country, in terms of what we’re doing. And so that’s been really cool to see, really cool to experience that you can actually have a global impact from here. A significant one. What is the most important thing the university has done in response to COVID-19? There is no one important thing. There is no silver bullet to deal with [in preventing the spread of the coronavirus]. If you look across the state, when it comes to large institutions, we are doing better than every institution by far. There is no close competitor to us in terms of how we’ve managed this crisis. And that’s a testament to our faculty, that’s a testament to our administration, our leadership team who’ve put in place, not a silver bullet, but what I would call silver buckshot. It’s a lot of different things that we’re doing. I ask myself the question: Are we just lucky? Why are we doing so much better? And so I told my staff, go out, talk to these other institutions who were having some challenges, ask them what they were doing and what do they see as the reasons why they’re in the positions they’re in? And when we did that, the information that I got back was they didn’t pre-test or they didn’t manage the situation with their student parties well. Or they don’t have robotic delivery. It was always one key piece that we had that they didn’t. There was nobody who had something that we didn’t.
In the end, the reality is we’re here because we’ve made a different set of decisions than our peers have made. From pre-testing to surveillance testing, to diagnostic testing, to robotic delivery, to public-private partnerships with our local bars and restaurants, to partnerships with our public safety [and] with the Fairfax County Police, all of these entities added up to providing an environment where we’ve been able to manage.
You’ve also found time to launch other initiatives. Your third week on the job, you announced the Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence that now includes 100 members of the university community. Why? There wasn’t a mechanism where I could have ignored it. If you drive up and your house is on fire, your first notion is either I need to put it out, or I need to get somebody here who can put out that fire. And that’s what we’re looking at with COVID-19. With the racial inequity issues, another part of the house is on fire. There really was no other choice. We were going to have to deal with this in a very, very significant way. The first question I was asked by a reporter was not “How are you managing the COVID crisis?”—it was “What do you think about changing the name of the university?” I couldn’t sweep it under the rug or delay it. You think we have challenges? We would have had significant challenges had we not put in place the mechanism. Now all of those people who would have been up in arms at us [about racial injustice] are now working toward a great solution for our campus.
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
How are Mason’s faculty also contributing to try to solve this challenge, and what are you seeing from research universities nationally on this issue? We’re a good research university. You become a great research university by solving and engaging in the grand-challenge problems of our time. This is indeed one of them. And here is what I know: We’ve had faculty stand up laboratories to help us with testing. We’ve had faculty develop new testing protocols, new ways of managing and dealing with the virus, new health care practices. And that’s what you expect to see at a great research university. It’s happening here. And so, if you haven’t heard those stories, you need to get ’em and put ’em in the magazine. Because it’s not just a heartwarming story— for our students, it’s experiential learning in action. They
are tackling the problem as the problem is tackling them. It’s just an amazing thing to witness and experience.
President Washington and Rose Pascarell (right), vice president for University Life, welcome students and their families during Move In.
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PHOTO BY LATHAN GOUMAS
In September Governor Ralph Northam visited campus and toured Mason’s coronavirus testing center. He and President Washington greeted each other with elbow bumps.
You’re an engineer. How does that inform your leadership and approach to challenges and opportunities? The training that you get as an engineer is focused squarely on problem-solving. You take a big problem, and you divide it into smaller problems. You solve the smaller problems. And then you hope that when you sum it all up, you’ve actually made a dent in the bigger problem. That’s how we’re managing COVID. Part of the reason we are doing so many different things is because the problem dictates that we have absolutely no idea on what one thing worked. And the only way to manage a problem like that is you attack it from many fronts. People told me as we were going through the process—and we were getting all these criticisms from some groups of faculty—they would say, you’re building a plane as you fly it. I know what it’s like to build a plane. We’re actually not building the plane as we fly it. You’re going to crash that plane if you’re trying to do that. But we are trying things aggressively. We’re being innovative in our approaches. It’s an innovative group of people who are trying lots of different things. If something doesn’t work, we pivot. If it does, we double down. What is your vision for Mason? It’s changing, and I think it will continue to evolve, because [the pandemic] is like World War II. This is
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like 9/11. The country will be a different country on the backside of this. We’re not going to be the same place. If I had taken that vision that I had coming in the door and dusted that vision off and said this is the vision for Mason, I think it would’ve been a mistake. You’re seeing it happen right in front of our face. In Fairfax County, there are 31,000 unfilled jobs. In Northern Virginia, that number is closer to 100,000. Yet we have significant unemployment in this area. So, what does that mean? That means there are lots of people who are unemployed and unemployable, and lots of companies that need people to work and can’t find the talent they need. And who fills that gap? That gap is filled by institutions of higher learning that upskill, reskill, and retrain. That’s what we do. The difference between this and 9/11 is that 9/11 was happening to [only] us. [The pandemic] is happening to everybody on the planet at the same time. Everybody is going to be changed because of this. That means that we can develop solutions here that can impact somebody in Ghana. That can impact someone in Europe. That can impact someone in the Middle East. It provides a tremendous opportunity for us. This is the time you make strides to become that global solution-oriented institution. This is not the time to retrench. This is the time to expand.
President Gregory Washington and First Lady Nicole Washington outside Mathy House, the president’s official residence.
We are going to focus on aspects of experiential learning, meaning that the problems that are in front of us don’t just provide opportunities for our students to learn, they provide opportunities for our students to learn and solve at the same time. That experience is one that we can’t replicate in a classroom. And I am going to work really hard to reposition and refocus us where the problems are to provide experiential learning opportunities for our students and research opportunities for our faculty. And that means you must be focused on the grand challenges of your day. This state—mind you, the country—needs a Mason, needs this institution probably more than it’s ever needed it. So my vision now is to position us to take on the responsibility that’s associated with that need. You met with alumni your first day on the job. How important are alumni to the university’s mission? What would you like to see from them? Advocacy. The reality of the situation is this: Mason is near the bottom of public institutions in this state in terms of the amount of support it receives per student. That’s an advocacy issue. The institution has not been advocated for by individuals who represent it like it should have been. We have to advocate for ourselves better, but our alumni have to get out and advocate for us, too. The people who have benefited from a Mason education and see the value in it have to go to individuals and say, “You have to support this institution.”
That has held true because the prestige of this institution continues to rise. Its star is going up astronomically. It’s an amazing thing to see, and I’m really excited to be a part of it.
PHOTO BY RON ARIA
We’re not asking to be differentially supported. Just support us like everybody else. Just get us in the average. If you make us average in terms of your support, we will make you above average in terms of our outcomes. I tell our alums all the time: I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the value of their Mason degree has never been worth more than it is today. And my job is to make sure that five years from now the value of that degree is worth more than it is right now.
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AND JUSTICE
FOR ALL
As one of his first initiatives, President Gregory Washington took steps to expand on the university’s mission of inclusion and eliminate systemic bias. This was his message to the Mason community. Hello Fellow Patriots, In the days that followed the murder of George Floyd, I sent you a message that promised action to address racial inequities that persist here at George Mason University. I want to share with you the actions we will begin to take as a community of Patriots. Mason enters this national conversation with an admirable track record as a pacesetter in taking action for racial justice and for truth-telling about our own past. We are proud to draw upon the expertise of The Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Campus Center, one of the first of its kind in the nation PHOTO CREDIT GOES IN LOWER RIGHT CORENER IF BLEED OR COLOR PROHIBITS IT ON LEFT.
The Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, one of the nation’s few schools dedicated to social justice and peace, and one of the very best The Enslaved People of George Mason research and memorial project, the groundbreaking undertaking by our own faculty and students to tell the full truth of our university’s namesake so that we may learn and grow from it
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And of course we take pride in hosting Virginia’s largest and most diverse university student body. A majority of our students represent communities of color, and our Black student population in particular is recognized as among the nation’s top academic performers. These are just some of the many examples of excellence and inclusion around racial justice that the Mason community has undertaken. They make us proud.
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PRESIDENT WASHINGTON ANNOUNCES THE ANTI-RACISM AND INCLUSIVE EXCELLENCE TASK FORCE
But we have work to do if we are to ensure that every student, faculty, and staff member is welcomed and respected as a full equal in this community of learning. And the uncomfortable truth is not everyone at Mason feels equal, or is treated equally. So, today I am creating the President’s Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence and giving its members some big assignments. We need to know where systems, practices, and traditions of racial bias exist at Mason so that we may eradicate them. We must build intentional systems and standards of anti-racism that will keep racial injustices from regenerating. I want Mason to emerge from this exercise as a local, regional, and national beacon for the advancement of antiracism, reconciliation, and healing. This task force will have a broad focus, with particular areas of emphasis including short- and long-term improvements to how we approach Curriculum and Pedagogy Campus and Community Engagement University Policies and Practices Research Training and Development The recommendations that we act upon will be incorporated into the university’s planning and budgeting process to en sure they have the priority and resources to take root and flourish. I am not interested in reports that sit on a shelf, only to collect dust. Many reforms at Mason will require thoughtful consideration over time by the task force and university leadership. Continued on page 23
President Gregory Washington has announced his Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence (ARIE) Task Force, a major university-wide initiative that will examine practices and traditions at George Mason University to see if racial biases exist. The task force is also charged with building intentional systems and standards of anti-racism that will keep racial injustices from regenerating. “Mason is entering this national dialogue with an impressive record of anti-racism and inclusive excellence,” says Washington. “Our vision is for Mason to become a national exemplar of anti-racism and inclusive excellence.” The 32-member core task force is headed by co-chairs Shernita Rochelle Parker, Mason’s assistant vice president for HR strategy and organizational development, and Wendi Manuel Scott, a professor of history in the School of Integrative Studies within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the former director of the African and African American Studies Program. They will be aided by six committees that will examine every aspect of how the university operates, including traditions, student life, hiring, promotion, and faculty tenure practices. The committees will include nearly 100 people representing all of Mason’s schools, colleges, and units. The hope is to make certain that Mason is an inclusive and equitable campus community where everyone is valued, supported, and experiences a sense of belonging.
Campus and Community Engagement, University Policies and Practices, Curriculum and Pedagogy, Student Voice, and Research. “I am honored that President Washington has entrusted me with this important initiative at this formidable time in our country and honored to work with our task force chairs and committees to see this come to fruition,” Trent says. The formation of the task force comes amidst the backdrop of the racial unrest that has gripped the nation in recent months following the deaths of several unarmed African Americans at the hands of police, and fulfills Washington’s pledge upon taking office on July 1 to deliver action and not just words. Parker lauded the creation of the task force for building upon the Mason mission and story as “a university for the world.” “With the issues of diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice at the forefront of national events, Dr. Washington’s action has ensured that we step forward to be both in the conversation and take action,” Parker says. The task force comprises many of Mason’s experts in the area of racial justice. Task force and committee members represent Mason’s full diversity along racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, and religious identities. The task force gathered for the first time on August 25 and is expected to meet biweekly before filing its first report in late October.
The committees will identify and make recommendations to improve organizational structures, policies, processes, and practices across the university that are seen as impeding a culture of anti-racism and inclusive excellence. The scope of the work will be broad, with no area of the university off-limits.
“In the context of what is happening nationally,” Parker says, “The creation of this task force and the work it has been charged to do bring the university into the work of transforming our campus, surrounding community, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and potentially the nation.”
The task force, which is being overseen by Dietra Trent, the interim vice president for Compliance, Diversity, and Ethics and special advisor to the president, will feature working committees in Training and Development,
A complete list of task force and committee members can be found at bit.ly/gmutaskf. —John Hollis Fall 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 21
Members of the John Mitchell Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race (JMJP) team attended the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington on August 28. From left to right: Jordan Mrvos, MS Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’20; Ajanet Rountree, current Carter School PhD student; Charles L. Chavis Jr., Carter School professor and JMJP founding director; Audrey Williams, current Carter School MS student; and Chinyere Erondu, current Carter School MS student. Photos provided by JMJP
PUTTING ACTIVISM INTO ACTION What does social justice look like during a pandemic and a time of racial turmoil? George Mason University’s John Mitchell Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race (JMJP) has been busy answering that question. “We started off trying to figure out a way to promote racial healing,” says JMJP founder and Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution professor Charles Chavis. “Our work is twofold: promoting narrative change and social transformation.” Founded in 2019, JMJP is named after John Mitchell Jr., an anti-lynching advocate, journalist, and Virginia politician who lived at the turn of the 20th century. With a focus on activism at the local level, everyone in the Mason community is invited to get involved. “Anti-racism is not the problem of people of color, but our problem as a country,” says Chavis. “The program represents a space where everyone who wants to be about social justice and peace can do that, not only through attending events, but doing work around change, curriculum development, and public humanities.” A theme of JMJP’s work has been having conversations about systemic racism. Ideally, these 22 | SPI RIT.GMU.EDU
discussions would be held face-to-face, Chavis says, but that wasn’t possible due to COVID-19. The program’s virtual efforts have been surging with support. Over the summer, JMJP hosted “Mondays in June,” a virtual series with Andy Shallal, owner of the Washington, D.C., area restaurant chain Busboys and Poets, to discuss race. The combined events had more than 15,000 views and led to a partnership with Washington, D.C., radio station WPFW. “We were granted the opportunity to take our online Facebook show to the radio world,” Chavis says about the show, which premiered in September. “We’re extremely excited.”
For students, participation means experiential learning. “The program gives us a platform to call out injustice and point to places in history where those injustices originated,” says Carter School doctoral student Ajanet Rountree, JMJP program coordinator. “That allows us to question what we’re going to do about it, how we can change the trajectory of our lives as individuals, Americans, and global citizens.” Beyond discussions, JMJP took their activism to the streets and marched in the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington held at the National Mall in August. “We can’t say we are committed to conflict resolution if we are unwilling to be in the streets and be where the people are who are facing conflict,” says Rountree. “The heart of what we want to be is a beacon not only that promotes peace, but also provides students with opportunities to step outside the box and really connect what they’re doing to social justice,” Chavis says. —Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13
Continued from page 21 Others are obvious, overdue, and simply require executive leadership. So, in keeping with my pledge to deliver actions and not just words, I am announcing immediate steps that we are taking to advance systemic and cultural anti-racism at George Mason University. The many steps that we have identified are available in their entirety online at president. gmu.edu. The categories of immediate steps we are taking include
POLICING In addition to state-mandated anti-racism training for all police personnel, we will convert the existing Community Police Council into a Police Advisory Board that actively monitors the nature of police activity and reports its findings to me.
UNIVERSITY POLICIES A number of university policies and practices that carry racist vestiges will be examined and/ or curtailed, including Faculty salary equity—We will complete and act upon a faculty salary equity review and work with the schools and colleges toward correcting any issues over a three-year period. Inclusive excellence planning—At the college and school level, we will establish Inclusive Excellence Plans that articulate the vision and definition of anti-racism and inclusiveness for that unit. The task force will develop a metric-driven template for units to use. Implicit bias training—Mason will establish an Inclusive Excellence Certificate Program that certifies that the schools and colleges have completed Implicit Bias Training and have established Inclusive Excellence Plans.
Implicit bias recognition in faculty promotion and tenure—We will develop specific recommendations for the renewal, promotion, and tenure processes that address implicit bias, discrimination, and other equity issues (e.g., invisible and uncredited labor) to support faculty of color and women in their professional work. Equity advisors in every academic department—Equity advisors are senior faculty members, appointed as faculty assistants to the dean in their respective schools. Equity advisors participate in faculty recruiting by approving search committee short lists and strategies and raising awareness of best practices. Additionally, they organize faculty development programs, with both formal and informal mentoring, and address individual issues raised by women and faculty from underrepresented groups. Recognizing and rewarding adversity barriers in promotion and tenure—We will develop specific mechanisms in the promotion and tenure process that recognize the invisible and uncredited emotional labor that people of color expend to learn, teach, discover, and work on campus.
RACIAL TRAUMA AND HE ALING We will increase the support provided to students, faculty, and staff through Mason’s Counseling and Psychological Services for students and Human Resources for faculty and staff.
CURRICULUM/PEDAGOGY We will finalize development and implementation of required diversity, inclusion, and well-being course work. We will require an anti-racism statement on all syllabi.
BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS We will convene the University Naming Committee to evaluate names of university buildings and memorials to ensure they align with the university’s stated mission to serve as an “academic community committed to creating a more just, free, and prosperous world.”
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT We will grow our K-12 and community college partnerships by 50 percent and become a true partner in the development of our region. We will establish a lecture series on antiracism and inclusive excellence to establish a collective consciousness among the campus community.
RESOURCE COMMITMENTS We will identify an associated budget to achieve the above immediate actions, beginning with an initial $5 million commitment over three years to strengthen initiatives already underway and to fund critical priorities that need immediate attention. We will identify an executive director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Campus Center. Leadership in an anti-racism environment demands that we recognize how our history has shaped our view of the world and how our own actions can reshape it. My vision is nothing short of establishing Mason as a national exemplar of anti-racism and inclusive excellence in action. Given the considerable head start we have on most of our sister institutions in the United States, this is a vision we can realize. So, Patriots, let’s get to work. —Gregory Washington
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A WHOLE NEW WORLD
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
P H OTO S B Y R O N A I R A A N D E VA N C A N T W E L L
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When George Mason University students returned for the start of the fall semester in late August, things looked a little different, but the excitement of a new semester was the same. There was also a heightened sense of anticipation as everyone wondered what this fall would be like thanks to the coronavirus pandemic—and how it would go. People were wearing masks, and signage everywhere provided safety guidelines for the Safe Return to Campus. There were daily health checks, randomized COVID-19 testing, and more hand sanitizer dispensers than ever before.
Programming for this year’s Preamble for new students got creative to ensure social distancing. Events were moved online, limited to small groups, or held outdoors, including a drive-in movie in the West Campus parking lot on the Fairfax Campus.
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Above, Otis Frazier of the Mason men’s basketball team fills out paperwork before taking a coronavirus antigen test at the Field House on the Fairfax Campus. The testing was a collaborative effort between Mason Athletics, Mason’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine, and the College of Education and Human Development. Right, freshman Kelsi James shows off her room in Taylor Hall. Mason reduced the number of students living on campus this year by half, with most resident students living in single-occupancy rooms.
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PHOTO BY RON AIRA
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
MOVING IN
Left, a student measures a distance of six feet while setting up for an event on campus. Below, students greet each other with an elbow bump on the Quad. Following social distancing recommendations has been critical in keeping Mason’s COVID-19 transmission rate low.
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SOCIAL DISTANCING
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Above, Ike’s on the Fairfax Campus and other on-campus eateries have reduced seating to accommodate social distancing. Residential dining locations now require reservations to avoid overcrowding.
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
Right, operations at the Johnson Center food court look a bit different this semester. Self-service food options are now out, and prepackaged carryout meals are instead available.
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PHOTO BY RON AIRA
PLACES
Below, a student-athlete participates in COVID-19 testing, part of Mason’s efforts to ensure a safe return to campus for all.
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
Right, a student in Assistant Professor Kenneth Foreman’s chemistry lab in Exploratory Hall wears her protective gear, which now includes a mask—a requirement in all Mason buildings.
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
FACES
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PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
Right, Richard Todd Stafford, director of communications for the Honors College, teaches HNRS 361 Research and Creative Project Seminar to students in person and online.
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PHOTO BY RON AIRA
Above, students wait in the hallway outside a lab in Exploratory Hall.
CLASSES
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
Above, a large-scale video conferencing tool in the School of Dance, called a Window Wall, brings together professors and dancers in different studios and those working remotely.
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INQUIRING MINDS
Uncovering Hidden Histories
The center should have lasting, meaningful impact that will embrace and inspire many others.
new center at George Mason University aims to engage student researchers in studying the past and present influences of the university’s namesake. The Center for Mason Legacies, established by Uni versity Libraries and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, unifies scholarly research, public history, teaching innovation, and community outreach surrounding this legacy. “We are uncovering hidden histories of George Mason IV, the legal visionary, family man, and slave owner,” says Mason history professor Benedict Carton, one of the center’s associate directors. “His life and example inform our nation’s founding concepts of liberty, justice, and property. What can we learn about his institution-building, opportunities and limitations, social and commercial networks, and what our Patriot intentionally and unintentionally imparted to America?” The center, which is led by Fenwick Library history librarian George Oberle, BA History ’96, MA ’98, PhD ’16, is building and curating an archive of records generated by and about George Mason IV, his family, and their many associates. The historical coverage of
PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
—Wendi Manuel-Scott
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this archive will span the period of the Virginia colony through the establishment of the university. The materials will include archaeological reports (e.g., plotting remnants of field dwellings, burial grounds, etc.), cultural artifacts, oral interviews with possible descendants of enslaved people from Gunston Hall and surrounding plantations in Virginia and Maryland, the collected testimonies of early African American alumni remembering their experiences at Mason and the meaning of their university namesake, and other sources. Building on these historical examinations, the center will look at the present and host events to facilitate critical conversations about freedom, slavery, and race in America and how we reckon with our past. Oberle is enthusiastic about the prospects of engaging more university students in archival-based research and the center’s efforts in guiding and supporting historical and cultural documentation. “Our initial experience with the Enslaved Children of George Mason pilot project shows that undergraduates are excited to uncover and present histories with immediate meaning to wider audiences,” he says. “We are not defining topics. On the contrary, students are developing their interests and, in the process, broadening critical-thinking skills by conducting fieldwork in local archives. Their initiative promises to enhance the understanding of our university’s diverse, complicated, and still-unknown story.” Center associate director Wendi Manuel-Scott is deeply committed to scholar-community partnerships. She views the new center as a means of engaging stu dent researchers in a critical dimension of university outreach. “ When pursuing public history, such as the Enslaved Children of George Mason research, it becomes our institutional responsibility as a public university to engage with as many people as possible on and beyond the campus,” she says. “Our research has influenced not only Mason but also those around us. That is why we are committed to making our findings accessible to our university and alumni, as well as to scholars everywhere such as K-12 school teachers. The center should have lasting, meaningful impact that will embrace and inspire many others.” Learn more at legacies.gmu.edu. —Jessica Clark, MA ’16
Pages from a Mason family account book 32 | SPI RIT.GMU.EDU
RESEARCH
Dealer’s Choice
he idea came to him in the middle of the night during a cruise with family and friends. He spent the next day in the cabin, writing out the rules for a business strategy board game. Despite being on vacation, Mahesh Joshi, associate professor of global strategy and entrepreneurship at Mason’s School of Business, recruited his family and friends to test out the card game. In the middle of playing, Raj Davé, a family friend and patent lawyer, suddenly said, “We need everyone to sign confidentiality agreements before we continue playing.” And that’s how Joshi, the founding director of Mason’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, knew he had invented something different. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted a patent for BiggieBills in December 2019, and the game is available for licensing agreements now. “The idea that I should create a game to help people better understand complex business strategy had been festering in my brain for a while,” says Joshi. Joshi is introducing BiggieBills in the classes he teaches, including training sessions for companies and government agencies. He’s also marketing the game to other business schools and executive training programs. BiggieBills is played in teams and can be adapted to include as many as 50 players. Each team takes on the role of an established business trying to gain the top position in a chosen industry. The standard game lasts about three hours, and a crucial point in the learning process occurs when the game facilitator debriefs at the end.
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Joshi says he created BiggieBills after searching for years for an interactive strategy game to use in his class, but not liking what he found. “There’s no game like this around,” says Joshi. “If there had been, I would have used it in my classes and wouldn’t have had to invent it.” —Anna Stolley Persky
Goldstone Recognized with Carnegie Fellowship
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eorge Mason University professor Jack Goldstone has researched the intersection of population trends and politics for the better part of his career, and he is about to take an even deeper dive. The director of Mason’s Center for the Study of Social Change, Institutions, and Policy has been awarded a two-year Carnegie Fellowship by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Goldstone is one of 27 fellows who received the prestigious award, which provides a $200,000 stipend—the largest of its kind, the corporation says—toward funding research in the social sciences and humanities. He is the third Mason professor to receive the award, following Louise Shelley (2015), director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, and Charlotte Gill (2017), deputy director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy. Mason is one of just 15 universities nationwide with three or more Carnegie Fellows, including Yale, Duke, Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. Goldstone, the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel Jr. Professor of Public Policy in Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government, began his fellowship in September. His research will look at how different
population trends will affect the international economy and security. It will be an extension of the research he has been doing through a multiyear, $1.1 million grant that he received in March from the Charles Koch Foundation. “Right now, population change is really confronting the world with lots of challenges,” says Goldstone. “How are we going to support and care for aging generations when we’re facing a huge economic downturn? How will the young, fast-growing labor force in Africa and South Asia be productively employed?” “And if the shift in world population in religion is leading to a world where Muslims will be more numerous than Christians for the first time in history, we need to work out a cooperative relationship between them,” he says. “If we don’t do that and deteriorate into confrontation and conflict, then we go back to the Middle Ages, where Islam and Christianity are at war all over the world.” —Damian Cristodero
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PHOTO COURTESY OF NASA
INQUIRING MINDS
Researchers Discover a New Planet the Size of Neptune
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ason astronomy professor Peter Plavchan and four of his students are part of a research team that has discovered a new planet the size of Neptune that could provide clues about the possibility of life beyond Earth. A story on the discovery of the planet named AU Mic b was featured in the journal Nature. The newest planet, which is part of the AU Microscopii star system, lies relatively close to Earth at roughly 32 light years away and can easily be observed. Discovered by NASA’s exoplanet-hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and its retired Spitzer Space Telescope, AU Mic b is estimated to be between 20 million and 30 million years old. Like other exoplanets that orbit a star rather than our sun, AU Mic b could also offer astronomers key insights into the formation and development of planets and their migration patterns. “Since this planet is so young, we know its atmosphere is ‘primordial,’ so it will be very interesting to learn what its atmosphere is made of to better understand the planet formation process,” says Plavchan, the study’s lead.
“AU Mic is a young, nearby M dwarf star,” says Mason doctoral stu dent Bryson Cale. “It’s surrounded by a vast debris disk in which mov ing clumps of dust have been tracked and now, thanks to TESS and Spitzer, it has a planet with a direct size measurement. There is no other known system that checks all of these important boxes.” Authors of the study include Cale and Mason undergraduate Natasha Latouf, as well as University of Maryland professor Thomas Barclay, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and Diana Dragomir at the University of New Mexico. Other Mason students working on the project include undergraduate Ben Tieu and PhD candidate William Matzko. Plavchan first began studying exoplanets in 2001 while in graduate school at the University of California, Los Angeles and specifically AU Mic b in 2010. “For the human race, we’ve answered a question that we’ve wondered about for millennia,” Plavchan says. “Are there other worlds out there? The answer is yes. And now, we’ve found a planet that will help us understand how they form.” —John Hollis
Flavored Cigarette Ban Significantly Reduced Youth Smoking
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espite a general decline in U.S. tobacco use since the 1950s, tobacco use is still prevalent and a significant threat to public health. Previous research has shown that flavored cigarettes largely appeal to and are disproportionately used by underage smokers. Nearly 90 percent of smokers begin smoking by age 18, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. To reduce long-term health consequences and improve public health, preventing smoking initiation is key, as is reducing the draw of flavored tobacco products. In September 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s national ban on flavored cigarette products went into effect. This banned the sale of flavored cigarettes other than menthol, but there was little information about the potential impact of this ban on youth smoking. New research led by Mason’s College of Health and Human Services found that the flavored cigarette ban was linked to a significant reduction in smoking among youth and young adults. Matthew Rossheim, assistant professor of global and community health, led the study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health. 34 | SPI RIT.GMU.EDU
Researchers found that the flavored cigarette ban reduced smoking among youth between the ages of 12 and 17 by 43 percent, and young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 by 27 percent. “Our study suggests that the ban of flavored cigarettes was extremely effective at reducing smoking among young people,” says Rossheim. “This shows incredible promise for future comprehensive bans of flavored tobacco products, including those in e-cigarettes, which to date have received significant exemptions.” Rossheim and colleagues suggest that, to maximize their effectiveness among young people and to avoid increasing health disparities among African Americans, flavor bans should include all flavors and tobacco products. —Danielle Hawkins
GETTY IMAGES
RESEARCH
What Does It Take to Understand Global Terrorism? This Mason Team Is Finding Out
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o defend against terrorism, you have to understand it. Thanks to more than a dozen students, alumni, and faculty at George Mason University working on a digital terrorism database, everyone from policy makers to researchers around the world will be a step closer to that goal. “There are many other databases focusing on [terrorism], but very few have the international reach that we do, and most of them are regional or country-specific,” says Vincent Nicosia, MPP ’19, who is working on the database at the Global Terrorist Trends and Analysis Center within the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC). Since the early 1990s, the U.S. Congress has mandated that the U.S. Department of State produce a report on global terrorism. Part of that includes keeping a database of every terrorist incident around the world, says TraCCC deputy director Judith Deane. Development Services Group Inc. (DSG), partnering with Mason, was awarded the five-year contract from the State Department to work on the reports. Mason hires and trains the multilingual data analysts who interpret, categorize, and enter the information, while DSG handles the artificial intelligence (AI) and produces a statistical annex based on the data, Deane says. Mason’s team complements DSG’s AI and automated open-source information gathering by analyzing the incidents to ensure the data is as accurate as possible. It’s an innovative approach, Deane says. Unlike other data collection efforts, the Mason team collects up to 52 attributes for each incident, including facts on the perpetrators, targets, victims, and weapons. Many students working on the project have cultural and historic understandings of the countries they work on, as they’ve lived in the regions
and can speak the languages, says Mason professor and senior data analyst Mahmut Cengiz. All have studied terrorism or counterterrorism. The staff and their expertise help ensure the database is not overly U.S.-centric in its interpretations, which had been a critique of the data base before it was in Mason’s hands. There are also members, such as Haider Semaisim, LLM ’17, who have been personally affected by terrorism (see story on page 43). The database also looks at trends over time. For some students, the findings have been surprising. “There’s a lot of different security issues that I wasn’t aware of before,” Nicosia says. “Most people in the United States would probably imagine terrorism is a Middle Eastern phenomenon, but it’s truly a global issue.” Being near the hub of U.S. government and policy also allows students to learn from experts who have visited as guest speakers, including former military advisor to the president of Bangladesh Major General Munir Munirizzaman (retired), former deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center Russell Travers, and former acting and deputy director of the CIA Michael Morell, who is a Schar School fellow. “These are some of the same people who are going to be looking at the data when it’s published,” says Caitlin Ford, BA Global Affairs ’19, who is working on her master’s degree in international security. “It’s helpful to get multiple points of view so that we can be as objective and well-rounded as possible.” “For education and professional growth, this is the place to be right now,” says Vladimir Semizhonov, an international security graduate student originally from Kazakhstan. “It has to do with [a] phenomenon that stands very tall in the political and global agenda, and is not a purely academic exercise.” —Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13
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SHELF LIFE Recently published works by Mason faculty Ocean Circulation in Three Dimensions Barry Klinger, associate professor, Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences, and Thomas Haine
Keith Clark, professor, English and African and African American Studies
Cambridge University Press, April 2019
Louisiana State University Press, March 2020
The science of oceanography is advancing alongside new technology, especially in the last quarter-century. New technology has allowed researchers to truly appreciate and understand the three-dimensional nature of ocean circulation. This textbook examines current leading theories of ocean circulation and includes exercises, with solutions available online, on topics such as oceanic heat transport, high latitudes, and winddriven overturning.
This book provides valuable insight into many of the award-winning writer’s novels and short stories. Clark’s analysis draws parallels between the themes within Gaines’s texts and the reality of many issues that exist in modern society. These include the ever-present effects of slavery, the differences in how Black and white Americans view their histories, and the current state of the American justice system.
The South and the Transformation of U.S. Politics Jeremy D. Mayer, associate professor, and Mark J. Rozell, founding dean, Schar School of Policy and Government, with Charles S. Bullock and Susan A. MacManus Oxford University Press, September 2019 Membership in the Southern Democratic Party is majority African American, Latino, and Asian, and rapidly expanding with an influx of immigrants, primarily Latino. While race continues to shape politics in the region, population growth is, as this book argues, the major factor affecting politics in the South. This book describes and analyzes the ways in which demographic change has shaped politics in the South since the late 1960s and may enable the Democratic Party in the future to retake politics in the region and even shut out Republicans from the nation’s highest office.
Swamp Souths: Literary and Cultural Ecologies Eric Anderson, associate professor, English, with Kirstin Squint, Taylor Hagood, and Anthony Wilson Louisiana State University Press, March 2020 This collection of scholarly essays intends to challenge preconceived notions of the swamps that populate the southern regions of the United States. The works in this book use lenses from indigenous studies, ecocriticism, intersectional feminism, and the tropical sublime to observe how an ecosystem can influence the surrounding culture. The collection offers a passionate and dynamic argument for a renewed, broader interest in the use of swamps in culture. 36 | SPI RIT.GMU.EDU
Navigating the Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines: A Roadmap for Readers
Be Gentle: Ten Ways to Bring Peace to Yourself and Others Donald Gallehr, associate professor, English Dorrance Publishing, April 2020 Life can be stressful! This text imparts strategies to help the reader find a bit more peace and calm in their days through a series of short lessons designed to help people live more gently. The text also relays the ways we can help each other and coexist. Gallehr draws upon his years of practice in meditation to write lessons that can be practically applied.
The Cost of Inclusion: How Student Conformity Leads to Inequality on College Campuses Blake Silver, assistant professor, Sociology and Anthropology University of Chicago Press, May 2020 Starting studies at a university can be a nerve-wracking prospect for many incoming students. Many universities pride themselves on diversity and offer an array of programs to ease the transition for new students. However, in this text, the author immerses himself in a campus community to understand the sacrifices that students make to fit in and the broader impact of these sacrifices. Through interviews with students and his own experience in these communities, the author analyzes the effects of being labeled as “the funny one” or “the mom of the group.”
Antiracist Professional Development for In-Service Teachers: Emerging Research and Opportunities Jenice View, Elizabeth DeMulder, Stacia Stribling, and Laura Dallman, College of Education and Human Development IGI Global, June 2020 The racial history of education in America is still impacting classrooms across the country. This reference text aims to rectify this history by providing resources and development to aid teachers in creating an actively anti-racist classroom and learning environment. The text includes information from a national survey of teachers, assignment examples, products for teachers, and reflections from the authors. The text also offers policy recommendations for the professional development of teachers in a way that directly influences student learning.
Executive Privilege: Presidential Power, Secrecy, and Accountability, Fourth Edition, Revised and Updated Mark Rozell, founding dean, Schar School of Policy and Government, with Mitchel Sollenberger University Press of Kansas, July 2020 This text, which has been revised and updated to account for recent events, provides a history and analysis of executive privilege within the United States. Some of the topics discussed in the text include investigations into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the campaign promises of Barack Obama, and the attempted addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 census.
Mass Appeal: Communicating Policy Ideas in Multiple Media Justin Gest, associate professor, Schar School of Policy and Government Oxford University Press, July 2020 There is much discussion within public policy education about innovative ideas to improve political systems and governance as a whole, but it is often difficult to communicate these ideas in a way that is both meaningful, strategic, and effective. This text highlights the different structures, principles, audiences, and media systems that are necessary to communicate policy effectively.
H E L P I N G A M E R I C A S TAY W O K E Following the death of George Floyd and the subsequent nationwide protests, Americans have been clamoring for books on anti-racism. One such book making the lists—and being touted on social media by celebrities such as comedian-political commentators Chelsea Handler and D. L. Hughley—is by Tehama Lopez Bunyasi, assistant professor at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. In Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter (NYU Press, 2019), she and co-author Candis Watts Smith use lessons from the Movement for Black Lives to help people become effective racial justice advocates and anti-racists. Created as a toolkit, the book aims to empower readers to become more knowledgeable participants in public dialogue, activism, and American politics. What inspired you to write this book? My co-author and I were inspired to write this book because of our students. We were looking for reading material and in-class curriculum that would help our students work through the unfolding Black Lives Matter movement, and in not finding exactly what we were looking for, we wrote it ourselves. As we started, it was clear to us that writing in an accessible way, unpacking the structural and ideological frameworks of contemporary American racism without all the academic jargon, could go a long way to equip and empower people to become effective racial justice advocates and anti-racists. One of our central aims then was to distill and build upon scholarship from multiple disciplines without watering down any of the content. How do you know your co-author? I met Dr. Smith when I held the Samuel DuBois Cook Postdoctoral Fellowship at Duke University’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Social Sciences. She was a graduate student there doing her doctoral work in political science, and we had offices right next door to each other. We became friends and then, years later, co-authors. What are your feelings about everything that is going on in the country right now? I am infuriated and saddened that Black Americans continue to be profiled, discriminated against, and killed by police and vigilantes. All this amongst a pandemic that is disproportionately taking the lives of Black and Latinx people all over the country. The fissures of inequality are on full display; we are amidst a great reckoning with who we are in this country and who we want to become. Where I am inspired is in the beautiful interracial protests. Five or six years ago, I attended a massive rally against police brutality in Washington, D.C., and there were nowhere near the amount of white people in attendance then as there are today. More and more white people are working to join the anti-racist ranks, and though it may appear awkward at times, I believe the effort is largely sincere. I am inspired to see the hard work of grassroots organizations coming to fruition as they coordinate rallies and design demands to hold our elected representatives accountable. —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95 Fall 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 37
ALUMNI IN PRINT Recently published works by Mason alumni Become Loaded for Life! Financial Independence, Retiring Early, Maximizing Happiness Nate Carter, JD ’04 This book (Amazon Services LLC, October 2019) offers advice that stretches beyond the idea of just studying hard and getting a good job. In an age when many people are saddled with student debt, retiring early seems impossible. But by following the strategies outlined in this book, financial independence can become a reality. From his upbringing in Chicago to his time funding start-ups and founding small businesses, Carter has obtained a great deal of experience in the world of finance. He currently works with the U.S. Department of State. The Old Sleeper Tom Moates, BA ’91 This novel (Spinning Sevens Press, February 2020) is a fresh take on the classic spy story. Gene Davis is enjoying his first week of retirement on his new Arizona ranch, when his former boss enlists his help in one last mission, with the fate of the country at stake. Mason is the setting for the novel’s third chapter. Moates is best known for his equestrian nonfiction. He has written 11 books and publishes articles regularly in Equus Magazine. He currently lives on a solar-powered farm in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains with his wife and a herd of horses. Romances Lisa Ampleman, MFA Creative Writing ’04 This collection of poetry (Louisiana State University 38 | SPI RIT.GMU.EDU
Press, February 2020) looks back at literary love. Ampleman uses the voices of female historical figures, such as Anne Boleyn or Dante’s wife, to provide a different outlook on love and romance. Other poems include a more modern sonnet dedicated to ’90s icon Courtney Love. Ampleman currently lives in Ohio. She is the managing editor of the Cincinnati Review, and her poetry has appeared in the Kenyon Review Online, Image, and the Massachusetts Review. Last Couple Standing Matt Norman, MFA ’05 This novel (Ballantine Books, March 2020) combines wit, humor, and heart to explore the complexity of friendships and the realities of marriage in the 21st century. Norman lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with his wife and their two children. This is his third novel. I Was Waiting to See What You Would Do First Angie Mazakis, MFA ’12 The poems in this collection (University of Arkansas Press, March 2020) contain scenes within scenes, designed to encourage the reader to explore the minute details that may be usually overlooked. Mazakis is currently a doctoral student in creative wri ting at Ohio University. Her work has appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, Iowa Review, Best New Poets, Washington Square Review, Columbia Journal, and Lana Turner Journal.
Across from Now Andy Fogle, BA ’96, MFA ’00
that allowed Key to observe the battle.
This poetry collection (Grayson Books, April 2020) presents ideas of place, family, and connection. The poems in this collection take nothing for granted, as they acknowledge the mystery that is present in the people, places, and things we see on a daily basis.
Star Spangled is Grove’s fifth book, and it is his third book for young readers. Grove has worked as the chief of museum learning at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. He currently resides in Northern Virginia.
Fogle has published several chapbooks of poetry. He currently teaches high school English in upstate New York and is pursuing a PhD in education.
Crooked Hallelujah
The Girl Behind the Glass Emilio Iasiello, MFA ’95 This novel (Tumbleweed Books, April 2020) follows Mike, a legal clerk going through a change in his life. When his friend’s ashes turn up on his doorstep, Mike uses this as motivation to take his dead friend on one last night of binge drinking and self-discovery. Iasiello is an author, poet, screenwriter, and playwright. He also specializes in cyber threat and security. He recently published a poetry collection, Smoke in the Afterlife. He currently lives in Virginia with his wife and their two children. Star-Spangled: The Story of a Flag, a Battle, and the American Anthem Tim Grove, MA History ’93 This book (Abrams Books, May 2020) is written for readers ages 10 to 14 and intends to give a full view of how the United States’ national anthem came to be. The book provides context for the War of 1812 and the battle that inspired Francis Scott Key’s now legendary poem, and explains the circumstances
Kelli Jo Ford, MFA Creative Writing ’07 This debut novel (Grove Press, July 2020) follows several generations of Cherokee women as they navigate life in the United States in the late 20th and early 21st century. Ford draws on her own background to illustrate the lives of the women in this family. Ford’s work has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Missouri Review, and Paris Review. A member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, she currently lives in Virginia with her husband, their daughter, and their dog. Can You See My Scars? Samuel Moore-Sobel, BA Government and International Politics ’15 Samuel is set to begin his sophomore year of high school when a chemical explosion changes everything. This book (Mascot Books, September 2020) follows Samuel as he navigates his new normal after the accident. The author explores several themes including faith, friendship, grief, and pain. Moore-Sobel is an author, columnist, and activist. He currently lives in Northern Virginia.
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PAT R I O T P R O F I L E
Fe Miranda YEAR: Junior MAJOR: Music Education HOMETOWN: Washington, D.C.
LISTEN TO THE MUSIC: When Fe Miranda (they/them/theirs) signed up to sing for their middle school talent show on a whim, they didn’t know music and the arts would end up changing their life. “Something clicked and I wanted to keep doing it forever,” says Miranda. “I want to share music and the arts with students and young people who may not have access, and help students feel like part of the community.” FINDING A PLACE: Miranda believes in the transformative power of the arts and says music also helped them find themselves. “[Being part of musical theater] was the first time I’d been around a lot of LGBTQ [people] and people of color. It helped me be more confident in myself and what I wanted to do in college and as a career.” MUSICAL INFLUENCES: Miranda’s favorite musical is In the Heights. “It’s one of the only mainstream musicals that accurately represents the Latinx experience in America and has a full cast of people of color. Being Puerto Rican, it’s so empowering to see people like me on stage, behind the scenes, and making art. It makes me want to have an impact like that on others.” ON THE MASON STAGE: Since coming to Mason, Miranda has performed in several concerts with the University Chorale and University Singers. In the spring they were an
assistant stage manager for the Mason Players production of Men on Boats, which was canceled due to coronavirus. “I am more interested in the behind-the-scenes organizational aspects of the performing arts, and I hope I get more opportunities to be involved in those areas.” CREATING INCLUSIVE SPACES: Miranda is also passionate about creating other kinds of inclusive spaces, particularly as a Patriot Leader and member of several music and LGBTQ+ organizations on campus, such as Pride Alliance. “I became a Patriot Leader along the same lines as why I want to be an educator. I wanted to make incoming students feel com fortable and welcome and accepted at Mason, and the Office of New Student and Family Programs is one of the most accepting and inclusive spaces on campus.” LOOKING FORWARD: There are still areas of growth needed for the LGBTQ+ community at Mason, Miranda says, but they remain thankful. “My absolute favorite thing about Mason is the number of places where you can build community. You can really branch out and do whatever you want.” —Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13
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class notes
Carla Thomas McGinnis in front of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
Bringing History to Life
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fter seeing firsthand the 2008 economic recession’s impact on museum funding, Carla Thomas McGinnis, MA Arts Management ’13, started to contemplate returning to school. She was working as a living history project coordinator at Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan, when George Mason University caught her eye. She was attracted to the Arts Management Program because of its focus on the artist as well as business management. “They were a program that [emphasized] how to do arts management without sacrificing the artist—letting the artist and the art lead and the administrator being the support for that. And that was speaking my language.” While in the program, McGinnis volunteered at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) a few times a week, where a moment of serendipity led to a job after graduation. “I reconnected with an old classmate who worked there who recommended I apply,” McGinnis says, crediting fellow alumna Natalie Holmes, MA Arts Management ’12, for helping her find her first position at the museum as a program specialist. McGinnis now works as the assistant director of council operations and museum initiatives. McGinnis has been there for some special moments in the NMAAHC’s young history, including the dedication ceremonies in 2016 attended by Barack and Michelle Obama, George W. and Laura Bush, Oprah Winfrey, and—McGinnis’s personal favorite—Ruth Odom Bonner, whose father
was enslaved. Four generations of Bonner’s family, along with the Obamas, joined Ruth in ringing the bell to officially mark the museum’s opening. And with the nation’s current reckoning with racism, McGinnis stresses the museum’s importance even in the middle of a pandemic. “The museum has always been looked at as a leader in how we can talk about race and social justice,” she says. “[Museums] can be the center of a community, and that’s what I’m seeing our museum being right now. It’s a congregating site for people who are protesting…people [are] in front of the museum kneeling and taking a stand in many ways…It’s been really gratifying to see how the museum is still playing this role when we can’t be inside.” McGinnis is well aware of her career field’s lack of representation for people of color. “I discovered how hard it is for people of color to get leadership roles in fundraising at organizations. There is a stigma or belief that ‘Oh, they don’t know the people with the deep pockets,’ or ‘They don’t have the right accent; they don’t present in a certain way….’ I’ve just become more aware of the landscape of fundraising and what African American fundraisers face.” “What I’m left with right now is just an appreciation for…what doors I could open through my affiliation with [Mason’s] program. I’m grateful because…it helped me get experience that has allowed me to have this kind of career, and I don’t take that for granted.” —Priyanka Champaneri, BA ’05, MFA ’10
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class notes
1970s
Bonnie Atwood, BA Psychology ’74, has been appointed by Governor Ralph Northam to the Virginia Board for the Blind and Vision Impaired.
Donna Lessner-Manion, BA French ’79, received the 2019 Florida HR Person of the Year Award, recognizing her long career in the human resources field.
1980s
Bob Prange, BS Business Administration ’80, retired as a captain at Delta Air Lines in September. After graduation Prange first worked at Peat, Marwick Mitchell & Co., before moving on to Holly Enterprises and MCI Telecommunications. He changed careers, taught flying, and became an instructor and pilot examiner at Atlantic Coast Airlines. With Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines, he has flown to five continents. He retires with 20,000 flying hours and seven transport category aircraft type ratings and plans to continue serving the aviation community by giving rides to youth in his own aircraft through the Young Eagles program with the Experimental Aircraft Association.
Josephine Jordan, BSN ’82, just earned her MSN from Benedictine University. She is a medical facilities inspector for the Virginia Department of Health and has served in this capacity for nearly 25 years. Jeffery Taubenberger, BS Biology ’82, was interviewed (along with Dr. Anthony Fauci) in a recent episode of New York Public Radio’s Radiolab, which looked back at the 1918 influenza pandemic to help understand the current COVID-19 pandemic. Taubenberger, a virologist, was the first to sequence the genome of the influenza virus that caused the 1918 pandemic. He is chief of the Viral Pathogenesis and Evolution Section of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Kathy Hawthorne Sheppard, BA Theater ’83, performed at the Ritz Playhouse in Hawley, Pennsylvania, in October 2019. She performed the role of a retired English teacher, Vanessa, opposite her daughter, Gracie, in a short play, The English Teacher, by Beverly Wilens Rosen of Chicago. David Hatfield, JD ’84, has been collecting malaphors for more than 30 years. His first book, He Smokes Like
a Fish and Other Malaphors (Unintentional Idiom and Word Blends) was his offering to language enthusiasts everywhere. Now he has assembled a second hilarious collection, titled Things Are Not Rosy-Dory: Malaphors from Politicians and Pundits. Malaphors know no party allegiance. From Democrats to Repub licans, a truly diverse array of people is represented within these covers. Steve Boehm, MBA ’88, has been appointed chief operating officer (COO) of Barings, a global financial services firm, based in Charlotte, North Carolina. As COO, Boehm will set the strategic direction for the firm’s technology-driven operations. Henry Stinson, BS Electrical Engineering ’88, is a senior database developer working as a contractor on BNSF Railway’s positive train control system. At the age of 77, Stinson works from home, accompanied by his faithful dog, a lab-border collie mix. “It is gratifying to be working
on something that saves lives and helps prevent train collisions and wrecks,” he says. Stinson graduated from Mason in his 40s after his earlier college career was interrupted when he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He has worked in IT as a programmer and database developer for many years, including at Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth, Texas, where he now lives. Linda C. Nobis, MS Conflict Management and Resolution ’89, recently published her sci-fi novel, Quantum Horizons: A Fable of Science and Wonder.
1990s
Michelle (Telenko) Nichols, BA Economics ’91, graduated in May from Emory Law School in Atlanta with a juris master degree, specializing in business law and regulatory affairs.
Thomas Donohue, BS Accounting ’93, MS Software Engineering ’03, has created a blog, Financial
Insights from Todd, to provide easy-to-understand financial advice. A. Adam Omar, BS Finance ’93, was named chief financial officer of McLean, Virginia-based Altamira Technologies. A certified public accountant, Omar earned a master’s degree in finance from George Washington University. He previously worked as a chief financial officer for Maryland-based CyberCore Technologies, and he has worked as a finance executive for companies including Science Applications International Corp., Soft ware AG, and LexisNexis. Lorrie Sinclair Taylor, BA Government and Politics ’93, was elected by the Virginia General Assembly to serve a six-year term as a General District Court judge for the 20th Judicial Circuit, serving the citizens of Loudoun, Fauquier, and Rappahannock Counties. Her term began on May 1, 2020. She is the first African American judge in the district’s history.
What’s New with You? We are interested in what you’ve been doing since you graduated. Moved? Gotten married? Had a baby? Landed a new job? Received an award? Submit your class notes to alumni.gmu.edu/whatsnew. In your note, be sure to include your graduation year and degree.
Fall 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 41
class notes
O
ver the past several months, we have truly seen the strength and resiliency of the Mason Nation. In a constantly changing world, Patriots have risen to the challenges of the moment. I am thankful and proud to be part of a network that cares for each other and that finds ways to stay connected virtually when we cannot be together in person. As we look to the future, I am excited to partner with Mason’s new president, Gregory Washington, to further engage our alumni.
The Alumni Association is here to serve as a resource for you and your family. We are finding new ways to reach you where you live, work, and play through virtual engagement initiatives. We continue to offer valuable career resources, and this summer, we launched our Leading Patriots webinar series in collaboration with Executive Development. We hosted a Financial Management 101 webinar and regional networking events for Patriots across the country. Our virtual happy hours and game nights have been very successful. These have all provided a great way to keep the Mason Nation connected during this time. We will continue to find ways to help you engage and connect with your Alumni Association, your fellow alumni, and even future alumni. In the meantime, I encourage you to consider volunteering with the Alumni Association. Go to alumni.gmu.edu/volunteer to complete the Volunteer Interest Form so we can learn more about how you want to be involved. Stay safe, Mason Nation, and thank you for coming together and being makers of community. With Patriot Pride, Sumeet Shrivastava, MBA ’94 President, George Mason University Alumni Association
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Richard Killion, MPA ’94, was recently appointed vice president for institutional advancement at Beacon College in Leesburg, Florida. In this role, he provides strategic vision and oversight for fundraising, engagement, and communications with alumni, parents, government officials, and other stakeholders. Prior to joining Beacon, Killion cofounded and served as managing partner of Elevare Communications, a public affairs and strategic communications firm, for 16 years. He also served as a general consultant to former New Hampshire State Senate president Chuck Morse and was the senior New Hampshire strategist for the state presidential primary campaigns of governors Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, and Tim Pawlenty. Meg Ventrudo, MA History ’94, is the new executive director of the Woodlawn Conservancy, the historic preservation arm of the Woodlawn Cemetery, a National Historic Landmark in the Bronx, New York. Lisa M. Pflaumer, MPA ’95, was named the first executive director of Heartis Yardley Senior Living, a Pennsylvania-licensed (pending) assisted living and memory care community, located in Yardley, Pennsylvania, scheduled to open in late fall 2020. Pflaumer holds certifications as a personal care home administrator and assisted living residence administrator.
Shirley Nuhn, MA English ’96, CERG Teaching English as a Second Language ’96, again spearheaded public awareness of June 15 as Nature Photography Day. Nuhn initiated Nature Photography Day in 2006 through the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA). In messages for 2020, NANPA encouraged people to use a camera to explore the natural world that is close to them, such as a backyard, garden, and other settings. Nuhn is co-chair of NANPA’s History Committee and an oral historian. She is a freelance writer, editor, and educator. Jennifer Torneden, BS Finance ’97, joined Legal & General America, a top 10 U.S. life insurer, as vice president of sales and strategic growth. Torneden was a winner of the 2019 Women to Watch award from Business Insurance, recipient of the 2018 Woman of the Year award from Rough Notes for pro moting diversity and inclusion within the insurance industry, is a board member for GrowthSource Academy, and is involved in multiple charitable organizations. She is a speaker on industry panels at Columbia University and is a regular speaker as part of the Kearns Global Lecture Series. Zipora Assayag, BS Biology ’99, is the founder of Ora’s Amazing Herbal, which provides herbal-infused natural skin care for the
class notes
Lee R. Kaiser, MEd Coun seling and Development ’99, was recently elected to the Virginia School Counselors Association Board of Directors. He will serve a three-year term while advocating for counselors throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. Donna LaBelle, BS Psychology ’99, works as a lead business analyst and program lead supporting the Federal Aviation Administration in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. In September 2018, LaBelle successfully defended her dissertation, “Millennials’ Experiences with Succession Planning: A Basic Qualitative Study.”
2000s
Susan Crandall, JD ’01, has joined Rekor Systems as its chief marketing officer. Crandall has decades of experience leading marketing and business development initiatives for some of the world’s largest public safety brands, including Motorola Solutions and LexisNexis Risk Solutions. As vice president of marketing and legislative affairs for VaaS International, she helped position the company for its $445 million
PHOTO BY RON AIRA
whole family, including products such as natural diaper cream and Magic Face Potion. “I couldn’t have done it without my background in biology and lab technique that I learned at Mason,” Assayag says.
Fighting Back
W
hen Haider Semaisim, LLM ’17, works on the federally mandated database of global incidents of terrorism with Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government, he does so with pride. It is not only an educational and professional endeavor, he says, “It’s personal.” “Iraq is one of the countries that suffered a lot from terrorism,” says Semaisim, an Iraqi-American. “[My friend Zaid] was killed in 2011 by ISIS.” Semaisim says Zaid was working as a first lieutenant for the Iraqi Army when he responded to an order to liberate hostages in a home. Tragically, the house was booby-trapped and exploded. “It was very devastating,” says Semaisim. “This project is giving me retribution in a way. I am fighting terrorism through the keyboard.” As Semaisim analyzes terrorist incidents for the database from open-source media, he helps trace terrorist trends and strategies. That’s one reason the database provides critical insight for policy makers (See the story on page 35). Semaisim primarily analyzes incidents from Iraq, and his fluency in Arabic and understanding of Iraqi culture and
politics allow him to bring a unique expertise to the project. He describes the work as “the good fight,” but he is also passionate about making a difference in other areas. Before coming to the United States in 2014, Semaisim was a lawyer in Iraq doing criminal and divorce law. “I was not very optimistic about the future of Iraq, and the United States is a beacon of freedom,” he says. Some of Semaisim’s friends were not as fortunate. Learning about their challenges in gaining legal status inspired him to switch his interests to immigration law. Thanks to his Mason education, Semaisim, who became a U.S. citizen in 2018, believes he will be on his way to helping others after he passes the bar exam. “Mason is an amazing university,” Semaisim says, adding that Scalia Law professors are respected lawyers who teach not only from textbooks but from real-life experience. Even when Semaisim would disagree with peers or professors, he says his Mason education instilled in him “respect of the argument and how to accept differences.” —Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13
(continued page 44) Fall 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 43
class notes
acquisition by Motorola Solutions in January 2019. Astrid Gamez, BA Psychology ’02, developed Whom Should I Tell?, a child sexual abuse prevention program for parents with children ages 4 to 12. Gamez presented the program at the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) International Conference in Prague in 2018 and at the Federación de Asociaciones para la Prevención del Maltrato Infantil (FAPMI) Conference in Barcelona in 2019. She recently finished an educational coloring and activities book as part of the tools for the program and plans to publish five more children books this year. “I am very proud to be a Patriot,” she says. “Mason gave me the tools to succeed in life.” Tammer Olibah, BS Decision Science and Management Information Systems ’02, is the president and CEO of Hexagon U.S. Federal. Olibah was included in the 2020 list of “40 Under 40” honorees by the Washington Business Journal. Kavita Mittapalli, MA Sociology ’03, PhD Education ’08, opened a small education research and evaluation firm, MN Associates Inc., shortly after graduation. Since its inception, MN Associates has grown to a six-person company and has completed more than 200 projects in STEM education, teacher preparation, afterschool 44 | SPI RIT.GMU.EDU
programs, school reform, arts integration, English language learners, special education, and workforce development. Visit the website at mnassociatesinc.com. Jennifer Burns, BA Govern ment and International Politics ’06, is a senior vice president at Monday Properties, a commercial real estate firm. She was included in the 2020 list of “40 Under 40” honorees by the Washington Business Journal. Urenna Onyewuchi, BS Electrical Engineering ’06, is a community development expert who has curated a webinar series to address short- and longterm effects of COVID-19 and to address Black Lives Matter from a community development perspective. The panelists are global experts who speak on mental health, physical health, employment, and trade. View the series at aprofessionalafrica.com. Jerry Thornton, BA Economics ’06, MBA ’11, is a 2017 graduate of the School of Professional and Continuing Studies Beer Brewer Professional Certificate program at the University of Richmond and the owner of Bryant’s Small Batch Cider in Richmond, Virginia. Bryant’s began curbside pickup and home delivery from its historic Shockoe Bottom location on March 20 in response to the COVID-19 shutdowns. Thornton expanded distribution to Northern Virginia this summer.
Mari Byrne, BS Social Work ’07, has been promoted to counsel at Davis Polk in New York. She represents clients in a wide range of civil litigation matters, including complex commercial and contractual disputes, securities litigation, bankruptcy-related litigation, and class actions. She received her JD from Fordham University in 2011. Daniel Gifford, MA History ’07, PhD ’11, is the author of a new book, The Last Voyage of the Whaling Bark Progress (McFarland Press, 2020). The Progress was a New Bedford whaler transformed into a whaling museum for Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair. Traversing waterways across North America, the whaleship enthralled crowds from Montreal to Racine. Her ultimate fate, however, was to be a failed sideshow of marine curiosities and a metaphor for a dying industry out of step with Gilded Age America. This book uses the story of the Progress to detail the rise, fall, and eventual demise of the whaling industry in America. Gifford is an affiliated professor at the University of Louisville. Brian Christopher Jones, MA Justice, Law, and Crime Policy ’07, recently published his first book, Constitutional Idolatry and Democracy: Challenging the Infatuation with Writtenness (Edward Eglar). Peter Knolle, MS Soft ware Engineering ’07, was inducted into the Salesforce.com Most Valued
Professional Hall of Fame. The honor is in recognition of Knolle’s many years of volunteer service and expertise in the Salesforce. com community. Chuck LaRock II, BS Finance ’07, is a senior vice president with JLL, a corporate real estate firm. He was included in the 2020 list of “40 Under 40” honorees by the Wash ington Business Journal. A.J. Faraj, BA Theater ’08, MA Global Affairs ’11, is CEO of WadiTek LLC, a technology-focused staffing and consulting agency in Alexandria, Virginia. Faraj’s extensive background in digital product management and innovation spans disciplines such as mobile and cloud computing, data analytics, health care, human capital, and real estate. Prior to founding WadiTek, he led various successful digital investments from inception to delivery at Rosetta Stone, Deloitte Consulting Innovation, and EA3 Solutions. Maureen Santelli, MA History ’08, PhD ’14, has written the book, The Greek Fire: AmericanOttoman Relations and Democratic Fervor in the Age of Revolutions (Cornell University Press), due out December 15, 2020. David J. Smith, MS Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’09, was interviewed on NBC’s Today Show on August 28 about best practices for working from home. He is a career coach and conflict
resolution educator living in Rockville, Maryland.
2010s
Fatima M. Smith, BS Ad ministration of Justice ’10, launched Collective 365— an organization seeking to invest in long-term positive change and sustainability in communities of color in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia region through philanthropic giving—with 11 other founders (including fellow Mason alumnae Felicia Baez, BA Integrative Studies ’17, MPH ’19, and Amanda Thompson, BA Communication ’10). Stephanie Grimes, MA Art History’ 13, is the first Mason graduate to receive the competitive United Kingdom Fulbright award. The grant will cover tuition and living expenses while Grimes gets her PhD in digital humanities at King’s College in London. Grimes’s specific area of research concerns digitizing ancient artifacts as a way of engaging the public.
Alexander Leone, BS Information Technology ’13, recently started his own software development company, Sprout Tech, based in Washington, D.C. The company is aimed at helping businesses build the right technology, the right way. Micah McFarland, BA Film and Video Studies ’13, designed the visually striking website for the Emmy award-winning scripted (continued on page 47)
class notes
PHOTOS COURTESY OF FAITH THOMPSON
In June, first-grade teacher Faith Thompson, MEd ’19, put out a call on her Facebook page for help buying books for her classroom that promote diversity, inclusion, tolerance, and anti-racism. Thompson, who teaches at Yorkshire Elementary School in Manassas, Virginia, has received dozens of books and more than $2,000 to help her campaign. Thanks to the donations she’s received, Thompson says she can provide books to teachers in an increasing number of elementary schools. Watch a CBS This Morning segment about her at bit.ly/ FaithTGMU.
2 0 2 0 – 2 1 G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N B O A R D O F D I R E C T O R S EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBERS
Harold Geller, MA Interdisciplinary Studies ’92, DA Community College Education ’05
Taylor Sargent, BS Physics ’14
IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT
David Kanos, BA Government and International Politics ’18
COLLEGE OF VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS ALUMNI CHAPTER
Jennifer Shelton, BS Public Administration ’94
Darcy K. Kim, BS Social Work ’02
Molly Grimsley, BA Art ’81
PRESIDENT ELECT
Whitney Ward, BA Communication ’08
PRESIDENT
Sumeet Shrivastava, EMBA ’94
Christine Landoll, BS Accounting ’89, MS Taxation ’92 VICE PRESIDENT—WORK
COLLEGE OF SCIENCE ALUMNI CHAPTER
LAMBDA ALUMNI CHAPTER
Alejandro Asin, BA Sociology ’11
CHAPTER REPRESENTATIVES
LATINO ALUMNI CHAPTER
BLACK ALUMNI CHAPTER
Rolando Flores Santos, BA Global Affairs ’18
Tyree Carlson, BS Social Work ’96
Janae Johnson, BS Psychology ’11, MAIS ’15
SCALIA LAW SCHOOL ALUMNI CHAPTER
VICE PRESIDENT—LIVE
Jesse Binnall, BA Communication ’01, JD ’09
Yoshie Davison, MSW ’09
CARTER SCHOOL FOR PEACE AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION ALUMNI CHAPTER
VICE PRESIDENT—PLAY
Lori Farro, BS ’14, MS Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’16
Raymond Wotring, BA Government and International Politics ’05 TREASURER
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ALUMNI CHAPTER
SCHAR SCHOOL OF POLICY AND GOVERNMENT ALUMNI CHAPTER
J. J. Stakem, MS Organization Development and Knowledge Management ’12 SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ALUMNI CHAPTER
David Atkins, BS Decision Science ’90
open
Scott Hine, BS Decision Science ’85
HISTORIAN
COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES ALUMNI CHAPTER
VOLGENAU SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ALUMNI CHAPTER
Ailsa Ware Burnett, BS Public Administration ’93, MA Sociology ’96, MPA ’08 AT-LARGE DIRECTORS Mary Bramley, BA History ’07 Chatrane Birbal, MPA ’06
Kathi Huddleston, PhD Nursing ’08 COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES ALUMNI CHAPTER
Daniel Lash, BS Economics ’97
Hadi Rezazad, PhD Information Technology ’09 STUDENT GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVE Shelby Adams
Fall 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 45
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PHOTO BY LATHAN GOUMAS
Gerica Goodman met with Mason students during this year’s Mason Lobbies event in February, which takes Mason students to Richmond for a day to lobby on behalf of the university and higher education.
Shaping Policy in Richmond POINT of PRIDE The Mason Community Arts Academy saw growth in its summer program since it went virtual this year. More than 1,000 students from 32 states and 11 countries took part in the academy’s 74 online music and arts courses and summer camps.
A
mong the historic “firsts” in the current Virginia General Assembly—first female Speaker of the House, the first African American lieutenant governor, the first female majority leader, to name a few—is the first African American woman serving in the key role of legislative and policy director.
Gerica Goodman, BS Psychology ’12, MPA ’15, took advantage of Mason’s opportunities and flexibility by exploring different majors, sampling careers via internships, and working part time as a student and later full time as a graduate in the offices of Admissions and Alumni Relations to reach her historic position. She landed in Richmond when her interests circled back to what brought her to Mason in the first place: “I realized my original intention when I started at Mason was government,” she says from her office near the one occupied by her boss, Speaker of the House Eileen Filler-Corn. The master’s degree from Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government comes in handy—daily, in fact, she says. “One of my favorite classes was Program Evaluation,” she says, adding that it was taught by an adjunct who
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was also “a bureaucrat’s bureaucrat,” a senior analyst with the U.S. Government Accountability Office. “The class looked at government programs and took them apart and evaluated them, which is essentially what I do for bills and government agencies.” As policy director, Goodman collaborates with the Speaker and the chief of staff, among others in the statehouse, and offers opinions and recommendations on the brief legislative session’s rapid cascade of proposed bills—1,800 of them this past winter—as they wend their ways through committees. And she loves it. “I’m kind of a boring person who likes the legal print on the back of anything, and I like legal jargon,” she says. “Reading bills seems like a daunting process, but I always find something really interesting.” Always? Really? “Like, we had a bill about milk, about not calling anything that’s not derived from a dairy cow ‘milk.’ I find stuff like that super interesting.” —Buzz McClain, BA ’77
class notes
series Artificial. Starring Dante Basco, Artificial follows an artificial intelligence being as she discovers what it means to be human. Fans can interact with the Artificial storyline through its website, then tune in Thursdays at 8 p.m. EST on Twitch TV. Jennifer Mills, CERG ’13, MEd Special Education ’13, has been a Fairfax County Public Schools educator in Virginia for the past 10 years. Three years ago, she started a successful virtual tutoring business, found at MillsVirtualTutoring.com. Daniel Pedreira, MS Peace Operations ’14, recently wrote his third book, PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile: Foundation, Struggle and Present. This bilingual book (in English and Spanish) studies the history of the Cuban and Cuban American authors who have joined PEN International’s call to defend freedom of speech in their homeland and around the world. John DeRosa, MS Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’15, PhD ’19, is the author of Narrativized Strategic Choice, published in August by Rowman and Littlefield. In this study, DeRosa advances a new model of strategic choice through a narrative lens. This narrative turn reframes the logic of international relations to emphasize motives, perceptions, preferences, and the reflexive interaction of strategic choices. Case studies of American and Russian nuclear arms control
treaties from the negotiations of the IntermediateRange Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987 to the crisis of the U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty in 2019 support building a theory of “narrativized” strategic choice. Merone Hailemeskel, BA Economics ’15, MPP ’17, began a new position as the digital and communications associate for President Obama and Michelle Obama in the Office of Barack and Michelle Obama. While earning her master’s degree
from the Schar School, Hailemeskel worked as an intern in the White House for First Lady Michelle Obama on her Reach Higher education initiative, and then as a digital director and policy advisor on Michelle Obama’s Better Make Room public awareness campaign. Richard Shannon, BIS ’15, has been named the deputy senior director for resource management for the White House National Security Council.
Bridget O’Donnell, BA Communication ’16, is a client relationship specialist for the New York Knicks, working in Madison Square Garden. She was a member of the Mason women’s basketball team. “Sports are a reprieve, a source of unity in cities, and a platform for social justice,” O’Donnell says. “This page in my life will be dog-eared because of the immense challenge it presented in the world of working in sports, but for that reason I will come out better on the other side.”
Josh Yavelberg, PhD Education ’16, has left the National Recreation and Park Association and started an educational consulting company, Flying Cloud Solutions, to support innovation and strategic solutions for instructional systems design. Yavelberg also continues to research art history instruction and add to the scholarship of teaching and learning with a focus on the effectiveness of games and gamification for learning and engagement.
Obituaries ALUMNI AND STUDENTS
Sandra J. Roupp, BA Business and Public Administration ’69, d. June 28, 2020
Elaine S. Bowman, BA Gov ernment and Politics ’75, d. August 1, 2020
Jeffrey E. Drifmeyer, BS Biology ’70, d. July 31, 2020
Norma J. Clemons, BS Social Work ’75, d. August 9, 2020
Kathleen G. Yasaitis, BSEd Early Education ’77, d. May 11, 2020
Nancy R. Boush, BSEd Early Education ’71, d. May 11, 2020
Sue Latham, BS Business Administration ’75, MBA ’86, d. May 31, 2020
Craig J. La Bree, BS Business Administration ’78, d. May 30, 2020
William B. Porembka, BSEd Physical Education ’75, d. July 4, 2020
G. Elaine Pitt, BIS ’78, d. June 25, 2020
Dolores B. Kent, BSEd Elementary Education ’71, d. July 21, 2020 June Q. Price, MEd Elementary Education ’72, d. April 22, 2020 Martha J. Conn, BSEd Elementary Education ’73, d. June 4, 2020 Charles R. Davis, BS Business Administration ’73, d. July 2, 2020 Maureen E. Ashby, BA History ’75, d. May 3, 2020
Patricia M. Riggle, BA Economics ’75, d. July 14, 2020 Glenn D. Brill, BS Business Administration ’76, d. July 22, 2020
Garrett W. Houck, MBA ’77, d. July 14, 2020
William J. Schewe Jr., JD ’78, d. May 18, 2020 Lane J. Ford, BSN ’79, d. April 18, 2020 Jean Schoellig, BSN ’80, d. June 9, 2020
Barbara C. Little, BSN ’76, d. May 4, 2020
Vernette N. Gilbert, BIS ’82, d. April 21, 2020
Phyllis O. Muir, BA Sociology ’76, d. April 17, 2020
Anita D. Ogden, BIS ’82, d. July 12, 2020
Ethel H. Skudder, MEd Cur riculum and Instruction ’82, d. July 5, 2020 Richard A. Bleck, BS Psychology ’83, d. June 3, 2020 Carolyn J. Chandler, BSN ’83, d. August 1, 2020 Col. Edward Rodriguez, USAF (Ret.), MEd Counseling and Development ’83, d. May 7, 2020 Nancy L. Angelelli, BS Psych ology ’84, MS Information Systems ’88, d. July 28, 2020 Brig. Gen. D. Scott George, BS Law Enforcement ’85, d. June 28, 2020 Lynne L. Vaughan, BA Soci ology ’85, d. April 3, 2020
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Regina N. Hamilton, JD ’86, d. June 1, 2020 Virginia L. Switzer, BIS ’87, d. June 15, 2020 Van A. Kinney, MBA ’88, d. June 30, 2020 Alfred K. Ross, MA History ’88, d. July 2, 2020 C. Roselle Sturdevant, BIS ’88, d. July 2, 2020 Michael Terpak, MBA ’88, d. July 4, 2020 Beverly A. Youmans, MA English ’88, CERG Teaching English as a Second Language ’88, d. April 11, 2020
Allison A. Sheppard, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’99, d. July 5, 2020
Ronald E. Vaillant, MS Electrical Engineering ’03, d. June 8, 2020
Deborah J. Szymczyk, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’11, d. May 8, 2020
Jordan M. Page, BS Health, Fitness, and Recreation Resources ’17, d. July 6, 2020
Irene M. Sabo, BA Foreign Languages ’00, d. May 11, 2020
Lindsay A. Pastirik, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’04, d. August 6, 2020
William H. White Jr., MA Psychology ’12, d. May 19, 2020
Peter P. Lacy III, MEd Special Education ’19, d. May 30, 2020
Joseph E. Gregory, BA History ’05, d. April 20, 2020
Mark A. Fabiano, MFA Creative Writing ’13, d. July 11, 2020
John Gordon, BS Marketing ’01, d. May 18, 2020 Rebecca A. Hollingsworth, BA Psychology ’02, d. August 17, 2020 Nuria Planas, MSN Nursing Administration ’02, d. April 25, 2020
John L. Elliott, MA Arts Man agement ’06, d. June 5, 2020 Amy E. Hernandez, JD ’06, d. June 27, 2020
Richard A. Musselman, BA English ’89, d. May 24, 2020
FACULTY, STAFF, AND FRIENDS
Michael A. Armour, BA Psychology ’90, d. July 8, 2020
Georgine M. Redmond, associate professor emerita of nursing, died May 10 at her Fairfax, Virginia, home. She was 83. Born in New York City, she graduated from the College of Mount Saint Vincent with a BS in nursing, New York University with an MA, and Virginia Tech with a EdD. She worked as a nurse before she began teaching at American University and Mason. When she retired from Mason, she was serving as an associate dean of the School of Nursing. In retirement, she worked as a parish nurse and volunteered at the Lamb Center with the People of Praise. She is survived by three children and six grandchildren.
Debra R. Karnes, MPA ’90, d. June 22, 2020 Hans J. Neugebauer, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’90, d. May 1, 2020 Karen M. Ward, MEd Curric ulum and Instruction ’90, d. April 23, 2020 Kathleen M. Grant, BA History ’91, d. May 19, 2020 David A. Applegate, BA English ’92, d. April 13, 2020 Ramona J. Burks, MBA ’92, d. April 26, 2020 Dorothy L. Despain, BA History ’93, d. August 4, 2020 Graydon A. Krapohl, BA Business Administration ’93, d. April 15, 2020 William N. Moore, MS Information Systems ’93, d. June 30, 2020 Paulette A. Martin, BA Sociology ’95, d. May 23, 2020 Andrew V. Durocher, MA Psychology ’98, d. June 13, 2020
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John Jeffrey Gorrell, professor emeritus of education and human development, died May 2 in his Oakton, Virginia, home. He was 74. Born in Kentucky, he received his BA in English at Vanderbilt University and an MA in English and PhD in educational psychology at the University of Florida. His professional career took him to Southeastern Louisiana University, Auburn University, and Mason, where he was dean of the College of Education and Human Development for seven years before retiring. In 1987, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Sri Lanka, which led to his conducting research with the Ministry of Education over a 12-year period related to the cognitive growth of Sri Lankan children. He conducted and published extensive research on cognitive modeling and teacher efficacy. He began painting in 1992 and was known for his watercolors. He had a studio at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Virginia. His work can still be seen at jeffgorrell.com. Joanne Johnson, wife of the late George W. Johnson and former Mason first lady, passed away June 7 at the age of 89. During their time at Mason, the Johnsons were passionate supporters of the arts. Joanne led the Arts Gala Committee, which
Daniel C. Starr, BS Infor mation Systems and Opera tions Management ’14, d. July 30, 2020
Camerron R. Taylor, former student, d. November 27, 2019 Tamara S. Hamilton, student, Conflict Analysis and Resolution, d. June 29, 2020
raised funds to support arts programming at Mason and helped build the Center for the Arts on the Fairfax Campus. In 1996 upon George’s retirement as president, the Board of Trustees of the George Mason University Foundation established the George W. Johnson Endowment to honor him. In 2000, George requested that the funds be used to perpetuate and augment the Joanne Johnson Scholarship, in honor and appreciation of his wife’s efforts to unite the community in support of the development of the arts at Mason. The fund is now known as the George W. Johnson Endowment and Joanne Ferris Johnson Scholarship. She is survived by two sons and four grandchildren. Martha Reiner, 74, passed away peacefully May 26 in Culpeper, Virginia, from complications related to Alzheimer’s. At Mason, Reiner served under two university presidents and in two departments: Protocol and Human Resources. While working as the first reward and recognition coordinator, Reiner started an award-winning recognition program for faculty and staff. The program was lauded by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources and by the Washington Post’s Great Workplaces. When Reiner retired in 2005, the Human Resources and Payroll Department established a special recognition in her honor—the Martha J. Reiner Customer Service Award. She is survived by two sons, three grandchildren, and a sister. Miguel A. Zorrilla, a University Life staff member, suffered a stroke and died on June 16. He was 59. Zorrilla came to Mason in 2016 and worked for Housing and Residence Life. He is survived by his wife, Miriam, who also works at Mason, two daughters, and seven grandchildren.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MICHELLE McAFEE
MASON MEMORIES
Left, Michelle McAfee with her Phi Mu sorority sisters and, above, with her daughers Lauren and Olivia.
IT’S A SMALL WORLD
D
uring my sophomore year at Mason, I accepted a position at a local contracting company where I met a friend who would soon become my “big sister.” Up until that point, I felt connected to Mason academically, loving and feeling engaged by both my classes and my extracurricular activities, but oftentimes I found myself seeking adventure off campus. My soon-to-be big sister, Kim Panitt, introduced me to a whole new world of friends through the sorority Phi Mu. I pledged and found a home away from home living in a townhouse near Fairfax Circle with Kim and Emily Summers, along with a rotating cast of characters. Together we attended Phi Mu meetings, events, and dances like the Carnation Ball and partnered with Phi Mu chapters at other local universities for some events. Most of us have kept in touch via Facebook, and some of us still get together when our schedules permit or, more accurately, when all the stars—and our kids’ sports schedules—magically align. I recently reconnected with my sorority sister, Tricia Hudson, BA Government and Politics ’96, when she decided that her growing nonprofit, Strategic Solutions by Tricia LLC, needed a grant writer. My youngest child was about to graduate from high school, and I had started looking for freelance work to supplement my full-time high school teaching job. Although our paths had crossed briefly at a Phi Mu reunion in the early 2000s, Tricia and I really hadn’t seen much of each other except for posts on Facebook. I applied for the opening.
After reconnecting, we found that it really is a small world. Tricia and I picked up right where we left off and discovered that we still had so many things in common. We both had spent most of our careers in education (and had even worked at Old Dominion University at about the same time), and we both had endured and recovered from a frightening health issue. Most important, we are both passionate about giving back to others. Her company’s prosperity provided me with an opportunity to follow my own dream to return to the writing field while at the same time still staying close to my passion, education. The personal connections that we make in college are so important—as are following our dreams. And the tradition continues for me and my family. My oldest daughter, Lauren Nery, is a junior this year at Mason, majoring in government and international politics in the Honors College. My youngest daughter, Olivia Nery, has decided to join the Patriot family as well. She is a freshman theater major this fall. The legacy continues!
Michelle McAfee, BA English ’97, teaches Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) 9-12 and serves as the AVID site coordinator at Ocean Lakes High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She also does grant writing for Strategic Solutions by Tricia LLC, which raises funds, develops strategic plans, and runs comprehensive and capital campaigns for nonprofit, corporate, and higher education communities.
Do you fondly remember certain places within the Mason community that exemplified the “college experience”? Did a specific Mason professor or mentor influence your life and career? If so, tell us about it. Send your submission to spirit@gmu.edu. Please keep submissions to a maximum of 500 words.
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4400 University Drive, MS 3B3 Fairfax, Virginia 22030
LIVE AND IN PERSON—On October 4, the Hylton Performing Arts Center kicked off its new Hylton on the Hill series with an outdoor performance by Charm City Junction. With seating on a natural rise just behind the center, patrons enjoyed these performances from their own seating circle on the lawn, physically distanced from other audience members. Photos by Ian Shiff (above) and Captain S. Burmeister, Mason Police UAS Unit (below).