SPIRIT
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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
PATRIOTS IN THE PANDEMIC In the face of an unprecedented challenge, Mason continues to innovate
I S O L AT I N G A C U R E | PAT R I OT S H E L P I N G PAT R I OT S | Q UA R A N T E AC H I N G
About the Cover Illustration by Joan Dall'Acqua Photo by Evan Cantwell
SHINING BRIGHT—The spire of the Johnson Center shone green during the week leading up to the virtual Celebration of the Class of 2020 held May 22 on GMU-TV. The celebration included remarks from voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams and Interim President Anne Holton, with music by the Green Machine.
About the Cover
Photo by Evan Cantwell
Photo collage by Marcia Staimer/Ron Aira/Getty Images
With masks in our future, this is the new face of George Mason University. In addition to the pandemic-related content in this issue, the university has a page dedicated to our response to COVID-19 at gmu.edu/coronavirus.
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Patriots Helping Patriots In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the Mason community has rallied, supporting students in unprecedented ways. From mid-March through May, University Life distributed more than $2.53 million in emergency assistance to Mason students in need.
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Going the Distance Throughout the response to COVID-19, the Mason community has banded together to find solutions and push forward—resourcefully, resiliently, and in a tremendous spirit of teamwork—in the classrooms, in the laboratories, and in the community.
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DEPARTMENTS 2 FIRST WORDS 3 FROM OUR READERS 4 @MASON 36 INQUIRING MINDS 40 SHELF LIFE 42 ALUMNI IN PRINT 43 PATRIOT PROFILE 44 CLASS NOTES
46 From the Alumni Association President
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ALUMNI PROFILES
44 Aundi Marie Moore, BM ’03
47 Deanne Kaczerski, BS Psychology ’98
49 Mounir Alafrangy, BA Art History ’10
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @MasonSpirit for alumni news, events, and more. ecome a fan of the Mason Spirit on B Facebook for links to photos, videos, and stories at www.facebook.com/ MasonSpirit. heck our website for a behindC the-scenes look at the Spirit, more alumni profiles, and breaking news at spirit.gmu.edu.
52 MASON MEMORIES
MORE ON THE WEB When you see this graphic, follow it to the magazine’s website for more: spirit.gmu.edu. Summer 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 1
FIRST WORDS
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A PATRIOT? I am so grateful for the opportunity to be your eighth president. Like anyone new to George Mason University, I keep returning to a fundamental question: What does it mean to be a Patriot? The answers to that question are different today than they were a year ago or even six months ago. On February 24, when I accepted the offer to become the university’s next president, the coronavirus was a problem in South Korea and Italy—but not here. U.S. unemployment was at 3.5 percent. George Floyd was still alive. We no longer live in the world of February 24. This strange, new place comes with different demands and new opportunities for us, as individuals and as a community. Who we are at our core will serve as the tenets and guideposts that we will deploy to help us resolve our major issues. PHOTO BY RON AIRA
This summer, we are dealing with three simultaneous crises: A lingering pandemic, a looming budget shortfall that the cratering economy has forced, and a collective reckoning with fundamental racial inequities that we have allowed to simmer just beneath the surface for far too long. There is no playbook to help us through this multitude of crises. Our unique solution to them will come from the application of who we are, as Patriots. What does it mean to be a Patriot? If we close our eyes and envision a patriot, we might see the classic image of an individual taking up arms to defend our country. But is that all there is to patriotism? By definition, it is an expressed feeling of love, devotion, and sense of attachment to a particular place or way of life. There is so much more to being a patriot than the physical defense of our country, and here at Mason, we have a more expansive, more inclusive approach to patriotism. What drew me to Mason was its mission to insist that excellence and inclusivity are not seen as merely compatible. In fact, each is required for the other to exist. There can be no academic excellence in a system structured to exclude people. And inclusivity counts for nothing if it only invites us into a larger circle of mediocrity. At Mason, we embrace the complexities and contradictions of our world, our nation, and our community. How many other universities can boast the productive coexistence of schools as diverse as the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Peace and Conflict Resolution and the Antonin Scalia Law School? In addressing our namesake’s own complicated history, we have acted with careful intention, as when we joined a group of universities called “Universities Studying Slavery,” wherein we research the relationship our institutions have to slavery, and how we reckon with that past. We have opted to build, learn, and teach in our public spaces by dedicating an educational memorial to the enslaved men, women, and children whom George Mason kept in lifelong generational bondage even as he fought passionately to establish the Bill of Rights. I am still very new here. But in my opinion, it is the act of a Patriot not to deny the contradictions in our history, our community, and our own lives but to instead face them, embrace them, and grow honestly through them.
Follow President Washington on Twitter at @gmupres.
In the coming months and years, you and I will forge this more expansive definition of being a Patriot, and we will act accordingly—because we are past the time of merely talking about what needs to be done. We know what we need to do. So, Patriots, let’s get to work.
Gregory Washington President, George Mason University 2 | SPIRIT.GMU.EDU
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 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 Christopher Bobo Ken Budd, BA ‘88, MA ‘97 Jessica Clark Mary Lee Clark Damian Cristodero Nanci Hellmich John Hollis Buzz McClain, BA ’77 Anna Stolley Persky Corey Jenkins Schaut, MPA ’07 Greg Sullivan Michelle Thompson Preston Williams D E S I G N A N D I L LU S T R AT I O N 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 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.
HELLO FROM FLORIDA ➤I am a lifelong Floridian. After I graduated with a degree in liberal arts from Miami-Dade Junior College in July 1971, I chose to enlist in the Army rather than be drafted. I served in Army intelligence and was fortunate to stay stateside for three years, with most of my time spent in Fort Meade, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. In Army intelligence, I was surrounded by many who had bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business or finance. So, I considered changing my major and chose to go to Mason. I graduated in early 1974 with a BS in business/finance. As a result, I had a long and successful career with the Fed eral Deposit Insurance Corporation. I consider myself fortunate for the quality instructors and professors at Mason. I highly recommend Mason for its quality and the wonderful education it provides. And, as a University of Miami fan, thanks for sending us Jim Larrañaga! David Bremm, BS Business ’74
FLASHBACKS TO 1969 ➤Although I was unable to attend the class reunion in 2019, the photo of the campus in the recent Mason Spirit gave me flashbacks. Forgive me, because I cannot recall all of the fantastic people who made my four years wonderful. Let me start by thanking the leaders: Robert Krug, Mebane Turner, and Dr. Lorin Thompson. They ushered in what became George Mason University. Next, I turn to the people behind the scenes. I probably will miss some, and for that I apologize. These ladies, in addition to their real jobs, were surrogate moms. They were “Dear Abby,” matchmakers, and on and on. Who, you ask? Remember Jo Bolton, Mary Louise Jones, Pearl Siegfried, and Ruby McMahon? Yes, I thought you might. I can’t do justice to all the faculty, but some in my major stand out: Dr. Davis, Evelyn Pugh, Josephine Pacheco, and Frank Spindler. Words can never express all my gratitude. One actually let me come to their home at 6 a.m. to take a final exam. This allowed me to attend my fiancée’s graduation in Waynesboro. There are so many classmates who taught me bridge, hearts, and other ways to pass time in the Ordinary (rather than study). Some of these were Peter Forame, Mike Alexander, Mike Johnson, Gail Gallagher, Gail Bohan, Jim Heston, Nancy Grant, Vince Rafferty, Mike Zimmerman, Mike Green, and hundreds more. I remember the practices and games at Woodson High School. Great times, great people, and outstanding memories!!! Thanks to everyone.
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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
Meeting Students Where They Are Higher education is evolving to meet the changing needs of students, and Mason is leading the way.
MASON NAMES EIGHTH PRESIDENT | L AWYERING UP | A BRIDGE FOR TR ANSFERS
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.
Gilbert L. Sager, Class of 1969 Summer 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 3
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Two of the red pandas living at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI).
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Red Pandas on Red Alert
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aving an endangered species is possible, but it takes a village. Conservationists, including three George Mason University alumni and a current student, are part of the team at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC) working to ensure red pandas move off the endangered list. “Our main focus is breeding, expanding the population, and looking at genetics,” says SCBI’s carnivore curator Juan Rodriguez, BS Biology ’09. In the event that something catastrophic happens in the wild, their goal is to have a genetically viable population in captivity to stave off extinction. Rodriguez and his team help produce red panda and clouded leopard cubs and maned wolf pups, he says. Fouryear-old red panda Moonlight gave birth in June 2019. Since April 2018, environmental science and policy graduate student Monika Conrad has been conducting behavioral research on the red pandas, including Moonlight and her cub, at SCBI and the National Zoo as part of her graduate research. “The idea is to understand what disturbs red pandas, what changes their behaviors and their physiology, to see what may negatively impact welfare,” says Conrad. “If we can give them the best possible welfare, we can improve breeding success.” Conrad, who came to Mason following a Smithsonian internship where she learned about the red panda research done by School of Integrative Studies professor
and Mason alumna Elizabeth Freeman, PhD Environmental Science and Public Policy ’05, spent 14 months observing the animals and logging their behaviors. She also recorded the climate (temperature, humidity, and wind speed), noise levels, and zoo visitor numbers to see if and how these environmental factors influence red pandas. This semester Conrad spends her days in the SCBI endocrine lab, extracting hormones from the red panda’s fecal samples. Later, she’ll analyze the behavioral data with the hormone concentrations to see if there are connections between the two. Jessica Kordell, MS Environmental Science and Policy ’17, who has been an animal keeper at the Smithsonian since 2007, helped hand-raise Moonlight when she was a cub and continues to provide care for SCBI’s red pandas and clouded leopards. Kordell studied under Freeman and mentors undergraduate practicum students attending SMSC. Kordell finds that working with the cubs and educating students are the most rewarding parts of her job. “The work that we do here, both with the students and with the animals day-to-day, really matters because we are in this stage where if we don’t work hard to save them or save their environment, [the species] could be gone,” Kordell says.
—Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13 Watch a video about the red pandas at bit.ly/gmupanda.
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PHOTO BY LATHAN GOUMAS
Retired journalist and history graduate student Bobbi Bowman was digging through documents in the Campbell County Courthouse in 2010 when she discovered a story about her greatgreat grandfather that she had never known.
Mason Student Featured for Her Family’s Deep History
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obbi Bowman’s years as a journalist taught her that whenever she’s in a courthouse, she should go digging, because you never know when you’re going to come across a good story. Almost 10 years ago, Bowman visited the Campbell County, Virginia, courthouse to look for a deed. Because she had family history in the county as well, Bowman searched through the deed books for the name Williamson, her mother’s family name. What she found was a deed that transferred land from a white man to her great-great-grandmother, a black woman, in the year 1871. “No white person is going to give land to a black lady in 1871,” says Bowman, now retired and a graduate student at Mason. That’s when her reporter’s curiosity kicked in. Bowman knew there had to be more to the story. She spent long hours in libraries and courthouses and slowly uncovered her great-greatgrandfather’s struggle between freedom and slavery. Bowman says that her Mason history courses have helped her form a larger picture of her family’s story. In the mid-1800s, Bowman’s great-great-grandfather, William Williamson, had bought his freedom, but according to state law, he had to leave Virginia to keep it. Instead, he decided to go back into slavery to remain in the county near his enslaved wife and children, who were owned by a man on a nearby farm, under the condition that he could pick his master. “So that’s what Grandpa did. In 1857, Grandpa went to the courthouse and said he would go back into slavery, but his master was going to be Thomas Rosser,” says Bowman, adding that her great-great-grandfather did this after 15 years of fighting to keep his freedom in Virginia, and that he even petitioned the Virginia General Assembly for permission to stay but was denied.
Rosser bought Williamson and the land he lived on, allowing her great-great-grandfather to live there, and after the Civil War, Williamson could finally live with his family. Bowman says Rosser essentially saved him. After Williamson’s death, Rosser— who could have sold everything to a buyer of his choice—instead signed over the deed to Williamson’s wife, Mariah. Bowman wrote about her family’s story in The News & Advance, the Lynchburg, Virginia, newspaper that covers Campbell County. In September 2019, The News & Advance wrote a follow-up story when Bowman and other family members met with Rosser’s descendants in Lynchburg. “Bobbi’s research is a gift to us,” says Mason Department of History and Art History chair Brian Platt, who is excited about how Bowman’s research fits in with other Mason research, such as the Enslaved People of George Mason project. “It reminds us of the irredeemable evil of slavery but also gives us an example of how two ordinary people chose to reject its premises and recognize their shared humanity.” Bowman says that returning to graduate school was always in her retirement plan, but now her studies are helping her with her genealogy research. She credits her Slavery and Freedom class, taught by Randolph Scully, as helping her understand Virginia’s political climate during her great-great-grandfather’s life. She even enrolled in a creative writing class to prepare to write a book about her family. “Being a student at Mason has been enormously helpful to me and provided a rich context in which to place my great-great-grandfather’s story,” says Bowman. —Mary Lee Clark
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PHOTO BY LATHAN GOUMAS
Caucus-goers debate the merits of their candidates during the 2020 Iowa Caucus at George Mason University. The university served as a satellite location for people to caucus.
Students Lead the First Iowa Caucus Satellite Site on Campus
POINT of PRIDE The Volgenau School of Engineering has received the approval of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) to create the Department of Cyber Security Engineering, the first of its kind in the country. The new department, established March 1, is home to the 500 undergraduate students currently working toward bachelor of science degrees in cyber security engineering. Computer science professor Duminda Wijesekera is the interim director. Mason’s proposed MS in Cyber Security Engineering degree is currently under review by SCHEV.
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n February 3, registered Iowa voters who couldn’t be in the Hawkeye State for the presidential caucus had the chance to vote with their feet at George Mason University, one of 87 satellite sites. The caucus, which replaces a traditional primary where votes are tallied by ballot, allows voters to choose their preferred candidate by walking to the candidates’ designated spot around the room. Fifteen Iowans, including several Mason students, participated in the caucus in Merten Hall on the Fairfax Campus. Environmental and sustainability studies major Mary Beth Armstrong led the event as caucus chair. “I was really worried that I wasn’t going to be able to caucus, and so to not only be able to caucus for my first time, but also to lead a caucus was an unforgettable experience,” Armstrong says. Government and international politics major Jacob Thompson spoke on behalf of candidate Elizabeth Warren. “Having the ability to try to win over, or at least clearly communicate why I’m voting, is something that’s super important to me,” he says. “It’s a really cool opportunity to actually implement what we study in the classroom into real life.”
While Iowa does not choose the ultimate Democratic nominee, the caucus usually helps that candidate gain momentum. The number of votes each candidate gets from each precinct site helps determine how many delegates each candidate gets for the Democratic National Convention in August. “I’m really glad I can participate in our democracy; it’s very important that everyone has a say,” says Daniel McVicker, an Iowa native and computer science PhD student. “This is a great way for Iowa to be committed to making sure everyone has a positive role in our democracy.” There was a lot of excitement, even for the spectators. Mason’s consistent ability to offer events and opportunities to learn outside the classroom is extremely valuable, says Seth Mahowald, a government and international politics major from Massachusetts. International politics major Katlyn Weiser agreed. “I’ve watched [the Iowa caucus] on TV tons of times, but I’ve always wanted to see that process go down,” Weiser says. “It was intriguing to watch history unfold.”
—Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13
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The Carters shaking hands with children during the Indonesian elections in 1999.
Mason’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution to Change Name to Champion Carter Legacy
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n a move to emphasize its core values, George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution is adopting a new name: The Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. The name change serves as a tribute to the Carters’ steadfast commitment to peacemaking through nonviolence and the transformative role of dialogue and diplomacy in conflict resolution. It also serves to recognize that the school has grown and changed in reputation and scope since its birth in 1981. The move comes as an acknowledgment that the Carters’ devotion to peace and human rights reflects the values of both the school and Mason as a whole. “By becoming the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, we’ll be starting the next phase of our journey as an institution committed to furthering both the research and practice of conflict resolution and peacebuilding,” says Alpaslan Özerdem, dean of the school. “In this effort, we will be taking the Carters’ unwavering dedication to peace as our beacon and our guide. It’s a great honor to be leading a school named after one of the greatest peacemakers of our times.” The school plans a series of events in September to celebrate the new phase for the school, as well as the Carters’ legacy on human rights, democracy, gender equality, and global health. “The renaming of our world-renowned peace and conflict studies school after Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, two individuals with a storied legacy in conflict resolution, is a
great honor for Mason,” said Interim President Anne Holton in the announcement. “Their commitment and contributions to social justice, freedom, human rights, and peaceful conflict resolution resonate with our university’s own dedication to accessibility, diversity, and academic excellence.” As president, Jimmy Carter was key in the 1978 Camp David Accords, which paved the way for the signing of the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. In 2002, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts. As a couple, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have dedicated their lives to serving others, whether it be through their work with Habitat for Humanity or teaching Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Georgia. Mason has led the way in offering degree programs and dedicated studies in conflict analysis and resolution. Over the decades, its programs have expanded to offer under graduate studies, master’s degrees, graduate certificates, and the world’s first PhD program in conflict resolution. The renaming is part of a $10 million campaign to support teaching, research, and practice at the school. So far $4.4 million has been raised, including a $2 million gift from Steve Cumbie and Drucie French, who are among the school’s earliest and longest supporters. “The number of graduates the school has produced is impressive, but we need even more people to go into this field,” Cumbie said at the time of the gift. —Anna Stolley Persky
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@ PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MARCIA STAIMER/ PHOTOS BY EVAN CANTWELL
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School of Music Renamed for the Reva and Sid Dewberry Family
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eorge Mason University’s School of Music will be renamed the Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music, in honor of the Dewberrys’ lifetime legacy of giving and generous support of the school. “The name Dewberry symbolizes excellence, extraordinary commitment, innovation, and long-standing relationships. Our School of Music embraces those same qualities, especially with our goal of excellence in all areas and having a very tangible path to get there,“ says the school’s director Linda Monson, who has been a faculty member at Mason since 1999. “To have our school be named after a benefactor who embodies all of these same qualities is such an honor.” In addition to recent and pledged support of $1.8 million that will create a scholarship endowment, prior contributions from the Dewberrys include nearly $1.4 million for the creation of the Linda Apple Monson Scholars Endowed Fund. The family also helped lead the Steinway Initiative, which allowed the school to achieve even higher status as an All-Steinway School in 2007. “I want the School of Music to be the best school in the United States and the world, not only for [future] teachers, but also for performers,” says Sid Dewberry, who began learning piano from Monson at age 75 to fulfill a life goal.
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“My dream is to put Mason on the top of the heap,” the now 92-year-old says. “I think we’re well on our way to doing that.” “[The Dewberrys] have been transformational,” says Rick Davis, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA). “Because Sid stepped up, we are able to offer even more scholarship support, which allows us to compete for students who would like to come [to Mason] but are also getting major scholarship offers from other great schools.” The Dewberrys’ gifts will make the School of Music the first donor-named school within CVPA. The Dewberry family has a long-standing commitment to Mason. Dewberry Hall within the Johnson Center, as well as the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering within the Volgenau School of Engineering, have also been named in their honor. “We are incredibly grateful to the Dewberrys and to our Friends of Music, who support us in all ways in helping us to raise scholarship support,” Monson says. “We want to continue building our music scholarships and endowments, and we have many ways in which one can help to be a part of this wonderful legacy to our School of Music.” —Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13
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Ginsberg Named Interim Provost ark Ginsberg, dean of Mason’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), is serving as interim provost and executive vice president while President Gregory Washington conducts a national search for the university’s next provost. Ginsberg succeeds S. David Wu, who left Mason to become president of Baruch College in New York. Ginsberg, whose career spans more than 40 years as a professor, psychologist, and administrator, assumed his new position on April 15. As CEHD’s dean since 2010, he has overseen more than 135 full-time instructional faculty and nearly 4,500 students across 30 academic programs and 10 research centers, including the School of Education, the largest and most comprehensive of its kind in Virginia. “Under Dr. Ginsberg’s guidance, Mason has emerged as an innovative national leader in educator preparation, special education,
counseling, and school leadership, among other areas,” says Interim President Anne Holton, who appointed him. “I know Dr. Ginsberg will bring to his new role the same vision and commitment to the Mason mission that he has displayed in CEHD over the past decade.” “I am excited to begin my new role and to support our entire university community,” says Ginsberg. “I look forward to working as hard as I can to help our university successfully meet the challenges of today as we prepare for the opportunities of tomorrow.” Ginsberg has served as the executive director and CEO of both the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. He currently is the vice chair of the respected national organization, Parents as Teachers, and a member of the board of directors of Hopecam, a national organization supporting children with cancer and other serious illnesses. In 2015, Mometrix Test Preparation named Ginsberg to its list of the “30 Most Influential Deans of Education in the United States.” Professor Robert E. Baker, director of CEHD’s School of Sport, Recreation, and Tourism Management, will serve as interim dean of the college. He also began his new position on April 15.
—Preston Williams
Access to Excellence Podcast Is Live
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nterested in the research that is helping create the Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial? How about getting the inside scoop on the detective work that led a Mason professor and her PhD student to discover three galaxies on a collision course? Welcome to the first two episodes of Mason’s new podcast, Access to Excellence, available on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn, and Podbean. In the first episode, School of Integrative Studies professor Wendi Manuel-Scott and University Libraries historian George Oberle, BA History ’96, MA ’98, PhD ’16, guide you through the intense student research that led to the idea for a memorial that is scheduled to be unveiled on Mason’s Fairfax Campus in July 2021. Then, listen to Mason astrophysicist Shobita Satyapal and PhD student Ryan Pfeifle, BA Physics ’17, talk about why a specific type of telescope was key to their research in the second episode. Join Mason senior communications manager, author, and host John Hollis for conversations that will entertain and inform.
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PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
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Wendi Manuel-Scott
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The Hine family (from left to right): Audrey, Taylor, and Kayla, with parents Scott and Helen
A Family Legacy
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t takes only a brief visit to the Fairfax, Virginia, home of Scott Hine, BS Decision Science ’85, and Helen Hine, BS Finance ’85, MEd Special Education ’99, to realize that members of the Hine family are Patriot fanatics. Their walls are covered with Mason memorabilia, spanning from their time as undergraduates living in the on-campus student apartments to the Final Four run and beyond. Downstairs, the Mason photos, pennants, and posters compete for space only with mementos of Scott’s beloved Minnesota Vikings. Scott, a senior executive at the U.S. Department of Energy, is a loyal Mason alumnus. One of his favorite memories is watching Mason basketball great Carlos Yates lead the Patriots to victory in the old PE Building (now the RAC) over a David Robinson-led Navy team. He and Helen have been men’s basketball season ticket holders for almost 15 years, but Scott’s dedication extends far beyond Mason athletics. It embraces alumni service, mentoring students, and supporting scholarships. Recipient of the 2016 Alumni Service Award, Scott has served on the Alumni Association Board of Directors, including as treasurer, and currently serves on the Scholarship Committee. He is the treasurer of the School of Business Alumni Chapter and is also on the Center for Government Contracting Advisory Board. This year Scott started teaching a two-semester capstone class as an adjunct professor, guiding information technology majors in the Volgenau School of Engineering through their senior design project. Because of Scott’s many interactions with students, he and Helen, a teacher with Fairfax County Public Schools, have established a scholarship fund at Mason. The Hine
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Family Scholarship Endowment, which launched in December, will award annual scholarship support to undergraduates “who demonstrate a strong commitment to making a positive sustainable impact on individuals, the environment, and/or the community.” Fostering that connection between students and alumni is especially important to the Hines. Scott wants to help more alumni, from his generation and others, find ways to become involved with the university. “How do you get students—before they become alums—connected? We need to figure out a way to get them involved while they’re here. So, we’re just trying to create a connection.” The Hine family legacy at Mason is growing, thanks to the couple’s twin daughters, Kayla and Audrey. Kayla Hine, BS Management ’13, is enrolled in the master’s program in biodefense at the Schar School of Policy and Government. Kayla has worked at Mason since 2015 and is currently a financial analyst in the dean’s office at the Volgenau School of Engineering. Audrey Hine, BS Management ’13, completed a master’s degree in criminology, law and society in 2015. At Winter Graduation this past December, Kayla joined her father in handing out Mason Alumni pins to the new graduates as they walked off the stage. Volunteering to “pin” new alumni at Commencement is a personal tradition for Scott, one he’s embraced for nearly 15 years. “I’ve done the math in my head,” Scott says, “and I’ve now pinned more than 10,000 new alums. It might be closer to 15,000.” “I even got to pin my own daughters as they graduated,” he says, grinning. “Who else has done that? Not many!” —Rob Riordan, MPA ’19
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Mason Strong in Latest U.S. News Rankings
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eorge Mason University has 14 graduate programs included among the top 50 nationally in new rankings released by U.S. News & World Report. Leading the way is the part-time program in the Antonin Scalia Law School, which is ranked No. 4 nationally, and the security studies program in the Schar School of Policy and Government, which is ranked No. 10. “It’s really the hard work coming from the different colleges and departments,” says Laurence Bray, Mason’s associate provost for graduate education. “The administrators, faculty, and staff are really the ones making a difference in taking our programs to the next level. The quality and rigor we instill through our programs are directly related to the numbers.” In addition to its part-time program, the law school’s intellectual property program is ranked No. 31, its constitutional law program is No. 38, its fulltime program is No. 42, and its business/corporate program is No. 48. The Schar School’s local government management program is ranked 19th. Its public management program is 28th, its public policy analysis program is 30th, and its overall public affairs programs are ranked 49th. Several other programs were ranked in the top 50. The special education program in the College of Education and Human Development is ranked 19th. The systems engineering program in the Volgenau School of Engineering is ranked 39th. The part-time MBA program in the School of Business is ranked 48th, and the doctoral program in the School of Nursing is 40th. “I’ve seen nothing but incredible support for graduate education programs at Mason,” Bray says. “And it’s going to continue to be even higher in terms of the university’s mission and recognizing how critical…graduate education [is] for the university and the success of our students.” According to its website, U.S. News uses statistical surveys of more than 2,054 programs and reputation surveys from more than 22,018 academic professionals. —Damian Cristodero
POINT of PRIDE Mason was named to the top 50 young universities internationally in the 2020 Times Higher Education’s Young University Rankings. The university was No. 39 out of 414 universities that are 50 years old or younger.
BUSINESS Part-time MBA
48
EDUCATION Special Education Overall Programs
19 69
ENGINEERING Systems Computer Electrical Biomedical Civil Overall Programs
39 69 87 93 93 102
FINE ARTS Overall Programs
73
HEALTH SPECIALITIES Clinical Psychology
101
LAW Part-time Intellectual Property Constitutional Full-time Business/Corporate Contracts/Commercial Criminal International Tax Trial Advocacy Health Care Environmental Legal Writing Clinical Training
4 31 38 42 48 51 74 75 80 105 114 136 148 155
NURSING Master’s Doctoral
51 40
PUBLIC AFFAIRS Homeland Security Local Government Management Public Management/Leadership Public Policy Analysis Overall Programs
10 19 28 30 49
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MASON
President Alan Merten cutting the ribbon on the Shenandoah residence hall in 2007.
University Mourns the Loss of Alan Merten
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lan G. Merten, George Mason University’s fifth president, died May 21, 2020, in Florida after a battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 78. Merten arrived on campus in 1996 with the goal of making deeper inroads in the community, streamlining the university’s innovative pursuits, and raising the quality and stature of an institution that was not yet 25 years old. He believed Mason had the potential to serve as an academic and cultural hub in the Washington, D.C., region like other metropolitan area universities. He was onto something. In 2008, U.S. News & World Report designated Mason as the “Number One University to Watch” and put it on its first list of “Up-and-Coming Universities.” Merten called this recognition “a major reaffirmation of what we believed we were.” “The impact of Alan Merten is felt on our campuses every day,” Mason Interim President Anne Holton says. “His sharp and prudent leadership at a pivotal time in a young university’s history guided Mason on a path to prominence. So much of what we value about Mason today is a direct result of his vision.” During Merten’s 16-year tenure, the university opened more than 20 major buildings on the university’s three campuses. He also started student-focused entities, including University Life. Merten inherited a university that he said exhibited “both the excitement and downsides of youth.” He sought to streamline the university’s entrepreneurial capabilities and ambitions and expand its research. He extended Mason’s reach with the Northern Virginia business, technology, and arts communities to raise the university’s visibility locally, a fundamental step toward greater prominence. Merten served on various business and government councils and committees, including as chair of the National Research Council’s Committee on Workforce Needs in Information Technology. He also served 12 | SPI RIT.GMU.EDU
on the Northern Virginia Technology Council, the Northern Virginia Roundtable, the Greater Washington Board of Trade, and the 123 Club, among others. His wife, Sally, was also actively engaged with local organizations. Together, the Mertens invested in the community to create a shared vision for Mason’s emergence. The community invested in turn— a comprehensive fundraising campaign during Merten’s tenure raised $142 million for the university. “Alan understood that the deeper relationships he could establish in the Northern Virginia community, the quicker this university could blossom on the state, regional, national and, eventually, international level,” says Mason Rector Tom Davis, the former Fairfax County Board of Supervisors chair who was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives when Merten arrived at Mason. “His vision and prudent decision making have much to do with where we are today as an institution.” But there would be another event that, much to Merten’s delight, made Mason known to the world—the men’s basketball team’s dramatic run to the 2006 Final Four. The NCAA run raised Mason’s profile and helped add to the tremendous growth Mason experienced during Merten’s tenure, with enrollment swelling from about 23,000 students in 1996 to about 32,500 in 2010, two years before his retirement. The Mertens endowed four scholarships at Mason. The former University Hall on the Fairfax Campus was dedicated as Alan and Sally Merten Hall in 2014. —Preston Williams
The Dr. Alan G. Merten Memorial Fund has been established to support endowments at Mason. Gifts can be made online at advancement.gmu.edu/DrMerten.
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MASON
Steve Monfort
Robert Harris
Ilana Shapiro
Jeff Offutt
Jesse McCandlish
Alumni Association Awards Honor Commitments to Helping Others
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he winners of the 2020 George Mason University Alumni Association Awards represent Mason’s spirit of excellence and service. Alumnus of the Year Steve Monfort, PhD Environmental Biology and Public Policy ’93, is the John and Adrienne Mars Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo and its world-renowned Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI). A researcher and conservation advocate, Monfort cofounded the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation in 2008, which offers classes at SCBI’s 3,200-acre campus in Front Royal, Virginia, and takes an interdisciplinary approach to conservation education. The school is the cornerstone of the relationship between Mason and the Smithsonian that Monfort helped build. “I feel like I’ve had this incredible opportunity to create a mechanism where the impact of those of us who founded this school will help these students who will go out and change the world for the better,” says Monfort. “It’s a legacy for the Smithsonian and for Mason.” Robert Harris, MS Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’96, PhD ’03, and Ilana Shapiro, PhD Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’03, longtime volunteer leaders for the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, are joint recipients of the Alumni Service Award. The couple, who met and married while at the Carter School, are deeply committed to the values of the school and Mason. Shapiro works regularly with students through the nonprofit she cofounded, Alliance for Conflict Transformation, which is dedicated to building peace through education, training, research, and practice. Harris currently chairs the school’s Advisory Board. Together they established the
first alumni endowed scholarship for the school in 2015. Five students have earned the Shapiro Scholarship to date. This year’s Faculty Member of the Year, software engineering professor Jeff Offutt, has almost 30 years of teaching at Mason—three decades marked by passion and commitment to his students. A world-recognized authority on software testing, Offutt received Mason’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2013, and in 2019 was awarded an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Senior of the Year Jesse McCandlish, BS Computer Science ‘20, has a passion for helping others. She has been a dedicated mentor and student leader with the Early Identification Program, which identifies and guides potential first-generation students from middle school through high school. In summer 2019, through the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research, she led a student team teaching machine learning software to recognize American Sign Language to help bridge communication gaps with the deaf community. McCandlish, who wants to focus on human-computer interaction, is weighing her options between pursuing her master’s degree or working in the industry. “I like helping people, and I like computers, so when I found this area of research it seemed to be the perfect fit,” she says. The Alumni Association also recognized 15 Distinguished Alumni Awards honorees from across Mason’s schools and alumni chapters. —Christopher Bobo and Ryley McGinnis
Check out the full program at bit.ly/gmuCoD20.
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GOING THE DISTANCE IN THE CLASSROOM
PATRIOTS STAY BRAVE AND BOLD— EVEN WHEN SOCIALLY DISTANT
PHOTO BY LATHAN GOUMAS
George Mason University may have shut down its physical campuses, but we never closed. In fact, we are as busy as ever.
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In March, in response to guidelines from public health officials, George Mason University closed its campuses and moved all operations online. While the squirrels and the geese still roamed the grounds and enjoyed the cherry blossoms and Mason Pond, the Mason Nation, sheltered at home, was as busy as ever. Throughout our response to COVID-19, Mason faculty, staff, and students banded together to find solutions and push forward, resourcefully and resiliently and in a tremendous spirit of teamwork. In just two weeks, Mason faculty stood up more than 5,200 online classes using every technological avenue at their disposal to ensure the continuity of learning (see story on page 16). Doctoral candidates defended their dissertations on Webex, students worked virtual internships, and we celebrated the Class of 2020’s accomplishments virtually. University staff kept operations running smoothing while transitioning to virtual learning and telework. The Mason Student Services Center continued to provide one-stop assistance to students virtually in important services areas such as the University Registrar’s Office, the Office of Student Financial Aid, and Student Accounts, among others. The Office of Admissions has also been hard at work engaging prospective students whose campus visits must be done virtually. In April they pushed technical and organizational boundaries by offering a Spring Preview for admitted students and their families that was both virtual and personal. University Life, Mason Dining, and other offices continued to house and serve more than 400 students on our campuses who, for various personal and family circumstances, needed a safe place to stay. The university also expedited a process for issuing 25,000 refunds in student housing, parking, and dining fees. Across disciplines, Mason researchers are at the forefront of the COVID-19 fight, working in our biomedical laboratories and
from their homes on diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccine solutions. We also have a number of teams working remotely to help understand the spread of COVID-19 and interventions that might be effective, as well as the economic, educational, and societal impacts of the crisis. In the community, our Mason and Partners Clinics offered free drive-up COVID-19 testing. Our nationally recognized education experts are helping teachers around the world make the transition to the virtual classroom, and our colleagues at the Mercatus Center are incentivizing innovation with the help of donors and are getting millions to inventors and researchers on the frontlines of the pandemic (see stories on page 20). The College of Visual and Performing Arts launched Mason Arts at Home, a combination virtual performance space and town hall in which Mason artists, and artists scheduled to appear at Mason’s venues, can stream their work. Through it all, Interim President Anne Holton led by example. “I am so proud to be leading the largest, most diverse public university in the Commonwealth of Virginia in this time,” Holton said at a virtual town hall. “It has been an honor and privilege to serve this year and watch the entire Mason community— even in the times of public health and economic crises—stay focused on our mission of access to excel lence for all.”
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GETTY IMAGES
How Did Mason Put More Than 5,000 Classes Online? During two weeks in March, Mason faculty and staff made the Herculean push to move everything online. B Y D A M I A N C R I S TO D E R O
How do you describe the two weeks in March in which George Mason University migrated more than 5,000 courses online in response to the required closing of its campuses because of COVID-19? “It was all-hands-on-deck,” says Charles Kreitzer, executive director for online operations at Mason’s Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning. “A lot of good will and a little bit of magic,” adds Janette Muir, associate provost for academic initiatives and services. Thanks to the integrated efforts of faculty, administration, the Stearns Center, and Information and Technology Services (ITS), the spring semester was online and Mason
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Fast.
was operating in a virtual space with live lectures, video learning, engagement between faculty and students, and even test-taking. “It was a whirlwind,” says Joe Balducci, manager of online learning resources at ITS, of the effort. “But a partnership, with everyone working together.” The key at the outset was the Instructional Continuity Team that included Muir; Renate Guilford, BS Public Administration ’91, MPA ’95, associate provost of academic administration; Kim Eby, associate provost for faculty affairs and development; Amber Hannush, operations and initiatives manager in the Provost’s Office; Pam Shepherd, director of communications in the Provost’s Office; Doug McKenna,
Live Tutoring and Community Building? That’s the Writing Center university registrar; and representatives from the Faculty Senate, Stearns Center, ITS, and Mason’s colleges and schools. The group met daily with an around-the-horn program that allowed all to outline priorities and concerns. “That helped us focus on where our challenges were,” Muir says. The basic challenge was transferring academic classes into the virtual space in a very short window. Spring break was extended from one week to two, providing extra preparation time before classes resumed March 23. Then there was the question of scale.
Even the Most TechnologyWary Professor Embraces the Virtual Classroom When Mason announced it was moving all classes online, artist Chawky Frenn, an associate professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, was filled with dread. Frenn exalts the personal interactions he has with his students as he teaches drawing and painting techniques. Luckily, he found Laura Todd, an online projects coordinator at the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning. Todd coordinates the development of online programs and courses, and she quickly became the go-to person for several professors panicked over how to use Blackboard Collaborate for synchronous learning. Frenn, who has been teaching art studio classes at Mason for 20 years, was determined to create a learning atmosphere in which students could still critique each other’s work and he could “maintain the same level of authenticity as in the classroom.” Todd spent hours helping Frenn communicate with his students and set up a virtual classroom. Because Frenn said he was a visual learner, Todd sent him screenshots of each step in the process after they had spoken on the phone. “In these stressful times, it’s nice for our students to have stability and peace in their classes,” Todd says. “It’s important that their instructors are able to continue teaching them in an organized way.” —Anna Stolley Persky
When Mason announced it was switching to online instruction, the leadership at the Writing Center was “really concerned with preserving the sense of community that the center has in the in-person space,” says Courtney Massie, the center’s assistant director. Students looking for writing help have the option to video chat with a tutor while editing drafts together in real-time (synchronous tutoring) or submitting a draft electronically and waiting for email feedback (asynchronous tutoring). “We’re trying to do exactly what we did in the physical space, which would have been talk over the text and give suggestions for how they might improve it,” says graduate student Kevin Binder, who has tutored at the center for a year. On March 23, the first day the center went fully online, more than 85 percent of tutoring sessions filled up, and nearly half of the students chose the video tutoring option, says Writing Center director Susan Lawrence. “Students want feedback on their writing, but also, they want to talk to somebody about their writing.” “Thank you for giving me this chance of real-time [tutoring],” an anonymous student wrote in their feedback to the center. “It was new for me, but wonderful, especially when I opened my camera. It looks the same as in face-to-face tutoring.” —Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13
Classes that are specifically designed to be taught online can take as many as six to nine months to develop, as outcomes and essential learning pieces are tied directly to milestones and assessments. What Mason did in a compressed timeframe was “take what works in a face-to-face context and put those resources online,” Kreitzer says. “It was, ‘What do you need to do to have continuity in instruction?’” Muir says. “It might be getting your PowerPoints up. It might be [recording] a lecture in your living room, whatever you need to keep things moving so students have the continuity of learning.” Most of this work was done through the online learning platform Black board because ITS automatically creates a Blackboard version of every Mason course, Balducci says. Faculty could also use Webex or Blackboard Collaborate to set up virtual classrooms. The trick was to make sure faculty were up to speed on best practices for all these vehicles.
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ITS and the Stearns Center’s instructional designers held joint webinar trainings that served about 1,000 faculty, says Balducci, who also coordinated with Joy Taylor, executive director of ITS’s learning and support services. That team supplemented the ITS Support Center’s regular hours with a “Blackboard Office Hours” online meeting room during the transition to tackle technical and instructional questions from faculty as quickly as possible. “There’s no way we could have been able to do this without [ITS],” Kreitzer says. “They have been in it every day from the beginning.” Muir also credits the “Blackboard Buddies,” faculty members who are savvy about the platform and volunteered to help their colleagues individually and through webinars. “It’s been a huge collaborative effort with faculty to just dig in and think about ways to keep the critical things they know are essential
to the course and to think differently about logistics and how to get there,” Kreitzer says. For example, dance and music students can record themselves for faculty review or perform live through Webex to a faculty and peer audience for immediate feedback. So, how did Mason do? Consider that more than 5,200 classes were put into the virtual space in two weeks, and on the first day of classes, more than 24,000 assignments were completed. In the two weeks following spring break, a daily average of 12,250 students and faculty used the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra video conferencing tool for their classes, Balducci says. Before the average was just 434.
Visiting Filmmakers Series Adds Speakers and Expands Audience Since 1995, Mason’s Visiting Filmmakers Series has featured two to three filmmakers each semester who visit the campus to share their work and answer audience questions. Since the series was forced to go online, the switch has had its benefits, according to series director Cynthia Fuchs, associate director of Mason’s Film and Video Studies Program. The series can reach more people online than it ever could with a campus event, she says. In addition, more filmmakers can be invited, as there is less cost connected to hosting them. Fuchs says the online series is a way to help filmmaking professionals, including Mason alumni, who are currently on hiatus, hunkered in their homes while the industry is shut down. Mason alumnus Mannon Butt, BA Film and Video Studies ’12, a filmmaker in Los Angeles, used his online session in April to help other people get into the industry. “I want to tell them how important it is to be insistent and to encourage them to get to know as many people as possible in the industry,” Butt says. “And yes, I have a little more time to talk right now.” 18 | SPI RIT.GMU.EDU
Tony Marquez, BA Film and Video Studies ’12, also answered questions virtually as part of the series. Marquez, Butt’s roommate in Pasadena, California, is currently working on the CBS series Young Sheldon. Marquez says he enjoyed giving advice and talking about his career during the hour-long question-and-answer session. “It felt good to give back to the community that helped shape me.” —Anna Stolley Persky
Dissertation Defenses Move into the Virtual Realm Carrie Klein, PhD Education ’20, had long imagined defending her dissertation, the final step in the process of earning a PhD at Mason. She pictured making her presentation in a conference room before a three-person panel, surrounded by family and friends, and then going to a Fairfax restaurant to celebrate.
Instead, Klein defended her dissertation on campus in March, with just her advisor, husband, and son in the same room. The panel members, friends, and the rest of her family interacted with her via Webex. “At first I was really bummed,” Klein says. “And then I was like, I just need to realize that this is reality right now, and that at least people could still participate.” “The way we’ve continued proves the resilience and innovation of Mason and its students,” says Margret Hjalmarson, director of the PhD program in the College of Education and Human Development. “We weren’t going to let this situation hold us back or impede our students’ progress.” Trish Kelshaw, PhD Education ’20, says 17 people used Zoom to attend her March 30 presentation on improving the methodology for assessing concussions in children. “It was pretty smooth,” she says. “The only thing to adjust to was feeling professional and ready to do this when you are in the basement of your own home.”
PHOTO BY LATHAN GOUMAS
The pandemic completely disrupted her plans, and the entire process moved online.
Solomiya Shpak, PhD Public Policy ’20, was one of the many doctoral students who had to do dissertation defenses on Webex.
This spring Mason graduated 306 new PhDs, Doctors of Nursing Practices, and Doctors of Arts.
El Brown, PhD Education ’20, says that defending her dissertation online had some surprising results. She posted her initial disappointment about the situation on Facebook and a wide variety of her friends asked to attend online. Thirty-eight people watched her discuss how turning points shape the life trajectories of military mothers parenting young children with disabilities. “All kinds of stakeholders in early education attended, along with my family and friends,” Brown says. “It led to job offers.” —Anna Stolley Persky
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MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE REGION AND BEYOND The university plays a vital role in the region, and during the pandemic this was never clearer. From providing health care to those in underserved communities and incentivizing innovation, to 3D printing around the clock to create personal protective equipment (PPE) for those on the front lines, the Mason community has been engaged and working. 20 | SPI RIT.GMU.EDU
PHOTO BY DELIA ENGSTROM/PRINCE WILLIAM TIMES
GOING THE DISTANCE IN THE COMMUNITY
Nurse Bridget Jennison, left, transfers a testing swab to a vial held by Rebecca Sutter, during drive-up COVID-19 testing at Mason’s MAP Clinic in Manassas Park.
DESIGN BY AZRIEL TOWNER
Mark Morris Dance Group was one of the groups featured on Mason Arts at Home
MAP CLINICS EXPAND TELEHEALTH CAPABILITIES During the pandemic, some Northern Virginians could still rely on the Mason and Partners (MAP) Clinics, a network of 10 no-cost bridge health care clinics supported by Mason’s College of Health and Human Services. Thanks to the rapid deployment of expanded telehealth capabilities, practitioners at the MAP Clinics were able to screen for COVID-19 while helping their patients battle chronic conditions, treat substance-use disorders, and address behavioral health issues such as anxiety and stress. The nurse-managed clinics deployed HIPAAcompliant telehealth units in Prince William County, where seven of the 10 MAP Clinics are located and significant unmet demand exists among very vulnerable populations. On a typical day, the Manassas Park MAP Clinic can test nearly 40 patients in a 2.5-hour time frame. “The MAP Clinic telehealth initiative is the best example of teamwork and partnership I’ve ever seen,” says clinic co-director Rebecca Sutter, MS ’01, DNP ’12. “Our students and faculty are working with community partners to serve our most vulnerable patients even when we cannot physically be with them.” The expanded telehealth model and revised protocols allow MAP Clinic staff to use their limited PPE to treat the highest-risk patients. The MAP Clinics continue to serve their
existing patients, walk-ins, and those referred by the Prince William Health Department in person two days a week at the Manassas Park clinic. In addition to fighting COVID-19 head-on, the MAP Clinics also provide ongoing care, including addiction treatment and chronic disease panels for diabetes, depression, anxiety, and hypertension. The MAP Clinic telehealth initiative is made possible by a $500,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture Telehealth grant and a $25,000 gift from AT&T. The college also received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to implement the Rural Opioid Telehealth Project, which will serve an estimated 177,000 rural, low-income residents of Virginia and West Virginia. The project will train medical professionals on how to appropriately prescribe opioids, screen for and identify the risk of opioid use disorder, and deliver treatment. —Michelle Thompson
IT’S (VIRTUAL) SHOWTIME AT THE COLLEGE OF VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS When events on campus were shut down, the College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA) went online with a program called Mason Arts at Home, a combination virtual performance space and town hall in which Mason artists, students, and alumni streamed their work.
The MAP Clinic telehealth initiative is the best example of teamwork and partnership I’ve ever seen. Our students and faculty are working with community partners to serve our most vulnerable patients even when we cannot physically be with them. —Rebecca Sutter
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Professional artists who were scheduled to appear at Mason’s Center for the Arts or Hylton Performing Arts Center also streamed performances and held question-and-answer sessions. “We’re hoping to keep our community connected,” said Rick Davis, CVPA dean, at the start of the initiative. “We know people are hungry for artistic experiences during this time of isolation, and we know that arts nourish the soul and provide ways for people to think about their lives and reflect and celebrate and contemplate all these things we do in the presence of art.”
We like to say that the arts create community. This isolating moment challenges and inspires us to find new ways to make that promise true. And the mission has never been so vital. —Rick Davis
The program went live on April 2 to coincide with the university’s Patriots Helping Patriots Giving Day campaign, starting with an interview with Grammy Award-winning composer and conductor Maria Schneider, who was scheduled to be a guest artist in CVPA’s residency program and conduct the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra at the Center for the Arts. Other performances included the Washington, D.C.-area Americana band Bumper Jacksons, Virginia Opera’s La Bohème, and videotaped performances of Mason musical groups, among others.
EFFORTS TO INCENTIVIZE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE Mason economist Tyler Cowen, BS Economics ’83, helped put together the Emergent Ventures Prizes in the hopes of incentivizing a stronger response to the coronavirus by distributing prize money for research leading to immediate help in fighting the pandemic. Citing the urgency of the situation, Cowen says the case for prizes over grants is stronger when you don’t know who is likely to make the breakthrough and you value the final output more than the process. “This is focused on what can help right now,” says Cowen, who is the faculty director of the Mercatus Center. “It may be able to help down the road, too, but the goal is to help now.” Several anonymous donors gifted the initial prize money. Since the March announcement, donors, including SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk and Australian software billionaire Scott Farquhar and his wife, Kim Jackson, have flooded the Emergent Ventures program with an additional $16 million in the hopes of immediately slowing the global pandemic.
The college also started the Alumni Artist Support Initiative, which provided microgrants to CVPA alumni to help them create digital content that could be used with Mason Arts at Home, and commissioned five new works that alumni can present during CVPA’s 2020-21 season.
Prize fields include best investigative journalism on coronavirus, best blog or social media tracking/ analysis of the virus, best coronavirus policy writing, best effort to find a good treatment rapidly, best innovation in social distancing, and most important innovation or improvement.
The first microgrant recipients were Mason alumna Rebecca Wahls, BA Theater ’15, and Rebecca Ballinger, who received support for their eightepisode web series, Rebecca and Becca in Space.
Cowen is relying on 16 individuals from different universities to help select the award winners. The first four winners were announced in late March: Helen Chu and her team at the University of Washington, who won the social leadership prize; Avi Schiffman, who won the data gathering and presentation prize; the Imperial College researchers led by epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, who won the prize for good policy thinking; and Curative Inc., the Silicon Valley-based company that won the prize for rapid response.
“We like to say that the arts create community,” says Davis. “This isolating moment challenges and inspires us to find new ways to make that promise true. And the mission has never been so vital.” —Damian Cristodero
—John Hollis
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CONDUCTING GLOBAL WEBINARS ON HOW TO TEACH ENGLISH ONLINE In an effort to assist teachers on a global level, Joan K. Shin and Jered Borup, associate professors in Mason’s College of Education and Human Development, created and are conducting a series of free webinars aimed at helping English teachers around the world move to online education. The webinars are sponsored by National Geographic Learning, which reached out to Shin to help lead the series. In the latest series, about 5,200 teachers from 40 countries registered for the initial classes, with more than 2,400 participating live. The series is focused on “breaking through the screen” so that students feel enthusiastic and part of a supportive learning community even though they are physically separated, according to Shin.
CREATING FACIAL PROTECTION FOR THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY
PHOTO CRETIT TO COME PHOTO PROVIDED BY MASON POLICE
When the news came that Mason campuses were closing, a group of Mason students who had planned to create 3D-printed personal protective equipment (PPE) knew they had to move fast.
Senior Denys Kuratchenko retrieved his personal 3D printer from the MIX and received permission to take another three. Soon he was running a 24/7 “print farm” from his apartment in Triangle, Virginia. (See story on page 43.) The Mason Experimental Geometry Lab and the Math Maker Lab also were producing face shields, and some students were sewing face masks to fulfill requests. Their efforts are part of a larger movement in the Northern Virginia maker community to address the PPE shortage that included Northern Virginia Community College, Marymount University, Arlington Public Schools, and e-NABLE DC.
FORENSIC SCIENCE, POLICE TEAM UP TO HELP MEDICAL RESPONDERS Mason’s Forensic Science Program and the Department of Police and Public Safety teamed up to help medical personnel during the fight against COVID-19. Using 3D technology, they began making plastic extended straps that allow doctors, nurses, and other personnel to more comfortably
wear protective N95 masks for long periods while treating patients. With help from Karen Livingston, associate director of entrepreneurship programs at the MIX, printing processes at several locations on campus have been running around the clock. As word about the project has spread, requests have been coming in, with Inova Health System requesting 10,000 plastic straps.
PROVIDING CORONAVIRUS-RELATED INFORMATION FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND CONTRACTORS Mason’s Center for Government Contracting has been publishing coronavirus-related reports for government agencies and companies that contract with the government. The reports provide detailed information on the Defense Production Act and help contractors navigate the issues and opportunities related to the challenges facing the country. For more information, visit business.gmu.edu/ govcon. Anna Stolley Persky and Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13, contributed to this story.
Mason Police Sergeant Donald Daniels works on a Lulz Bot 3D printer.
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GOING THE DISTANCE IN THE LAB
MAKING DISCOVERIES THAT MATTER Despite campus closures and social distancing, Mason researchers were hard at work helping in the fight against the coronavirus.
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When George Mason University closed its campuses in March, many researchers began working remotely and focusing on work they could do outside their labs. Others remained on campus, working on potential treatments, quicker testing, and ways to expedite a vaccine.
“More than 100 Mason faculty and student researchers are doing their parts to help thwart the COVID-19 pandemic, inventing new diagnostic tools, as well as exploring promising therapies and vaccine delivery systems,” says Deborah Crawford, Mason’s vice president for research, innovation, and economic impact, adding that this collective effort epitomizes Mason’s commitment to advancing research of consequence. The following are a few of their projects.
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DEVELOPING A SALIVA TEST FOR COVID-19 ANTIBODIES A multidisciplinary team of Mason scientists is developing a saliva test to detect antibodies to COVID-19 and could begin screening student, faculty, and staff volunteers as early as this summer. “The goal is to evaluate if saliva can be used instead of blood for ease of screening for COVID-19 antibodies,” says Lance Liotta, the lead researcher and the co-director of Mason’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM). Medical scientists worldwide are intensely studying antibody tests, which provide key information about previous exposure to COVID-19. Public health experts say it’s likely that there have been many undiagnosed cases in the United States.
The goal is to evaluate if saliva can be used instead of blood for ease of screening for COVID-19 antibodies. —Lance Liotta
Mason affiliate faculty member Raouf Guirguis has invented special saliva collection devices being used in the study, and the team will compare rapid tests for saliva and blood for COVID19 viral protein and antibodies. The work on the samples will be done at Mason’s Science and Technology Campus within CAPMM’s College of American Pathologists and Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments-certified lab directed by Virginia Espina. An array of virologists, social scientists, microbiologists, structural biologists, and medical technologists from throughout the university are contributing. —John Hollis
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
One of the most notable aspects of the Mason project is its reliance on oral fluid, rather than
blood, for antibody testing. Oral fluid is much easier to sample in large-scale populations and health care worker testing. A simple brush in the mouth with a sponge can gather enough saliva to be analyzed in person or remotely.
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PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
IMPROVED COVID-19 TESTING
As a scientist, you always hope that your work can have a significant and positive impact on society. —Kylene Kehn-Hall
Mason virologist Kylene Kehn-Hall and her colleagues from Ceres Nanosciences Inc. are working to create the next generation of SARSCoV-2 testing. Using Nanotrap® particles, Kehn-Hall and her team hope to develop tests that will result in fewer false-negative results. Their collective work, which is being supported by a $250,000 grant from the Schmidt Futures Foundation, will help scientists better understand the virus and help slow down the spread. “As a scientist, you always hope that your work can have a significant and positive impact on society,” says Kehn-Hall, an associate professor in the National Center of Biodefense and Infectious Diseases within Mason’s College of Science. “I am excited about the opportunity to improve COVID-19 detection.” Nanotrap® technology was developed by faculty in Mason’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine and is licensed to Ceres Nanosciences. Mason and Ceres Nanosciences
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have been collaborating for several years in the hopes of using Nanotrap® technology to better detect common strains of respiratory viruses such as influenza and RSV. They began focusing their efforts on the coronavirus in February after it became apparent the disease had made its way out of China. Robbie Barbero, the chief business officer for Ceres Nanosciences, emphasizes their collective research will not make new tests, but will instead improve detection methods for SARSCoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. “Our plan is to demonstrate that Nanotrap® technology can improve detection of SARS-CoV-2 across multiple commercially available diagnostic tests, without having to change the tests themselves,” Barbero says. “We hope to have something ready to share with diagnostic testing labs this summer.” —John Hollis
DNA NANOTECHNOLOGY COULD SPEED UP VACCINE DEVELOPMENT Mason bioengineering professor Remi Veneziano is working on a tool that could speed up the vaccine development process. He and his colleagues are using DNA nanotechnology to lay the foundation for developing vaccines that could block infection. “It’s a safe and elegant way to design vaccines,” Veneziano says. “If successful, our strategy could be adapted for emerging viruses and applied to several other pathogens, including the coronavirus.” “It’s a dream, but it’s very attainable,” says co-investigator Aarthi Narayanan, an associate professor in Mason’s National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases. “Traditionally, vaccines are directed toward a specific virus or pathogen. Moving forward, we need a plug-and-play approach rather than reinventing the wheel each time.”
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
The researchers received $314,000 from the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity for the two-year project. The work that Veneziano and Narayanan are doing with nanotechnology could be used as a basis for developing
vaccines to block infection from Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus (VEEV), which is primarily transmitted by mosquito bites and is responsible for recurring human and animal disease around the world. “Many biological mechanisms involving bacteria, viruses, and cells happen at the nanoscopic scale, which requires specialized techniques to investigate,” Veneziano says. “When working on the nanoscale, DNA can be made in the same shape of the virus and modified with viral proteins to mimic viruses.” Narayanan says there are viral challenges emerging constantly, and the beauty of this DNA nanotechnology is it will lend itself to any pathogen we can think of. The goal is to make the immune cells believe the nanoparticle is a virus and trigger an immune response. Veneziano and Narayanan are seeking funding from the government and industry to study nanotechnology for vaccines for the coronavirus in the same way. “We’re working as fast as we can to develop a vaccine platform that could be applied quickly to other emerging viruses,” says Veneziano. —Nanci Hellmich
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PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
SEARCHING FOR ‘ TRIED AND TESTED’ TREATMENT FOR COVID-19 If all goes according to plan, Mason researcher Fatah Kashanchi will soon have outcomes that will tell him if his research into a possible treatment for COVID-19 is on the right track. Kashanchi and his team are experimenting with drugs that can be rapidly absorbed into the lungs to stop the devastating progression of cell infections, the deadliest characteristic of disease. It would be a therapeutic, not a vaccine.
Kashanchi’s lab has worked with exosomes before. They are also working with nonstructural protein genes called ORF1a and ORF1b, provided by colleagues at Johns Hopkins University and NIH These are proteins encoded by the virus and needed for both replication and maturation of the virus. Targeting these proteins, Kashanchi says, will give specificity and inhibition toward the virus and not the host cell. Funding for the research, which began on March 18, comes from money in an account that collects roughly 3 percent of whatever research money comes into Kashanchi’s lab.
The key, Kashanchi says, is using repurposed drugs, some of which have been used against HIV, that “It’s a savings account Mason has allowed me are already approved by the FDA. That means— to gather over the years,” he says, adding he if found effective against COVID-19—these drugs has enough to continue this research for several months. can be put to immediate use, whereas a vaccine is likely at least a year or more away.
—Damian Cristodero
“The drugs have been tried and tested on pat ients before, so we know that they are not toxic. And the delivery is very easy. The absorption is very rapid. That’s the key to all this,” says Kashanchi, director of Mason’s Laboratory of Molecular Virology. Kashanchi is leading a 16-member team that includes Mason students, postdocs, and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Many are working remotely. They are working with 12 different drugs in four classes— two that fight viruses, and two that attack anti-inflammatory molecules. “The problem with [COVID-19] is that we’re still trying to find out how it works,” says Pat rick Gillevet, director of Mason’s Microbiome Analysis Center. What they know is generally how cells infect other cells. It is through exosomes, tiny balls of membrane that cells spit out, ostensibly to communicate with each another. But when those cells are infected, they produce exosomes that then interact with other cells. 28 | SPI RIT.GMU.EDU
SMOKING MAY MAKE PEOPLE VULNER ABLE TO COVID-19 In a paper published online March 18 by The FEBS Journal, Mason researchers Jim Olds and Nadine Kabbani warn that prior nicotine exposure can be linked to cardiopulmonary vulnerability to COVID-19. Using data and research from the 2002 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, the team predicts that individuals with nicotine exposure are “primed” to be at a higher risk because nicotine can directly impact ACE2, a protein receptor on the surface of human cells that COVID-19 uses to infect cells, which leads to lung cell damage. “Smoking history is germane to how the disease will present in patients,” says Olds, who is University Professor of Neuroscience and Public Policy at the Schar School of Policy and Government. “Understanding the symptoms is important for early detection and management. Asymptomatic individuals may also be at some risk that we still don’t understand.”
Rainald Löhner simulated how small droplets from a cough or sneeze would move around a hospital room. Kabbani, an associate professor in Mason’s School of Systems Biology, says the nicotine exposure can come from smoking cigarettes, using electronic cigarettes, vaping, or maybe even secondhand smoke. “Prolonged nicotine exposure systemically— through various kinds of smoking habits—may thus provide a cellular mechanism for susceptibility to the virus and impact illness severity,” she says. “The activation of nicotinic receptors by smoking is coupled to how the host receptor for the virus, ACE2, is distributed on lung epithelial cells.” In their paper, Olds and Kabbani also include the World Health Organization’s data on global smoking prevalence and the percentage of smokers in the overall population, segmented by country. Several smoking “hot spots,” including China, South Korea, and Italy, were early epicenters for COVID-19. “If our hypothesis is correct, nicotine consumption in Latin America and Africa predicts future health challenges for at-risk populations as the epidemic proceeds,” says Olds. “This is a new and evolving situation, and we need to be highly vigilant on many fronts.” —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95
VENTIL ATION SYSTEMS COULD HELP SPREAD COVID-19 Mason researcher Rainald Löhner is warning hospitals treating COVID-19 patients that their ventilation systems may be inadvertently spreading the virus and putting medical personnel at more risk. Löhner, director of Mason’s Center for Compu tational Fluid Dynamics and an expert in the dispersion of contaminants, suspects that the role of ventilation systems in the spread of the virus is being overlooked as overwhelmed hospitals struggle with surging patient numbers. In a video he produced of a simulation inside a typical hospital room, Löhner showed how the larger droplets from a sneeze or cough of an infected patient fell almost immediately, while smaller ones remained airborne for up to two hours and followed the airstream. This behavior has also been reproduced and measured experimentally, corroborating the simulations. Given that the virus can stay alive in the air for up to an hour, if the airflow is not managed properly, it could propagate and spread contagion over considerable distances. “Think of it like smoking,” Löhner says. “If you were in a large room and somebody on the other
side of the room were smoking, you would be affected by it. We should think in the same way about COVID-19.” Löhner says it is imperative that airflow be managed, noting that at times a quarter of all those infected in Spain with the coronavirus were doctors and nurses. Löhner recommends hospitals examine their ventilation systems in rooms with infected patients to make sure no air particles from these rooms move into corridors or adjacent spaces. Löhner believes that an increased understanding of airflow could help minimize the risks to doctors and nurses by helping them to better position themselves within high-risk rooms. These simple, low-level engineering measures would have an immediate effect on their protection. “This simple example clearly shows the imperative need for monitoring and improving the flow of air in hospitals, nursing facilities, airports, concert halls, conference centers and meeting rooms, or any other facility where large numbers of people are gathered in close proximity,” Löhner says. —John Hollis
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Bill Karlson and John O’Mara of KO Distillery, with hand sanitizer that they are now producing.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BILL KARLSON
GOING THE DISTANCE ESSENTIAL ALUMNI
WORKING THE FRONT LINES It isn’t surprising that many Mason alumni have been working on the front lines of the pandemic. Here are a few who have come to our attention.
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More than 200 military medical students and graduate nursing students from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) graduated six weeks early to support their colleagues in the U.S. military health system amid the global coronavirus pandemic. The Class of 2020 included eight members of Cohort 1 of Mason’s Enlisted to Medical Degree Preparatory Program (EMDP2): Capt. C. Alex Blereau, MD; Capt. Steven Capen, MD; Capt. Kenneth Johnson, MD; Capt. Matthew Little, MD; Capt. C. Jeremy Mears, MD; Capt. Joseph Merfeld, MD; Capt. Steve Radloff, MD; and Capt. Joshua Richter, MD.
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PETER BIZON, DNP ’20, started
ANDREA BURTT, MS Exercise,
volunteering with the Loudoun County Health Department’s call center as soon as it opened in March to address residents’ questions about COVID-19. There, Bizon was appointed as the supervisor of incoming calls, managing a team of volunteers to answer questions from the general public. He was recently accepted to Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences for their Global Health Engagement program.
Fitness, and Health Promotion ’13, is an outreach athletic trainer at River Bluff High School in Lexington, South Carolina. Now, her job duties have shifted to screening employees for the Palmetto Health University of South Carolina Medical Group, along with working at the COVID-19 testing site at the hospital.
EMILY BOYD, BS Athletic Training ’15, normally works as an athletic trainer with the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System in Richmond, Virginia. Currently, she is screening patients, visitors, and employees at the VCU Medical Center Hospital.
ELIZABETH CABELLO, BS Athletic Training ’17, is a clinical athletic trainer at the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk, Virginia. “One of the big changes in our office is implementing the use of telehealth,” Cabello says. “We recently started doing this to help our patients receive care while remaining safe and at home.”
JUDY CURRY, BS Business Administration ’90, and her husband, Matt, owners of the Craftsman Auto Care shops, started the Feed a Hero campaign with support from a crowdfunding site. Partnering with several Northern Virginia restaurants, they delivered between 100 to 200 meals a day to hospitals, fire houses, police departments, and other first responders in the area.
TAM DANG, BS Biology ’08, MS Biodefense ’15, works as an epidemiologist in the Dallas County (Texas) Department of Health and Human Services. Her work focuses on the analysis of data relating to the spread of infections and preparing plans to support the public response.
JENNY EDA, BS Athletic Training ’17, is an outreach athletic trainer with the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk, Virginia. Normally an athletic trainer for a nearby high school and middle school, she now is a member of a screening team at the hospital.
DIANNE HON, MPA ’16, is unable to self-isolate because she is an intake officer and monitored diversion counselor at the Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court. Hon’s team of essential personnel have been hard at work creating a plan to support and protect their community. “It may
be weeks until we physically come together as a team,” says Hon, “but we know that we have helped Fairfax County citizens maintain a semblance of order.”
realize how much I need that [human connection] not only to relay information, but to show someone that I have compassion for their situation and their pet.”
BILL KARLSON, MS Software Systems
ROSE PREVITE, MPP ’07, runs two
Engineering ’94, is the CEO of KO Distilling in Manassas, Virginia. Normally, his distillery produces spirits like their Bare Knuckle Whiskey. In the midst of the pandemic, they became the proud producers of Bare Knuckle Hand Sanitizer. The distillery is able to produce about 2,000 gallons of hand sanitizer each week and is donating much of it to Manassas-area hospitals, nursing homes, and first responders.
Washington, D.C., restaurants: Compass Rose and Maydan. Both closed during the pandemic. Still, she found some options to help her employees, including offering takeout. She was featured in The Atlantic for her efforts. “In restaurants you have to fix things in a minute’s time,” Previte told The Atlantic. “We make game-time decisions to make people happy. The fact that I can’t fix things now is breaking my heart.”
As a behavioral health supervisor in Fairfax County, master of public administration student DARCY KIM is managing a team of seven clinicians, who are providing care remotely. “To be a public servant means being dedicated to the communities we serve by making the best decisions possible to ensure people receive the care they need.” Veterinarian CHRISTINE KLIPPEN, BSN ’05, is working at the Friendship Hospital for Animals in Washington, D.C., and was featured in a Wall Street Journal article regarding her emergency vet work. She notes that caring for peoples’ pets without being able to interact with them is an unexpected challenge. “I didn’t
Trauma surgeon JOSEPH SAKRAN, BS Biology ’99, is the director of emergency general surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He has devoted his career to advocating for patients. In an opinion piece he co-wrote for CNN.com, Sakran cites the specific difficulty of isolation on those receiving treatment in hospitals. “That ‘safety net’ of having a loved one by your side is now riddled with holes,” writes Sakran. Liam Griffin; Buzz McClain, BA ’77; Gregory Johnson; Greg Sullivan; and Michelle Thompson contributed to this story.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CURRYS
Matt Curry delivers meals to Fairfax County Police Department Station 8.
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In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the Mason community has rallied, supporting students in unprecedented ways. From mid-March through May, University Life distributed more than $2.53 million in emergency assistance to 2,377 students. B Y R O B R I O R D A N , M PA ’19
With the unexpected closures, some students lacked the financial cushion needed to travel home, to find alternate housing arrangements, or even to be sure where their next meal was coming from. Many were suddenly unemployed; for them, that part-time job may have been essential. For those who are parents, child care became an acute issue. Undergraduate and graduate students alike were wondering if they could even complete the semester, their path to a degree suddenly at risk. For these students, a few hundred or a few thousand dollars could make all the difference.
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PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
George Mason University is home to more than 38,000 students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. When the coronavirus outbreak closed down Virginia, the lives of thousands of these students were turned upside down. Campuses shuttered, classes moved online, and everyone was feeling the uncertainty.
Students at Giving Day 2019
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Notes from Students Who Have Received Support I LOST MY JOB AS A SERVER IN D.C. DUE TO COVID-19; I NO LONGER HAD A SOURCE OF INCOME, WAS UNABLE TO PAY MY BILLS. I WAS FRANTIC TRYING TO FIND NEW WORK AND FILE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT, UNABLE TO EVEN THINK ABOUT MY STUDIES BECAUSE SURVIVAL WAS THE MAIN PRIORITY. MY PROFESSOR SUGGESTED I APPLY FOR EMERGENCY FUNDING THROUGH UNIVERSITY LIFE. THE FUNDING CAME THROUGH, AND I FELT AS THOUGH I COULD BREATHE AGAIN. THE FUNDING HAS ALLOWED ME TO SHIFT MY FOCUS FROM ‘HOW I AM GOING TO PAY FOR RENT, FOOD, AND BILLS?’ BACK TO MY STUDIES. I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL FOR THE SUPPORT I HAVE RECEIVED FROM MY MASON FAMILY.
AS A STUDENT, I FEEL THE IMPACT NOT ONLY IN UNEMPLOYMENT, BUT IN THE TRANSITION TO ONLINE SCHOOLING. AS A NURSING STUDENT, I AM LOSING CLINICAL HOURS, WHICH ARE A HUGE PART OF MY COURSE AND COURSE FEES. THE FUNDS I HAVE RECEIVED WILL HELP ME CONTINUE LIFE AS NORMAL AS POSSIBLE IN THE MIDST OF THIS PANDEMIC, AND THEY HAVE GREATLY ALLEVIATED MY FEARS AND ANXIETIES CAUSED BY THE COVID-19 CRISIS. WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS HOW GRATEFUL I AM FOR THESE FUNDS AND FOR UNIVERSITY LIFE. IT IS SO COMFORTING TO KNOW THAT UNIVERSITY LIFE IS OUT THERE, HELPING AND SUPPORTING STUDENTS IN NEED.
MY LIFE TOOK A BIG TURN AFTER FINDING OUT THAT I HAD LOST MY INCOME DUE TO COVID-19. I AM A PRIMARY FINANCIAL SUPPORTER IN MY FAMILY AND WHEN I FOUND OUT I WAS NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO CONTINUE WORKING, MY WHOLE WORLD CHANGED. I WAS GOING CRAZY BECAUSE, ON TOP OF EVERY OTHER FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY THAT I HAVE, I FEEL THE RESPONSIBILITY TO SUPPORT MY ELDERLY PARENTS. THE EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE FUND GAVE ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO STILL BE ABLE TO COMPLETE MY DEGREE IN MAY. I HAVE NO WORDS TO EXPRESS THE JOY AND HAPPINESS I HAD WHEN I FOUND OUT THAT I WAS GETTING THE FUNDS TO PAY FOR MY TUITION THROUGH THIS PROGRAM.
AFTER HAVING MY NORMAL 40-HOUR WORK WEEK CUT DOWN TO 16 HOURS DUE TO THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK, MY LIFE CHANGED IN SECONDS. WHEN I HAD HEARD THAT MASON WAS OFFERING EMERGENCY FUNDING, I FILLED OUT MY APPLICATION AS FAST AS I COULD. WITHIN A COUPLE OF DAYS, IT WAS DECIDED THAT I HAD BEEN APPROVED FOR EMERGENCY FUNDING. THIS OPPORTUNITY HAS GIVEN ME A SENSE OF SECURITY AND HAS PUT MY MIND AT EASE. I AM SO GRATEFUL THAT I CAN CONTINUE TO PAY MY BILLS DURING THIS TRYING TIME. I TRULY COULD NOT THANK THE COMMITTEE AND DONORS ENOUGH FOR THIS WONDERFUL CHANCE TO REMAIN HAPPY AND HEALTHY DURING THIS TIME.
DURING THIS HARD TIME, EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS. FOR ME, IT’S DEFINITELY A WONDERFUL GIFT FROM GMU. I AM AMAZED AT THE CARE, GENEROSITY, AND THOUGHTFULNESS, AND FOR COMING TO MY AID AT SUCH A DIFFICULT TIME, ESPECIALLY WHEN I NEEDED IT THE MOST. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT, YOUR PRAYERS, AND FOR YOUR INCREDIBLE GIFT.
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“When the pandemic began, faculty and staff, alumni, and local businesses were asking how they could make a difference,” says Trishana Bowden, vice president for advancement and alumni relations and president of the George Mason University Foundation. “It was inspiring to have the Mason Nation respond immediately, and they continue to offer support by providing encouraging words for our graduates in the Class of 2020.” Immediately, University Life established the Student Emer gency Assistance Fund, aimed at getting much-needed assistance directly into the hands of Mason students. Using an online application form that went live on March 19, students were able to apply for cash assistance.
Student Support Fund, which for several years has been a source of short-term financial assistance for students at risk of dropping out. In all, from mid-March through May, University Life distributed more than $2.53 million in emergency assistance to 2,377 students, with an average award of $1,170. Given the emergency nature of the requests, University Life staff continuously reviewed online applications, approving awards in three business days or less. At points during the crisis, the team was moving about $70,000 to students each day—an extraordinary pace.
PAT
OTS HELP I R
ING
“It has been amazing to see the entire university community rally together in support of our students who need us the And with Mason’s fourth annual Giving Day already planned most,” says Kaitlin Cicchetti, PhD ’17, director of advancefor April 2, the Office of Advancement and Alumni Relations ment for University Life. “Our team has worked nearly collaborated with University Life to turn the day into the start around the clock to get money into the hands of students of a much bigger effort, dubbed Patriots Helping Patriots. The as quickly as possible. I’m proud of our staff for their quick initiative focused on providing urgent assistance to Mason response and thankful for the thousands of individuals who students in need. have donated to our emergency fund during this critical time.” The public response was overwhelming. Embracing the spirit Patriots Helping Patriots continues. Through the end of May, of “physically distanced, but socially connected,” the Mason more than 3,400 students had requested assistance through Nation used email, social media, and virtual word of mouth the online application, identifying a total need of $7.1 milto spread the message. Within a few weeks, more than 1,800 lion. The most common needs continue to be for essentials donors contributed more than $342,000 for emergency assissuch as paying rent, utility bills, child care, food, and comtance to students. About half of those donors were faculty or puter technology. staff, 31 percent were alumni, and 9 percent were parents of “This remains an uncertain and challenging time for everycurrent or past students. one, but especially for our students,” says vice president for In addition, university units and programs scoured their university life Rose Pascarell. “We’re doing everything we can budgets to find funds that could be redirected to student to help students look out for their physical and emotional assistance. The Office of Advancement transferred $100,000 well-being. That effort will continue throughout the fall from its current operations budget to the cause. The Women semester, and for as long as it’s needed.” in Business Initiative, a School of Business advisory board, To join others in giving to the Student Emergency contributed $10,000. These and other funds supplemented Assistance Fund, please visit php.gmu.edu. state dollars already in the budget, such as the Stay Mason D I D YO U K N O W. . .
The Alumni Association and Office of Alumni Relations have collected a variety of resources to assist you and your family during the pandemic and beyond. Check out alumni.gmu.edu/phpresources.
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PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
INQUIRING MINDS
Art Meets Analytics
G
eorge Mason University art history graduate student Paul Albert (above) and School of Business marketing faculty members Laurie Meamber and Gautham Vadakkepatt were among the teams of art historians and data scientists participating in the National Gallery of Art’s first-ever datathon, “Coding Our Collection.” The Mason team presented their findings in October 2019 before an audience at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, D.C. The NGA is the first American art museum to invite groups to analyze its permanent collection. The datathon coincides with other major efforts by the gallery to make its collection more available to the public. Using the gallery’s own data, teams looked at diversity in the materials on display at the gallery and in its acquisitions over time, among other topics. The Mason team looked at the popularity of the artists in NGA’s collections. Using Wikipedia page views as a popularity measure, Albert says they assigned each of the artists featured an engagement score. While the team wasn’t surprised to learn that NGA’s most popular artist was Leonardo da Vinci, “what surprised us was the second-most popular artist was Neil Armstrong, the astronaut, whose moon photographs are among the NGA’s collection,” says Albert, who gave the presentation.
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Albert says that, of the more than 10,000 artists presented at the NGA, the top 20 percent of artists accounted for 97 percent of the total Wikipedia page views. These are artists whose names most people would recognize—Pablo Picasso, Michelangelo, Andy Warhol, and Ansel Adams. “The engagement scores we developed can help NGA’s outreach efforts to attract and educate the public,” says Albert. What intrigued Albert about the project was the opportunity to examine the idea of “value” when it comes to art. “The field of art creates an idea of what is valuable, but what does the general public value?” Albert, who led the Mason team, came to Mason after retiring from a career in the data sciences. He divides his time at Mason between classes in art history and computational social sciences. He consulted with the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media on this project and provides training on campus for Tableau data visualization software. “Digital humanities offer a new and different way to understand things,” says Albert. “It broadens our understanding of our world and teaches critically important analytical skills.” —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95
RESEARCH
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ollege of Health and Human Services (CHHS) researcher Anna Pollack has re ceived a $1.6 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, an institute within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to study the link between endometriosis and endocrine-disrupting chemicals. These chemicals are sometimes called forever chemicals and are commonly found in humans’ diets and household products. Endometriosis, a disorder where uterine tissue grows outside of the uterus, affects 6 to 11 percent of women of child-bearing age. The disorder can cause pain and infertility, and the annual cost of endometriosis-related health care has reached billions of dollars in the United States. Little is known about its cause. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that may produce adverse developmental, reproductive, and neurological effects and are ubiquitous in our daily lives. The study—the first to measure concentrations of endocrine disruptors both inside and outside the uterus—seeks to answer two questions: whether levels of these endocrine disruptors inside the uterus are associated
with endometriosis and if these chemicals in endometrial tissue found outside the uterus are associated with the severity of the disorder. The study leverages data and specimens collected from the Endometriosis: Natural History, Diagnosis, and Outcomes (ENDO) Study. The ENDO study, conducted at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, enrolled 495 women ages 18 to 44, both with and without endometriosis prior to laparoscopic surgery. Using the tissue taken during the surgery, researchers will study concentrations of endocrine disruptors in healthy tissue inside the uterus and endometriosis implant tissues and determine if those levels are associated with endometriosis. The study will focus on two specific classes of endocrine-disrupting chemicals that stay in the body long after initial exposure: polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). POPs have not been manufactured in the United States for decades. PFASs are currently in use and show up in water systems and such household
GETTY IMAGES
‘Forever Chemicals’ and Fertility
materials as stain-resistant fabrics and nonstick frying pans. Pollack will serve as the principal investigator for the study along with co-investigators Germaine Buck Louis, CHHS dean, and Jenna Krall, the principal investigator for the original ENDO study. —Michelle Thompson
Lum Wins Outstanding Faculty Award
PHOTO BY ALEXIS GLENN
C
riminology, law and society professor Cynthia Lum, director of Mason’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, was recognized by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) with a 2020 Outstanding Faculty Award. The SCHEV Outstanding Faculty Award is the highest honor the state can bestow upon a faculty member. Lum was among 12 recipients this year, selected from 85 nominations. Lum is the university’s 23rd recipient since the award’s inception in 1987. A former Baltimore, Maryland, police officer, Lum is a global expert of evidence-based policing and has collaborated with local, state, federal, and international policing organizations and agencies to improve law enforcement operations through science and research translation. Her work has been recognized around the world.
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INQUIRING MINDS
G
eorge Mason University is taking the lead in a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration designed to assess the threat of rising sea levels and flooding to Maryland’s coastal communities. Volgenau School of Engineering professor Celso Ferreira (right) is the principal investigator on a team that includes researchers from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Nature Conservancy. The aim of the three-year project is to better inform decision makers on the best ways to manage and preserve the state’s more than 7,000 miles of shoreline. “Sea levels have risen one foot in Maryland over the last 100 years,” Ferreira says. “And those sea levels are continuing to rise. Our job is to provide the best scientific knowledge and engineering strategies available to state policymakers.”
The research focuses on coastal risk reduction benefits provided by natural and natural-based features in Maryland’s Chesapeake and Coastal Bays under current conditions and with projected sea-level rise in the wake of global climate change. Experts anticipate more extreme coastal storms and up to two additional feet of sea-level rise over the next 30 years. Help could come in the form of marshes and submerged aquatic vegetation that could serve as a buffer that would mitigate the effects of rising sea levels, says Ferreira. Using computer models to extrapolate data, the team will work with local communities to identify existing sites, quantify how much those sites aid in the fight against flooding and erosion, and decide how best to educate state decision makers as they anticipate coastal management for the future.
PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL
Protecting Maryland’s Coastlines
—John Hollis
Abstraction in the Andes
PHOTO BY ALEXIS GLENN
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ason art history professor Michele Greet was awarded $60,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to research and write a book about 20th-century abstract art from the Andean countries Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Greet, the director of Mason’s Art History Program, began her research on this project in 2017 with a travel grant from Mason to conduct preliminary research in Quito and Guayaquil, Ecuador. The next phase of this project will include similar research trips to Peru and Bolivia. According to Greet, while abstract art is common in modern art museums, its roots in specific cultures and time periods are largely misunderstood. For example, informalist abstraction emerged as a dominant trend in Andean art in the 1950s and ’60s, simultaneously with the movement’s epoch in Europe and the United States. But Andean artists argued that abstraction as an art form was part of their culture
because of their long history of abstract design in textiles and ceramics in the ancient Andean world, and not because of the influence of European countries. “These artists declared abstraction as their heritage,” she writes, “and by working in this manner, they were finally disengaging themselves of the legacies of colonialism, assuming and transforming an aesthetic that was already rightfully theirs.” Her investigation will examine the emergence of Andean abstraction in the postwar period and challenge perceptions that abstract painting was solely the product of U.S. and European environments. The final result of this research project will be a scholarly manuscript and a traveling exhibition. —Mary Lee Clark
RESEARCH
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he George Mason University Libraries received a $334,720 grant from the National Endow ment of the Humanities’ (NEH) Humanities Collection and Refer ence Resources program for “Preserving the Legacy of James M. Buchanan.” The project’s purpose is to preserve and make accessible the extensive James M. Buchanan Papers—the largest and most significant holding in existence of unique, primary source material related to the late Nobel laureate James M. Buchanan (1919–2013). The archive, held in the Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC), chronicles the legacy of Buchanan, an esteemed economist and Mason faculty member. Buchanan is well
known for his development of public choice theory, for which he received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. A building on the Fairfax Campus is named for Buchanan. The work of the grant will take place over the next two years, with University Libraries communicating updates along the way. The project will produce a completely arranged and described collection, create a detailed finding aid, and provide internship opportunities for Mason graduate and undergraduate students. “Preserving primary source materials such as the Buchanan Collection and providing access to them are key to the mission of SCRC and the Mason Libraries overall,” says University Librarian
John Zenelis. “We are pleased to receive the endorsement of our colleagues in Mason’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences for this project and the validation of the NEH on the importance of this work to the nation and beyond.” “CHSS students have gained valuable experience from employment with the libraries, and working with a collection of this significance opens up remarkable opportunities for them,” says Ann Ardis, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “CHSS looks forward to such a valuable and essential resource being available to future scholars.” —Jessica Clark
PHOTO BY GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
Preserving the Buchanan Legacy
Reducing Incarceration of Those with Mental Illnesses
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ason University Professor Faye Taxman is helping spearhead a study of the Stepping Up Initiative, a national effort to reduce the number of those in jails who have mental illnesses. The research, supported by a $3.5 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), will help determine the efficacy of data-driven change strategy as well as describe the effective parts. The findings are expected to inform future policy changes related to this multi-need population. “The goal is to answer the question: ‘How can you better implement change in complex systems like the criminal justice system?’” says Taxman, director of the Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence at Mason. According to a 2017 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, approximately two-thirds of female inmates in prisons and jails and
approximately one-third of men report having been diagnosed with a mental health disorder. The Stepping Up Initiative, led by the Council of State Governments, the National Association of Counties, and the American Psychiatric Foundation, currently involves 500 U.S. counties, making it the largest-ever effort to set up system reforms directed at putting justice-involved people into needed treatment and services. Participating counties commit to identifying validated mental health screening tools, implementing an assessment process, collecting and reviewing the flow of individuals with mental illnesses in and out of jails and behavioral health services, and examining community treatment capacity. Counties also commit to track and measure progress on reduced jail bookings, jail length of stay, increased connections to evidence-based
treatments, and reduction of recidivism. Researchers will measure how each county implements the steps to determine the effect on the availability and use of evidence-based treatment services by the population. The study will identify effective implementation processes that counties can use to change systems. “What’s really exciting is there are very few studies that focus on implementation and which processes of implementation are more effective and generate the most impact on reducing the use of incarceration and expanding use in the community,” says Taxman. “We’re looking at systemwide change, how [counties are] implementing different practices, what procedures they’ve changed, how they’re reconfiguring staffing, and which efforts result in the most change.” —Damian Cristodero Summer 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 39
SHELF LIFE Recently published works by Mason faculty Sounding Otherness in Early Modern Drama and Travel: Uncanny Vibrations in the English Archive Jennifer Linhart Wood adjunct faculty, English Sound is omnipresent and is often most notable in its absence. However, sound was vital in many encounters across cultures in the past several hundred years. This book (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2019) uses the sounds present in cultural encounters in places such as King’s College in London or Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. The text intends to imagine intercultural contact in a new light by arguing that the sonic environment that contained these exchanges had an inherent impact on the event.
Kevin Flanagan assistant professor, English The book (Palgrave Macmillan, October 2019) analyzes the representation of war in British film and how it can be applied to the modern Brexit period. The author considers everything from government-issued films to feature-length projects, while also considering the impact on modern films and television programs.
Routledge Handbook of Character Assassination and Reputation Management
Symphony in C: Carbon and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything
Sergei A. Samoilenko instructor, Communication
Robert Hazen Robinson Professor of Earth Science
Martijn Icks, Jennifer Keohane, Eric Shiraev adjunct faculty, Psychology and Schar School of Policy and Government
This book (W. W. Norton and Company, June 2019) traces the story of the element carbon on our planet, from its involvement in the big bang to its role in climate change.
Institutional Ethnography: A Theory of Practice for Writing Studies Researchers Michelle LaFrance associate professor, English Ethnography is the study of culture and customs and how people interact. Focused on a sect of ethnography dedicated to how individuals work in a society, this book (Utah State University Press, June 2019) offers the necessary theories, methods, and frames associated with an understanding of institutional ethnography, including three case studies that illustrate practical aspects of the methodology.
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War Representation in British Cinema and Television: From Suez to Thatcher
The book (Routledge, December 2019) provides a comprehensive consideration of character assassination and how public figures and corporations work to maintain their reputations. The book also provides a number of case studies for individual consideration or group discussion.
Why Who Cleans Counts: What Housework Tells Us about American Family Life Shannon Davis, professor, Sociology Housework is a necessary evil. In any living situation the dishes must be done, the floors must be swept or vacuumed, and the bathrooms must be wiped down. This text (Policy Press, February 2020) extends beyond the presupposed theories and uses quantitative data to draw conclusions about how the division of housework can represent a family or household dynamic.
The Boy Detective and the Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense Art Taylor, MFA ’06 associate professor, Creative Writing This collection (Crippen & Landru, March 2020) includes 16 short stories that have collectively earned an Edgar Award, an Anthony Award, three Agatha Awards, three Macavity Awards, and three Derringer Awards. These stories chart 25 years of Taylor’s writing career.
They Knew They Were Pilgrims John G. Turner professor, Religious Studies Drawing on original research using under utilized sources, Turner moves beyond familiar narratives in his new history of Plymouth Colony (Yale University Press, April 2020) and tells how a variety of English settlers and Native peoples engaged in a contest for the meaning of American liberty.
D I V I N G D E E P I N T O VA C C I N AT I O N D I S C O U R S E
PHOTO BY RON AIRA
If you’re at a dinner party, bringing up your stance on vaccination is probably on your list of things to avoid doing. But Mason English professor Heidi Yoston Lawrence, MA English ’07, dives straight in, examining the motivations of individuals on both sides of the issue, for her new book Vaccine Rhetorics (Ohio State University Press, 2020). What she found is that each side is more complicated and nuanced than the way media has traditionally portrayed—and that the key to better understanding each other is to employ a different set of rhetorical tools from what we’ve been using. What inspired you to write this book? The thing that kind of motivated me…was this question about the difficulties people with high levels of expertise experience when they try to explain something to someone who doesn’t share that expertise. One of the central questions, when it comes to experiences of health and medicine, [is] how do we talk across those lines when the public’s health is at stake—when decisions are really difficult to make, when there is really high-level information that’s hard for some people to understand—so that we are moving toward mutual understanding rather than judgement and dogmatism? Folks who are viewed as antivaccination are often characterized as “selfish.” I think the word “selfish” is built into the discourse a lot, and I don’t like that term very much. Parents who have children who have been injured by vaccines definitely frame it within a duty and responsibility kind of understanding…[they felt] deep guilt and remorse [because] they felt like they weren’t fully informed, they followed
what the doctor said, or…they had been lazy, and they hadn’t done their own research, and now their child has this injury and it’s their fault. It’s an incredibly diverse group of people who are very committed to the health of their children and the health of their communities. What can we do to improve the discourse for everyone? Let’s have new spaces for dialogue, let’s think of new modes of deliberation. Let’s acknowledge the realities of needing to prevent disease and of people who are concerned that vaccines are an unknown object to them, that they do present an inherent risk. We can do that in a more productive way. Is there anything both sides of the issue can agree upon? I think everyone would say they want healthier children, healthier communities. —Priyanka Champaneri, BA ’05, MFA ’10
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ALUMNI IN PRINT Recently published works by Mason alumni Why I Bought a Box of Rocks: Flint Knapping and the Lost Art of Mentoring
Ready for the People: A Hank Fisher Mystery
Greg Gledhill, JD ’03
In the second Hank Fisher mystery (Hilliard & Harris, July 2019), Fisher goes undercover to investigate a suspected terrorist and expose his network of militants.
This book (Self-published, November 2016) is not about rocks. It is about seeing how others work and learning how to help them achieve their goals. This text provides strategies and techniques to help in the process of mentoring. Gledhill, an attorney, currently provides legal counsel for Eurovia USA. In his free time, he loves to explore the outdoors with his wife and four children.
A Box in the Basement Eric Hodgkins, BA English ’90 In 1980, Eric Hodgkins’s grandmother moved in with him and his parents. She brought dozens of photographs and letters that would remain untouched for almost 40 years. In this book (Dementi Milestone Publishing, July 2019), Hodgkins finds the stories behind dozens of these artifacts. Hodgkins previously worked in information technology for the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. State Department and has taught English as a second language in Korea and Japan. He now resides in Fairfax, Virginia.
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Mike Langan, MFA ’95, JD ’98
Langan draws on his experience as a former litigator in Washington, D.C., and Syracuse, New York, for his novels. He lives with his wife and two daughters in the Syracuse area.
Joy of Financial Planning: 7 Money Strategies for Reclaiming Our American Dream Jason Howell, BS Accounting ’97 Many people are looking to achieve the American Dream in spite of increased education costs, housing costs, and general uncertainty. This book (Mascot Books, December 2019) outlines seven different financial strategies to help anyone achieve their personal economic goals. Howell is the president of the Jason Howell Company, where he helps families achieve their financial goals. He lives in Virginia with his wife and two daughters.
The Complete Guide to Ocean Cruising: Everything You Need to Know for a Great Vacation
Ashley Sugarnotch & the Wolf
Robert Lucas, MAIS ’92, and Stephen Tanzer
In this full-length poetry collection (Mason Jar Press, April 2020), two characters are cosmically intertwined, both moored to their past and to the expectations of society. Through syllabic and prose poems, the collection asks questions about what happens when people find themselves in a cycle of violence.
This book (Success Skills Press, September 2019) is a comprehensive source for everything one could hope to know about crui sing. The authors answer common questions and provide tips to save time, money, and stress. The authors wrote this book to share their experiences and lessons learned from more than 160 collective cruises.
Elizabeth Deanna Morris Lakes, MFA ’15
Lakes’s work has appeared in The Rumpus, SmokeLong Quarterly, and cahoodaloodaling. She has a chapbook, Patterning, from Corgi Snorkel Press. She is co-host of The Smug Buds, a podcast.
A Witch in Time Constance Sayers, MA English ’98 In this novel (Redhook, February 2020) Helen Lambert has been cursed. She has lived many extravagant lives but does not know it. A man tells Helen the truth of her past lives, and she tries to break the curse that has haunted her. Sayers’s short stories have previously appeared in Souvenir and The Sky Is a Free Country. She is also the cofounder of Thoughtful Dog, a literary magazine. She currently works as an executive for Atlantic Media and lives in Kensington, Maryland.
Enter the Aardvark Jessica Anthony, MFA Creative Writing ’04 This novel (Little, Brown and Company, March 2020) follows Alexander Paine Wilson, a young congressman who is having trouble coming to terms with his sexuality. It is a political satire, a ghost story, and a timely romance all at the same time. Anthony, also the author of the novel The Convalescent, currently teaches at Bates College in Maine.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY DENYS KURATCHENKO
PAT R I O T P R O F I L E
Denys Kuratchenko YEAR: Senior MAJOR: Information Systems and Operations Management HOMETOWN: Triangle, Virginia
In response to COVID-19, senior Denys Kuratchenko and others from the MIX’s maker community had planned to create 3D-printed personal protective equipment (PPE), such as face shields and masks for health care professionals and their patients. When it was announced that Mason campuses were closing, they knew they had to move fast. Kuratchenko retrieved his personal 3D printer from the space and received permission to take another three from the MIX. Soon, he was running a 24/7 “print farm” from his apartment in Triangle, Virginia. MAKING IT HAPPEN: It takes about four hours to print each frame of a face shield, Kuratchenko said, and, in March, he made more than 65 that were part of a shipment delivered to Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York. He even ordered a fifth 3D printer to increase his production capacity. “I’m not only helping doctors, but also giving their loved ones peace of mind knowing that their family member is more protected,” he says. THERE IS A HISTORY: This wasn’t the first time he used his 3D printing skills to make a difference in someone’s life. Before transferring to Mason, he was a student at Northern Virginia Community College and worked at the 3D printing lab there. He was tasked with creating a topographical map of Virginia to be used as a learning aid for a visually impaired child at a local middle school. “Seeing the excitement on her face was a really touching moment,” he says.
MAKING THE MOST OF IT: Kuratchenko, who is from Ukraine and has lived in Virginia for the past five years, has worked at the MIX @ Innovation, one of two campus makerspaces, as a maker assistant since coming to Mason in 2018. Mason students, faculty, and staff come in to use the equipment, including several 3D printers, and Kuratchenko assesses their needs to determine how they can best use the technology to achieve their goals. LENDING A ‘HAND’: When he’s not helping the Mason community on their projects, Kuratchenko works on his own. Earlier this academic year he 3D-printed a prosthetic hand to help people in need through the nonprofit organization Enabling the Future. The creation took about 40 hours of printer operation and 10 hours of assembly. ON CHOOSING MASON: Kuratchenko, who wants to work in industrial additive manufacturing, knew he wanted to attend Mason in high school. The university’s strong reputation and programs tailored to his interests were selling points. “Having access to all of these technologies is absolutely incredible.” —Mariam Aburdeineh, BA ’13
Summer 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 43
class notes
So Fresh an’ Fine, a Voice Divine
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s a young artist in the Domingo-Cafritz Washington National Opera Program in 2007, soprano Aundi Marie Moore, BM ’03, had the chance to chat with Plácido Domingo, one of the most famous opera singers in the world. But the question she asked didn’t have anything to do with music.
“I remember asking…how do you stay rich? He laughed! And he told me, ‘Real estate.’” Moore took the advice to heart, especially after the 2008-09 market crash, when artists were among the first groups to suffer financially. As opportunities to perform began to dwindle, she shifted gears. “I went into real estate school kicking and screaming, and it was the best thing I could have done for myself.” Now one of the top real estate agents in Maryland (under the name Andrea Barnett), Moore has continued to sing the modern opera that she loves and emphasizes that pursuing an alternate career path has afforded her more freedom to pursue her art. That ability to choose jobs paid off three years ago when Moore began performing the lead role of the mother in Onsite Opera’s production of Amahl and the Night Visitors. Presented in a New York City homeless shelter, the show includes cast members who were homeless. Moore’s performance made such an impression on the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera that she was offered the role of Strawberry Woman in the Met’s production of Porgy and Bess. Moore performed in the show’s final 10 performances, fulfilling a dream she’d given up on. “For my voice to go all the way back to that 4,000seat theater…[and] to hear the thunderous applause, the high is just something I cannot explain.” But none of that would have been possible without the education and mentorship she received in Mason’s School of Music. She cites her sight singing and ear training professor Linda Monson, choral professor Stanley Engebretson, and voice professor Patricia Miller, as the three Mason faculty members who had the most impact on her career. Of Miller, Moore says, “When I was having issues, I could just go to her and have a moment with someone who looks like me and just feel like I was at home for a second.” Engebretson frequently took Moore along on workshops abroad, introducing her to new countries and cultures. And the relationships didn’t end once Moore graduated. “They have followed my career,” she says. “They show up at my shows. They are waiting backstage at the door. Mason has gems in those professors.”
PHOTO BY ROY COX
The COVID-19 crisis reminds Moore of the market crash that propelled her into real estate. To those performers just starting out, she advises, “Find some other work that can go parallel with being an artist, so it can be a vehicle to help you. Artists feel like you are all in or you are not. There are other options.” —Priyanka Champaneri BA ’05, MFA ’10
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PHOTO BY CARL ZITZMANN
class notes
1970s
Lennie Burke, BA Physics ’70, has been certified as a national master guardian by the Center for Guardianship Certification. Burke is the 51st individual in the nation to receive this certification based on his extensive experience, recommendations from colleagues, and examinations. Guardians are appointed by a court to advocate for and make decisions for individuals who can no longer do so for themselves. Guardianship is Burke’s “encore” career. He previously worked for the Department of the Navy for 34 years, including 14 years as a member of the federal Senior Executive Service. Al Berg, BA Psychology ’71, has coached the Langley High School varsity golf team to four straight Virginia State High School golf championships. He was named All-Met Coach of the Year for the second time by the Washington Post and was named 2018–19 NHSCA National High School Golf Coach of the Year. Berg has coached six state championship teams at Langley. Timothy W. Cooke, BS Economics ’75, the CEO of ASI Government, was named to the 2020 Federal IT Top 100.
Kerry Miller, BA Sociology ’77, has been named general counsel of the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO). Miller has 40 years of experience handling legal issues for the federal government. As general counsel, Miller serves as chief legal officer for the agency. Miller, who began his career at GPO in 1980, left the agency in 2006 to serve as assistant chief counsel for the Federal Transit Administration before returning in 2012 as deputy general counsel. Miller earned his law degree from Catholic University.
1980s
Marc Rogoff, JD ’81, was an attorney for the Woodbridge Township Planning Board for more than 30 years. He was recently appointed to the Sayreville Borough Planning Board for two years. Ray Ashurst, MEd Coun seling and Development ’86, recently published his sixth book. The author of the books Battling Depression and No-Nonsense Life Skills, among others, he has been a clinical therapist for 50 years and was a Georgia school counselor for 25 years. Ashurst has lived in the mountains of northeast Georgia for 32 years. His family consists of three
mischievous cats and four energetic dogs. His purpose is to be a lifeline to those who are in need.
of the United States as a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of legislative affairs.
John Huggins, BS Electrical Engineering ’87, earned patents describing a technique to address the shortcomings in the notorious J-Pole antenna design.
Benjamin Rusnak, BA Speech Communication ’92, went on to a career in newspapers, spent 14 years as a photographer for NGOs in the developing world, and is now a commercial, editorial, and fine art photographer. Recently he has been an artist-in-residence at Zion and Capitol Reef National Parks. Some of his large-scale prints from the NGO work were exhibited at the Johnson Center after being at the World Bank.
Ken Budd, BA English ’88, MA English ’97, won a Gold Award and an honorable mention in the 2020 North American Travel Journalists Association Awards for his “Everyday Heroes” stories in the Saturday Evening Post. Budd’s story on a Kenyan orphanage for the Washington Post Magazine will appear in the 2020 edition of Best American Travel Writing.
1990s
Shelly Goodman, BSN ’91, has started a new role as vice president for pharmacovigilance and drug safety for Collegium Pharma. Michael McKenna, MPA ’92, has joined the Executive Office of the President
Michelle Marks, MA Psychology ’93, PhD ’98, was named chancellor of the University of Colorado, Denver, effective July 1. At Mason, Marks was a professor of management in the School of Business, associate provost for graduate education, and most recently vice provost for academic affairs. She helped launch ADVANCE, a nationally acclaimed program to help students from racially, ethnically, and
socioeconomically diverse families earn four-year degrees. David Shacochis, BS Urban Systems Engineering ’94, MBA ’00, was named vice president and field chief technology officer for the enterprise division of CenturyLink, a technology leader delivering networking, cloud, and security solutions to customers worldwide. Rosemarie Alley, BA English ’96, MEd ’98, co wrote with her husband, William, The War on the EPA: America’s Endangered Environmental Protections, published by Rowman and Littlefield. The book helps educate people about the importance of the EPA and threats to its scientific integrity. Anna Louise Pearman, MAIS ’97, was instrumental in launching the Indiana College Network (ICN). Since 2003, ICN has offered online courses, certificates, and degrees through its member institutions. A pioneer in distance learning, Pearman presented
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. Summer 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 45
class notes
I
am excited to begin my new role as the president of the George Mason University Alumni Association. After earning my MBA degree, I first became involved with Mason through a project with the School of Business. Since then, I have served on multiple volunteer leadership committees for both the School of Business and the university as a whole, including the Board of Trustees.
The Mason threads run deep—I come from a line of proud Patriots. My father taught as an adjunct faculty member in the Computer Science Department and also served on the Board of Trustees. When he opened his company in 1983, he felt that his ties to Mason gave him credibility in the market, and some of the business’s earliest successes were because of employees who were Mason grads. My wife is a Volgenau School of Engineering alumna, and my second son is enrolled in the School of Business. Building on the foundation of past Alumni Association presidents, I look forward to implementing our new strategic plan. Our new engagement strategies will focus on meeting alumni where they live, work, and play. Whether you graduated just this year or 30 years ago, we are here to serve as a resource for you and other alumni through every stage of life. My two-year term as president begins during unprecedented times. The last few months have been difficult for many of us, but it is heartening to see the Mason Nation rise to the challenges we are all facing. The university has transitioned its classes to online learning, and those graduating in the spring had a virtual celebration. Patriots Helping Patriots, a campaign created to help students facing financial obstacles, has benefitted from the support of our community, and alumni have helped make a difference for the next generation of Patriots. Even alumni-run businesses are giving back to those on the frontlines. While we cannot be close in proximity, during this time, we are learning what “Together, We Are Mason” really means. With Patriot Pride, Sumeet Shrivastava, MBA ’94 President, George Mason University Alumni Association
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her MAIS project at international academic conferences and received either complete acceptance and genuine interest, or outright skepticism and rejection. Undaunted, her virtual classroom went global with students logging in from as far away as India and nuclear-powered submariners studying at depths of up to 2,000 feet. She retired in 2018 and lives on California’s Central Coast. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Pearman is gratified to see students and universities fully embrace distance learning and is proud to have played a significant role in its early implementation. Bo Berlas, BS Decision Science and Management Information Systems ’98, chief information security officer with the General Services Administration, was named to the 2020 Federal IT Top 100. Constance Sayers, MA English ’98, published her debut novel, A Witch in Time (Redhook Hachette) in February. This book is the first of a three-book deal with Hachette. Zipora Assayag, BS Biology ’99, is the owner of Ora’s Amazing Herbal, which makes herbal-infused natural skin care for the whole family, including products such as natural diaper cream and Magic Face Potion.
2000s
Christina Dalcher, MA English ’00, the critically acclaimed author of the international bestseller VOX, published her second novel, Master Class (Berkley/ Penguin Random House), in April 2020. Master Class examines a disturbing near future where harsh realities follow from unreachable standards. Robert Pilaud, JD ’01, has joined the intellectual property department of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., in Boston, Massachusetts. Cindra Rehman, MS Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’01, accepted a position at the Bureau of Land Management in Reno, Nevada, as a grants management specialist. She reports that all three of her children have (finally) graduated from high school and are in college. David Chow, MBA ’03, chief information officer with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was named to the 2020 Federal IT Top 100. Benjamin Russell Davis, BS Economics ’04, MS Information Systems ’06, is the IT specialist at Editorial Inspirations, a company started by his wife, April Michelle Davis. The Davises are celebrating the birth of their little princess and the publication of April’s YA chapter book, A Princess in Disguise. The Davises
class notes
currently reside in the Richmond area and have two princes and one princess. They can be reached at aprilmichelledavis.com.
Chris Krebs, JD ’07, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, was named to the 2020 Federal IT Top 100. Laura Pascarella, BA Government and International Politics ’07, opened her first retail business, Basketful Lifestyle & Gifts, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Basketful sources from local artists and hundreds of small businesses across the globe, aiming to make gifting more eco-friendly by providing recycled or reusable gift and gift-wrap options. After graduating, Pascarella gained management and customer service experience administering passport and visa services at the U.S. Department of (continued on page 48)
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croll through Deanne Kaczerski’s, BS Psychology ’98, LinkedIn page, and you’ll see some of the top brands in publishing. She’s the digital executive editor of Travel + Leisure and Departures, and she’s held similar titles for sites such as MarthaStewart.com, InStyle.com, ELLE.com, and MarieClaire.com. It’s an impressive resume, though success was not exactly a surprise for the ambitious Kaczerski: She graduated from high school at age 16 and was the youngest person in her graduating class at Mason.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DEANNE KACZERSKI
Gary Gardner, BS Civil and Infrastructure Engineering ’04, CERG ’11, was promoted to associate vice president at Dewberry. Gardner is a senior project manager and leads the site/civil group in the Gainesville, Virginia, office. His experience includes designing and managing residential, commercial, retail, and mixed-use site/ civil and land development projects throughout Northern Virginia. Gardner is a licensed engineer in South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Taking the Digital World by Storm
“I couldn’t legally drink until after I graduated,” she says with a laugh (and yes, her parents decided she was too young to live on campus her freshman year). Kaczerski initially considered studying medicine, but she also enjoyed art and writing classes and wanted a creativity-focused career. After graduating from Mason, she worked for eight years at AOL, moving from programming to the content side and writing four to six stories a day. She next worked for Blackboard and then moved to New York City for jobs with media heavyweights such as Hearst, Time Inc., and Meredith. At Hearst, she cofounded RealBeauty.com, the company’s first digital-only beauty brand. She later launched a beauty site at Time Inc., called MIMI, which grew to 3 million monthly unique visitors in under a year. In 2016, she moved to Meredith and became digital executive editor of MarthaStewart.com. “I had been in the women’s lifestyle and luxury space for the majority of my career, so this was an opportunity to round out my knowledge,” she says of the focus on home. The switch intrigued her both professionally and personally. “I was like, I’m doing all of this stuff—I’m baking, I’m cooking, I’m raising a family—so this was a great next step.”
“That has always been part of my strategy—really digging into the data to understand why aren’t people engaging with this story? And if people are engaging, why? How can we replicate that?” Kaczerski has fond memories of life at Mason, but she particularly remembers an art class final exam. Students were required to build a cardboard chair— more like a throne, she says—and it had to hold your weight. “It was genius because it wasn’t just art. You had to use some engineering,” she says. “It was using both the left and right side of your brain to create something useful.” And yes, that’s exactly what she does so exceedingly well in the digital world. —Ken Budd, BA ‘88, MA ‘97
Her job now focuses on travel, but regardless of the site, Kaczerski loves scrutinizing data.
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class notes
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPECIAL OLYMPICS/BEN SOLOMON
State. Now married and the mother of two young boys, she refers to her new business as “a living MBA.” In 2019, her evenings and wee hours of the night were dedicated to preparing and, last November, launching Basketful’s storefront and shopbasketful.com.
Mason Special Olympics athlete Chris Carter was one of 12 basketball players selected to compete in the NBA Cares 2020 Unified Special Olympics Game during the NBA All-Star Weekend in February. Carter, a 2016 graduate of Mason’s LIFE Pro gram, threw the game-winning shot while playing with and against a number of NBA and WNBA players and legends. The Williamsburg, Virginia, native was nominated by his coach Emilio Alonso and chosen from among 34 applicants from seven countries.
Heather Putman, MBA ’08, product director for the U.S. Army’s General Funds Enterprise Business System Development and Modernization, was named to the 2020 Federal IT Top 100. Sudheendra Bhat, MS Computer Science ’09, is a solution architect at Amazon Web Services.
Lindsey Campbell, BA Health, Fitness, and Recreational Resources ’09, MS Sport and Recreation Studies ’12, accepted a promotion and is now working as associate director of development for the Patriot Club in Intercollegiate Athletics at George Mason University. Stephanie Refo, BS Accounting ’09, has been promoted to principal at UHY LLP, a national CPA firm. Refo has more than 10 years of experience providing auditing and tax services to Common Interest Realty Associations (CIRAs) and real estate companies. She consults with clients
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
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 IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT
COLLEGE OF SCIENCE ALUMNI CHAPTER
LAMBDA ALUMNI CHAPTER
Alejandro Asin, BA Sociology ’11
Christine Landoll, BS Accounting ’89, MS Taxation ’92
CHAPTER REPRESENTATIVES
LATINO ALUMNI CHAPTER
VICE PRESIDENT—WORK
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
CARTER SCHOOL FOR PEACE AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION ALUMNI CHAPTER
Jesse Binnall, BA Communication ’01, JD ’09
Yoshie Davison, MSW ’09 VICE PRESIDENT—PLAY
Raymond Wotring, BA Government and International Politics ’05 TREASURER
David Atkins, BS Decision Science ’90 HISTORIAN
Ailsa Ware Burnett, BS Public Administration ’93, MA Sociology ’96, MPA ’08 AT-LARGE DIRECTORS Mary Bramley, BA History ’07 Chatrane Birbal, MPA ’06 48 | SPI RIT.GMU.EDU
Lori Farro, BS ’14, MS Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’16 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
open
Scott Hine, BS Decision Science ’85
COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES ALUMNI CHAPTER
VOLGENAU SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ALUMNI CHAPTER
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
class notes
about new accounting treatments and different tax treatments available for CIRAs and assesses internal controls of associations and management companies.
D. Darell Dones, PhD Biodefense ’12, recently completed the book Terrorist Recruitment of U.S.-Based Gangs: Global Criminal Alliances and Biological Weapons, published by Rowman and Littlefield. Dones is a retired supervisory special agent and FBI Academy instructor with the FBI Behavioral Science Unit and current owner and senior consultant for Dones Global Solutions, LLC. Gillian Phillips, MSW ’14, is a case manager in the emergency and supported housing programs at Corner stones Inc., in Reston, Virginia. Gia Primerano, BA English ’17, graduated in 2019 with a master’s in writing studies from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Amy Osborne, BS Biology ’18, is working on a master’s in forensic science at Mason. About a year into the program, Osborne began working as a physical scientist in research and development for a federal agency in Washington, D.C.
PHOTO BY NASA
2010s
Mission to ‘Mars’
M
ounir Alafrangy (above seated) knows a bit about isolation and being quarantined. In October 2019, the George Mason University alumnus successfully completed a 45-day confined space mission at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Alafrangy, BA Art History ’10, was one of four crew members, known as analog astronauts, who were selected from a large pool of applicants to be part of Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) Mission XX, a space mission simulation to Phobos, the largest moon of the planet Mars.
Is there anything in your life that helped prepare you for this? I actually love being outdoors, so that presented a few challenges since I wasn’t able to see the sky or run. However, parts of that also prepared me, such as camping and the types of food you eat while backpacking. Almost everything we ate was dehydrated, so doing a 70-mile hike down the C&O Canal a couple summers ago helped prep me for that part of the experience. What did you do during those 45 days? Did they throw emergencies at you?
While they simulated a landing on Phobos, the crew stayed inside the HERA habitat in Houston for the duration of the mission. HERA is a ground-based analog used by NASA’s Human Research Program to study the effects of isolation and confinement on humans. This research will help NASA better understand the hazards of human spaceflight as it prepares to send astronauts to the Moon and on to Mars and bring them safely home.
We spent approximately 15 hours a day working on a variety of tasks. Generally speaking, those tasks were very similar to those experienced and done by astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). We captured cargo using the same mechanism, the Canadarm, they have on the ISS; we did virtual moon landings on Phobos where we collected samples; and we also did many experiments. Emergencies? No, they wouldn’t do that…would they?
In 2014, NASA started with seven-day missions, which have lengthened over time as systems, procedures, and objectives expanded. This was the seventh mission to last 45 days.
What do you do when not on a mission? When I’m not on a mission, I’m working on developing tools for use in the space environment, as I am passionate about deep space exploration. I also enjoy camping, hiking, and being outside. Being in confinement gave me additional appreciation for our beautiful blue sky. After all, there is no place like Earth. —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95 Summer 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 49
class notes
Obituaries ALUMNI AND STUDENTS
Paul T. Burke, BA Business and Public Administration ’68, d. October 28, 2019 Virginia O. Gavaghen, BA History ’71, d. January 25, 2020 Kirk D. Wrigley, BA Psychology ’71, d. October 3, 2019
Susan Buckley, BA Psychology ’79, MA Psychology ’88, d. January 27, 2020 Gary W. Eichhorst, BIS ’79, d. January 11, 2020 Sandra J. Grafton, BM ’79, d. February 5, 2020
Nancy R. Anthony, BSN ’84, d. February 9, 2020
Barbara M. Levering, MBA ’92, d. January 22, 2020
Anthony J. DeGregorio, BSEd Physical Education ’84, MS Physical Education ’89, d. November 29, 2019
Charlene T. Phillips, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’92, DA Education (Com munity College) ’01, d. October 26, 2019
Eugene H. Prosack, BS Economics ’84, d. March 13, 2020
Richard T. Bayless, BS Biology ’74, d. January 6, 2020
Barbara P. Lee, MEd Edu cation Administration and Supervision ’79, d. January 5, 2020
James O. Murphy Jr., BSEd Physical Education ’75, d. March 13, 2020
Waltraud M. Beierschmitt, BA German ’80, d. January 7, 2020
Harry D. Hink Jr., BSEd Physical Education ’85, d. December 15, 2019
Alvin J. Schilling, JD ’75, d. January 6, 2020
John A. Langford, JD ’80, d. January 9, 2020
Dort S. Bigg III, JD ’86, d. October 29, 2019
Bernard R. Kremer, BS Business Administration ’76, d. April 9, 2020
Carol L. Kelley, BA American Studies ’81, d. March 18, 2020
Anna Ruth Cagle, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’77, d. November 26, 2019
David S. DeAngelis, BS Business Administration ’82, d. February 19, 2020
Matthew J. F. Kershes, MEd Middle Education ’86, MEd Education Leadership ’01, d. January 28, 2020
Nancy A. Newman, BSN ’77, MSN ’80, CerG Nursing Education ’83, d. November 5, 2019
Lauris M. Eek III, MBA ’83, d. October 25, 2019
Deane M. Burke, JD ’88, d. December 21, 2019
John E. Leonard, MEd Counseling and Devel opment ’83, d. January 15, 2020
Jack C. McMahon, BS Economics ’88, d. February 26, 2020
Christa Haefner Sullivan, BSN ’77, d. November 15, 2019 Warren W. McLain, JD ’78, d. December 14, 2019 Dolores S. Morisseau, BA Psychology ’78, MA Psychology ’80, d. November 18, 2019 Marija V. Morris, BA Biology ’78, d. November 24, 2019
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Carolyn L. Olson, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’83, d. November 14, 2019 Audrey K. Reniere, BS Business Administration ’83, d. November 18, 2019 Shirley G. Vasy, MEd Education Administration and Supervision ’83, MEd Counseling and Development ’98, d. October 27, 2019
Pauline K. Trevino, BA Psychology ’84, d. January 27, 2020
Rogene D. Kyles, JD ’87, d. April 11, 2020
Monique Otegui, BS Finance ’88, d. February 10, 2020 Jim J. Dunphy Jr., MA History ’89, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’06, d. April 13, 2020 Laurence J. Tracy, JD ’89, d. February 16, 2020 Wayne W. Carroll, MBA ’91, d. March 3, 2020
Liane D. Ray, BA Government and Politics ’92, d. February 27, 2020 Timothy V. Norton, BA Foreign Languages ’95, d. January 26, 2020
Carl W. Stephens, MS Operations Research and Management Science ’00, d. December 30, 2019 Lawrence Wink Jr., MEd Education Leadership ’00, d. November 18, 2019 Everth J. Zalaya (Trigueros), BS Business Administration ’00, d. November 30, 2019 Jean E. Wilson, BIS ’01, d. December 6, 2019
Joseph L. Browning, MS Information Systems ’96, d. January 31, 2020
Jill M. Crafton Dart, BS Health Science ’03, d. November 26, 2019
Jan F. Kuryz, MEd Cur riculum and Instruction ’96, d. February 17, 2020
Michael C. Milchak, BSEd Physical Education ’03, d. December 15, 2019
Christopher W. Scott, BA English ’96, d. January 3, 2020
Scott R. Stackhouse, BS Economics ’03, d. November 11, 2019
Marcel R. Zamora, BA International Studies ’96, d. January 15, 2020
Lucy C. Baker, BA Anthro pology ’04, d. December 25, 2019
Ronald H. Klausewitz, PhD Information Technology ’98, d. January 29, 2020
Elizabeth A. Hildebidle, BA Psychology ’04, d. November 28, 2019
Christopher A. Barker, MAIS ’00, d. April 23, 2020
Catherine M. Gander, MSW ’07, d. February 10, 2020
Jacqueline H. Bray, BA Studio Art ’00, d. January 24, 2020 Greg J. Cunningham, BIS ’00, d. November 15, 2019 Dana M. Grabiner, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’00, d. November 6, 2019
Laura J. Boyles, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’09, d. January 9, 2020 Joshua P. Hart, BS Psy chology ’09, d. March 8, 2020 Steven Beveridge, BS Information Technology ’10, d. January 6, 2020
class notes
Adam T. Curtis, BS Com puter Science ’10, d. February 8, 2020 Leonard E. Mathey Jr., BA Integrative Studies ’10, d. February 27, 2020 Jeanine M. Neal, MS Conflict Analysis and Reso lution ’11, d. March 15, 2020 Martin A. Weeks, LLM Intellectual Property ’14, d. March 24, 2020 William W. Donnelly, BS Criminology, Law and Society ’16, d. March 16, 2020 Dana M. Ek, BA Global Affairs ’17, d. March 14, 2020 Joshua Costa, BS Civil and Infrastructure Engineering ’19, d. January 5, 2020
FACULTY, STAFF, AND FRIENDS Randolph “Ranny” Warner Church Jr., 85, died March 24 in Charlottesville, Virginia, after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. In 1984 he became a partner in the Richmond law firm Hunton & Williams and, with four other lawyers, opened its Northern Virginia office where he served as managing partner until his retirement in 1999. Church was active in civic affairs, serving on Mason’s Board of Visitors from 1982 to 1990 and as its rector from 1983 to 1986. In 1999 he brought together several interests to create the Mason-based Fall for the Book festival, now in its 21st year. He was the festival’s first president and remained on the board until 2018. He and his wife of nearly 50 years, Lucy Canary Church, worked in many political and cultural activities, particularly in support of the arts and Mason where they endowed two scholarships. Dalton Ebanks passed away on April 25 in Connecticut due to complications from COVID-19. He was 68. Ebanks coached track and field at Mason for 19 years, including eight seasons as the head coach from 1997 to 2005. A native of Jamaica, he first came to Mason in 1985 as an assistant coach with the women’s team. He served in that capacity through 1990 when he became an assistant coach with the men’s team. Ebanks was a member of the coaching staff that won the 1996 NCAA Indoor Track and Field National Championship and was runner-up in the 1997 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Ebanks rose to the position of head coach in 1997 and maintained the program’s strength through strong recruiting in his native country of Jamaica. During his tenure, Ebanks produced an NCAA champion, numerous All-Americans, and four Olympians.
Edgar Henry Sibley, professor emeritus of computer science, died peacefully at his home in Oakton, Virginia, on January 12. He was 93. Sibley was born and raised in England in the time leading up to World War II. He earned degrees from the University of London and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His academic career spanned more than 45 years and culminated with his time at Mason. In 1984 he was named an Eminent Scholar and University Professor with appointments in the School of Information Technology and Engineering and the Institute for Public Policy. For a time, he served as the acting chair for the Department of Information and Software System Engineering. He held these positions until his retirement in 2011. Sibley is remembered as a dedicated professor and mentor who helped many Mason students and community members during his career. Darius Swann, a civil rights advocate and Presbyterian minister, died at his home in Burke, Virginia, on March 25. He was 95. Swann had been a popular and respected member of the Mason faculty from 1971 to 1984. He is probably best known as the plaintiff in the 1965 federal court case Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education, which made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971, with the court ruling in Swann’s favor. Swann arrived at Mason in August 1971, teaching religion and later, drama. When Vergil Dykstra became Mason’s second president in 1973, one of his first priorities was to increase the number of minority students attending Mason. He appointed Swann special assistant to the president for minority affairs, which was the university’s first administrative role created to assist minority students. Swann advocated for a center with appropriate staffing to mentor minority students during their university experience. The university agreed and created the Office of Minority Student Affairs, a precursor to today’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Multicultural Education. In 1984, Swann left the university to continue his career at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.
Summer 2020 M A S O N S P I R I T | 51
PHOTO COURTESY OF DEAN TACIUCH
MASON MEMORIES
QUARANTEACHING NOTES
I 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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already teach English 302 online, so transitioning my existing hybrid 302s to online was fairly straightforward. My creative writing class was a bit trickier, but I kept one of the two scheduled weekly meetings as a synchronous BlackBoard Collaborate session each week. I dropped many of the small assignments— turned them into exercises, which we discuss each week. Not all of the students can attend, but I record the sessions and the chat logs and put them online as well. But I’m afraid to watch them. When I make videos for my online classes, I edit them. A lot. I take out all the “umms’ and “so. . .s” and other odd pauses. I make myself sound organized by cutting out the meanderings. I’ll cut 20 minutes down to 10, and then cut that into two five-minute chunks before posting it. What the Collaborate recordings will reveal, I’m afraid, is that I’m not really very organized. But here’s the thing: My students already know that. They’ve been in my classes and heard me answer a question with
a 10-minute anecdote and then forget what we were talking about. They’ve heard all my verbal tics and awkward pauses. That’s who I am. So, I’m OK with the unedited Collaborate videos, with my cat walking into [the] camera and my dogs barking and me forgetting what screen I wanted to show. It is an accurate portrayal. And I enjoy seeing and/or hearing my students, talking about how they are coping. So what if we talk about pets and weather? That’s what we need to do right now. We still talk about their projects, due dates, submission guidelines. The synchronous sessions give some structure, messy as it may be, to the week. But if I can figure out how to edit those video sessions, I will.
Dean Taciuch teaches poetry, literature, composition, and digital media classes in the Department of English and the Honors College. He has taught at Mason since 1995.
Invite George to a quiet night in He’ll let you pick the movie. Geo. Mason wines are available online and in store! Support student scholarships at George Mason University while enjoying a bottle or two.
Find wines at local retailers and online at geomasonwines.com
4400 University Drive, MS 3B3 Fairfax, Virginia 22030
PHOTO BY RAFAEL SUANES
A MASON FIRST—In February, George Mason’s men’s swimming and diving team won its first Atlantic 10 Championship in program history. Mason took the lead on day two and never looked back, claiming the championship with 657 points. “This has been 20 years in the making,” says Coach Peter Ward, who was named the 2020 Atlantic 10 Men’s Head Coach of the Year. “They came together at the right time, performed at the highest level, and we were able to come away with a championship.”
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