George Mason University

Motto	Freedom and Learning
Type	Public university
Established	1957
Endowment	US$ 70.2 million (2014)
President	Ángel Cabrera
Provost	S. David Wu
Academic staff	2,893
Students	33,917 [1]
Undergraduates	21,324 (Fall 2013) [1]
Postgraduates	11,873 (Fall 2013) [1]
Location	Fairfax Arlington Manassas Sterling[2] , Virginia , USA 38°49′51″N 77°18′27″W / 38.8308°N 77.3075°W / 38.8308; -77.3075
Campus	Suburban, 854.2 acres (3.457 km2) total across 4 campuses 677 acres (2.74 km2) Fairfax Campus
Colors	Mason Green and Mason Gold    [3]
Nickname	Patriots
Affiliations	APLU ORAU SURA
Mascot	The Patriot (formerly "Gunston")
Website	www.gmu.edu
File:GMU logo.svg

George Mason University (also Mason)^[5] located in Fairfax, Virginia, United States, is the largest public research university in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The university was founded as a branch of the University of Virginia in 1957 and became an independent institution in 1972.^[6][7] Today, Mason is recognized for its strong programs in economics, law, creative writing, computer science, and business.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} In recent years, George Mason faculty have twice won the Nobel Prize in Economics.^[13] The university enrolls 33,917 students, making it the largest university by head count in the Commonwealth of Virginia.^[14]

History

University of Virginia (1949-1972)

During the fall of 1949, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville was interested in creating an extension center to serve Northern Virginia. The Extension Center, which offered organized classes starting the winter of 1950, was located on the property of Washington & Lee High School in Arlington, VA. Both credit and non-credit courses were offered, and all classes took place in the evening. By the end of 1952, enrollment increased to 1,192 students from 665 students the previous year.^[15]

The Virginia General Assembly passed a resolution in January 1956, establishing a branch college of the University of Virginia in Northern Virginia. In September 1957 the new college opened its doors to seventeen students, all of whom enrolled as freshmen in a small renovated elementary school building at Bailey's Crossroads. John Norville Gibson Finley served as Director of the new branch, which was known as University College.^[16]

The city of Fairfax purchased and donated 150 acres (0.61 km²) of land to the University of Virginia for the college's new site,^[17] which was referred to as the Fairfax Campus. In 1959, the Board of Visitors of UVA selected a permanent name for the college: George Mason College of the University of Virginia. The Fairfax campus construction planning that began in early 1960 showed visible results when the development of the first 40 acres (160,000 m²) of Fairfax Campus began in 1962. In the Fall of 1964 the new campus welcomed 356 students.

During the 1966 Session of the Virginia General Assembly, Alexandria delegate James M. Thomson, with the backing of the University of Virginia, introduced a bill in the General Assembly to make George Mason College a four-year institution under the University of Virginia’s direction. The measure, known as H 33,^[18] passed the Assembly easily and was approved on March 1, 1966 making George Mason College a degree-granting institution. During that same year, the local jurisdictions of Fairfax County, Arlington County, and the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church agreed to appropriate $3 million to purchase land adjacent to Mason to provide for a 600-acre (2.4 km²) Fairfax Campus with the intention that the institution would expand into a regional university of major proportions, including the granting of graduate degrees.

George Mason University (1972-Present)

On Friday April 7, 1972, a contingent from George Mason College, led by Chancellor Lorin A. Thompson, met with Virginia Governor A. Linwood Holton at Richmond. They were there to participate in the Governor’s signing into law Virginia General Assembly Bill H 210 separating George Mason College from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville and renaming it George Mason University.^[19] In 1978, George W. Johnson was appointed to serve as the fourth president. Under his eighteen-year tenure, the University expanded both its physical size and program offerings at a tremendous rate. Shortly before Johnson’s inauguration in April 1979, Mason acquired the School of Law and the new Arlington Campus. The University also became a doctoral institution. Toward the end of Johnson’s term, Mason would be deep in planning for a third campus in Prince William County at Manassas. Major campus facilities, such as Student Union Building II, Patriot Center, Center for the Arts, and the Johnson Learning Center, were all constructed over the course of Johnson’s eighteen years as University President. Enrollment once again more than doubled from 10,767 during the fall of 1978 to 24,368 in the spring of 1996.^[20] Dr. Alan G. Merten was appointed president in 1996. He believed that University's location made it responsible for both contributing to and drawing from its surrounding communities—local, national, and global. George Mason was becoming recognized and acclaimed in all of these spheres. During Merten's tenure, the University hosted the World Congress of Information Technology (WCIT) in 1998, celebrated a second Nobel Prize-winning faculty member in 2002, and cheered the Men’s Basketball team’s in their NCAA Final Four appearance in 2006. Enrollment increased from just over 24,000 students in 1996 to approximately 33,000 during the spring semester of 2012, making George Mason Virginia’s largest public university and gained prominence at the national level.^[21]

Dr. Ángel Cabrera, officially took office on July 1, 2012. Both Cabrera and the Board were well aware that Mason was part of a rapidly changing academia, full of challenges to the viability of higher education. In a resolution on August 17, 2012, the Board asked Dr. Cabrera to create a new strategic vision that would help Mason remain relevant and competitive in the future. The drafting of the Vision for Mason, from conception to official outline, created a new mission statement that defines the university.^[22]

On March 25, 2013 George Mason University President Dr. Ángel Cabrera held a press conference to formally announce the university’s decision to leave the Colonial Athletic Association to join the Atlantic 10 Athletic Conference (A-10). The announcement came just days after the Board of Visitors’ approval of the university's Vision document that Dr. Cabrera had overseen. Mason began competition in the A-10 during the 2013-2014 academic year, and Mason’s association with the institutions that comprise the A-10 started a new chapter in Mason athletics, academics, and other aspects of university life.^[23]

George Mason Statue

The bronze statue of George Mason was created by Wendy M. Ross and dedicated on April 12, 1996.^[24] The 7½ foot statue shows George Mason presenting his first draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights which was later the basis for the U.S. constitution’s Bill of Rights. Beside Mr. Mason is a model of a writing table that is still in the study of Gunston Hall, Mason’s Virginia estate.  The books on the table – volumes of Hume, Locke and Rousseau – represent influences in his thought.

Academics

Mason offers 81 undergraduate degrees, 88 master’s degrees and a law degree at its Fairfax, Arlington, Prince William and Loudoun County campuses.^[25]

Mason also offers a variety of study abroad options through its Center for Global Education.

As of fall 2014, the University had 33,791 students enrolled, including 21,672 undergraduates, 7,022 seeking master’s degrees, 2,264 seeking doctoral degrees and 493 seeking law degrees.^[26]

The student-faculty ratio is 16:1 and the average class size ranges from 25 to 35 students.^[27]

Admission to the Honors College is based on a holistic review of each student’s academic performance as well as any other information included in the general application, such as rigor of coursework, standardized test scores, class rank, essay response, teacher recommendations, outstanding leadership, and commitment to community service. Admission to the Honors College requires an application and is open to both freshmen and transfer students.

Approximately 20 students each year are named University Scholars, Mason’s highest academic distinction, which includes a full tuition scholarship.

The 3+3 Accelerated Program^[28] offers highly motivated George Mason University undergraduate students a fast track to earn both a bachelor's degree and a law degree in six, rather than seven, years of study.

Colleges and Schools

Accreditation

George Mason University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC) to award bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. The university’s accreditation was most recently reaffirmed in December, 2011,^[29] and extends until 2021.  However, the university will undergo a more focused mid-point review in 2017.

Campus Locations

George Mason University has four campuses in Northern Virginia and one in South Korea and employs a distributed campus model.^[30] For the University, this means that instead of having a main campus and branch campuses focused on duplicating academic offerings, the physical home for a given academic program may be on any one of the campus locations. The main administrative center is at the Fairfax Campus in Fairfax, Virginia. It is also the location of the 6,500 students who live on campus in residence halls as well as the location of the Patriot Center, a 10,000-seat multi-purpose arena and home to the NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball teams.

Fairfax

The University's Fairfax Campus is situated on 677 landscaped acres with a large pond in a suburban environment in the City of Fairfax in central Fairfax County. Off-campus amenities are within walking distance and Washington, D.C. is approximately 20 miles from campus, accessible by surface transportation or Metro’s Orange Line (via a connecting bus from the campus).^[31][32] Notable buildings include the 320,000 student union building, the Johnson Center; the Center for the Arts, an 2,000-seat concert hall; the 180,000-square-foot Long and Kimmy Nguyen Engineering Building; Exploratory Hall for science, new in 2013; an astronomy observatory and telescope; the 88,900-square-foot Art and Design Building; the newly expanded Fenwick Library;^[33] the Krasnow Institute; and three fully appointed gyms and an aquatic center for student use.^[34] The stadiums for indoor and outdoor track and field, baseball, softball, tennis, soccer and lacrosse are also on the Fairfax campus,^[35] as is Masonvale, a housing community for faculty, staff and graduate students.^[36] The smallest building on the campus is the 33-square-foot information booth.^[37]

Arlington

The Arlington Campus is situated on 5.2 acres in a bustling urban environment on the edge of Arlington, Virginia's Clarendon business district and four miles from downtown Washington, D.C. The campus was founded in 1979 with the acquisition of a law school;^[38] in 1998 Hazel Hall opened to house the Mason School of Law; subsequent development created Founders Hall, home of the School for Policy, Government, and International Affairs, the Center for Regional Analysis and the graduate-level administrative offices for the School of Business. An adjacent building houses the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, the Mercatus Center, and the Institute for Humane Studies. The campus also houses the 300-seat Founders Hall Auditorium. The Arlington campus is served by the Washington Metro by the Virginia Square-GMU station on the Orange line. The station is located approximately two blocks west of the campus.

Science and Technology Campus

The University's Prince William campus opened on August 25, 1997 in Manassas, Virginia, on 134 acres of land, some currently undeveloped.^[39] More than 4,000 students are enrolled in classes in bioinformatics, biotechnology, computer and information technology and forensic biosciences educational and research programs.^[40] There also are undergraduate programs in health, fitness and recreation; graduate programs in exercise, fitness and health; and nontraditional programs through continuing and professional education in geographic information systems and facility management. Much of the research takes place in the Biomedical Research Laboratory, a high-security facility. The 1,123-seat Merchant Hall and the 300-seat Verizon Auditorium in the Hylton Performing Arts Center, which opened in 2010,^[41] share the campus with the 110,000-square-foot Freedom Aquatic and Fitness Center, operated by Mason and local governments and the Mason Enterprise Center. The Mason Center for Team and Organizational Learning—the EDGE— is an experiential education facility open to the public. On April 23, 2015 the campus was renamed to the George Mason University Science and Technology Campus.^[42]

Mason Korea

In March 2014, Mason opened Mason Korea. The campus is in Songdo, in South Korea’s Incheon Free Economic Zone, a 42,000-acre site designed for 850,000 people. It’s 25 miles from Seoul and a two-hour flight from China and Japan. Matthew Zingraff is president and provost of Mason Korea. Students attending Mason Korea will earn a Mason degree just as they would if they took classes on Mason’s Virginia campuses. Mason Korea students will spend the fourth and fifth semesters (third year) on the Fairfax Campus, with all other course work to be completed in Songdo. Economics and management are the first course offerings and were specifically requested by Korea’s Ministry of Education. Future degrees include global affairs, conflict analysis and resolution and computer gaming.

The South Korean government approached Mason in 2008 about opening a Mason campus in Songdo. A $1 million grant in 2009 from the Korean government made it possible for Mason to begin detailed planning. The Korean government will subsidize Mason’s Songdo campus for at least the first five years, including free use of buildings and utilities.^[43]

Student Life

Traditions

The George Mason Statue

George can often be found holding green and yellow balloons or adorned in Mason gear since decorating George with paper, ribbons, balloons and signage during organizational activities, homecoming, alumni weekend and other university events is common tradition. Another statue tradition is to rub George’s toe for good luck before an exam. Posing for a photo with George on your first day of class and in your academic regalia is considered a "must-do" for Mason students.^[44]

Fight Song

School of Music professor, Anthony J. Maiello wrote the original George Mason Fight Song between 1988-1990.  The lyrics were written and edited in 2009 by Michael “Doc Nix” Nickens, a Mason professor of music and director of Mason’s Green Machine

Mason Day

Mason Day,^[45] held on the last Friday of the spring semester, is George Mason University's longest-standing tradition and has been celebrating Mason Day since before Mason was an independent university. The event started in 1965^[46] as the Mason’s version of University of Virginia’s Founders Day, which celebrated Thomas Jefferson’s birthday on April 13. The event has evolved over the years and features carnival food like funnel cakes and amusement park rides, in addition to local bands with a nationally known headliner.

Bench Painting

Each spring, student organizations at Mason compete to paint one of the 38 benches located on the Quad in front of Fenwick Library.^[47] For years, student organizations have painted those benches that line the walkway to gain recognition for their group. With more than 300 student organizations, there is much competition to paint one of the benches. Painting takes place in the spring.^[44]

Residence Life

Housing

More than 6,000 George Mason students reside on campus in over 40 residence halls.^[48] Student housing is comprised of traditional style halls, suite-style halls, and apartment-style halls. The majority of freshmen live in traditional style halls though some have the opportunity to live in suites.  All upper-class students live in suite-style or apartment-style halls. Mason's residences are grouped into three neighborhoods – Aquia, Rappahannock, and Shenandoah.^[49]

Student Organizations

George Mason offers more than 200 clubs and organizations,^[50] including 16 fraternities, 15 sororities, 24 international student organizations, 25 religious organizations, a student programming board, student government, club sports, debate team, and student media. In a 2004 survey of 357 universities, Mason was ranked number one for diversity.^[51] The Office of Student Involvement at Mason administers Student Government, Patriot Activities Council (PAC) Fraternity and Sorority Life, Graduate and Professional Student Association (GAPSA), and Weekends at Mason (WAM).^[52] Mason also offers an Army ROTC program, called The "Patriot Battalion."

Student Media

Mason sponsors several student-run media outlets through the Office of Student Media.

• The Fourth Estate: Weekly student newspaper, available on Mondays.
• Connect2Mason: The online platform of The Fourth Estate. The website features daily updates about what's happening around campus, as well as breaking news, and up-to-date sports coverage.
• The George Mason Review: A cross-disciplinary, undergraduate journal.
• Hispanic Culture Review: Publishes creative writing, book reviews, narratives, and essays in both Spanish and English. Published annually.
• Mason Cable Network: A television outlet run by the students, for the students that provides analytical, and entertaining programming.
• Phoebe: A journal that annually publishes original works of literature and art.  
• So to Speak: A feminist journal that publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art each semester.
• Volition: Formerly known as Apathy, is George Mason University's undergraduate creative literature and art magazine.
• WGMU Radio: Broadcasts a wide array of music, talk, sports, and news programming. WGMU is also the flagship station for George Mason's Men's and Women's Basketball team, part of the Go Mason Digital Network.

Greek Life

Mason has 35 fraternities and sororities,^[53] with a total Greek population of about 1,800. Mason does not have a traditional “Greek Row” of housing specifically for fraternities, although recruitment, charitable events—including a spring Greek Week—and other chapter activities take place on the Fairfax Campus.^[54]

Athletics

Division 1 Teams

The George Mason Patriots are the athletic teams of George Mason University located in Fairfax, Virginia.^[55] The Patriots compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as members of the Atlantic 10 Conference for most sports. About 485 student-athletes compete in 22 men's and women's Division I sports - baseball, basketball, cross-country, golf, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, indoor and outdoor track and field, volleyball, and wrestling. Intercollegiate men's and women's teams are members of the Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, the Atlantic 10, the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC), the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA), the Eastern Wrestling League (EWL), and the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America (IC4A).^[56]

Club Sports

In addition to its NCAA Division I teams, George Mason University has several club sports.^[57] The club sports offer students a chance to compete at a high level without the time commitment of a D-I/Varsity team in sports including - badminton, baseball, basketball (women's), bowling, cricket, crew, cycling, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, football, ice hockey, lacrosse (men's and women's), paintball, quidditch, rugby (men's and women's), running, soccer (men's and women's), swimming, tae kwon do, trap & skeet, triathlon, ultimate frisbee (men's and women's), volleyball (men's and women's), wrestling, and underwater hockey. Clubs have a competitive range from regional competition to yearly participation in U.S. National College Club Level Championships.

Presidents past and present

• 

  Lorin A. Thompson, (1966–73)
• Vergil H. Dykstra, (1973–1977)^{[citation needed]}
• Robert C. Krug, (1977–1978)^{[citation needed]}
• George W. Johnson, (1978–1996)
• Alan G. Merten, (1996–2012)^[58]
• Ángel Cabrera, (2012–Present)^[59]

Notable alumni

Corporate/non-profit

• Muna Abu-Sulayman, Secretary General and Executive Director, Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation
• Yusuf Azizullah, consultant
• Erden Eruç, president and CEO of the non-profit Around-n-Over and the first solo human-powered circumnavigator of the globe^[60][61]
• Zainab Salbi, President, Women for Women International
• Will Seippel, business executive
• Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association
• Martin Andrew Taylor, former senior executive Corporate VP of Windows Live and MSN, Chief of Staff to Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Government and politics

Literary and media

• Brolin Walters, author, CNN^[67]

Sports and entertainment

Other

Notable faculty

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department of Economics

• Peter Boettke
• Kenneth E. Boulding, cofounder of the General Systems Theory, winner of the John Bates Clark Medal
• Donald J. Boudreaux
• James M. Buchanan, Nobel Prize-winning economist (1986)
• Henry N. Butler
• Bryan Caplan
• Tyler Cowen
• Christopher Coyne
• Richard H. Fink, Executive Vice President of the Koch Industries
• Joseph L. Fisher, U.S. Congressman from Virginia
• Jack A. Goldstone
• Wendy Lee Gramm
• Robin Hanson
• Laurence Iannaccone
• Manuel H. Johnson, Former Vice Governor of the Federal Reserve
• Arnold Kling
• Daniel B. Klein
• Don Lavoie
• Peter T. Leeson
• Kevin McCabe
• Maurice McTigue, former Minister for Labor in New Zealand
• James C. Miller III, Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan
• Jennifer Morse
• Russell Roberts
• George Selgin
• Vernon L. Smith, Nobel Prize-winning economist (2002)
• Alex Tabarrok
• Robert Tollison
• Gordon Tullock, Developed the Public Choice Theory
• Bruce Yandle, Executive Director of the Federal Trade Commission
• Richard E. Wagner
• Lawrence H. White
• Walter E. Williams, John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics
• Bart Wilson

School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution

• Kevin Avruch - Henry Hart Rice Professor of Conflict Resolution and Professor of Anthropology and Dean of S-CAR
• Marc Gopin - James H. Laue Professor of World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution
• Susan Hirsch - Professor of Conflict Resolution and Anthropology
• Richard E. Rubenstein - University Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs

School of Public Policy

• Zoltan Acs
• David S. Alberts, Director of Research for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense
• Kenneth Button
• Thomas M. Davis, former U.S. Congressman from Virginia
• Desmond Dinan
• Richard Florida
• William Conrad Gibbons
• Marc Gopin
• Stephen Haseler
• Michael Hayden, former CIA Director
• Seymour Martin Lipset
• Patrick Mendis, US Diplomat, NATO military professor, and author
• Patrick Michaels
• Thomas J. Miller, US Ambassador to Greece, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Bill Schneider (journalist), CNN's senior political analyst
• Louise Shelley
• Jeremy Shearmur
• Richard Norton Smith
• John N. Warfield

College of Science

• David Albright
• Ken Alibek, Colonel in the Soviet Union in charge of biodefense
• Robert Axtell
• Caroline Crocker, immunopharmacologist who teaches creationist claims about evolution
• Peter J. Denning
• Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein, mathematician and cryptanalyst
• Klaus Fischer, mathematician
• Peter A. Freeman
• Robert Hazen, Clarence Robinson Professor of Earth Science, and author
• Abul Hussam, inventor of the Sono arsenic filter, for which he received the 2007 sustainability prize awarded by the National Academy of Engineering
• Thomas Lovejoy
• Angela Orebaugh
• Suresh V. Shenoy
• Fred Singer
• Jagdish Shukla, founding member of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics
• John P. Snyder, cartographer
• James Trefil, physicist, and author
• Ernst Volgenau, chairman and founder of SRA International
• Edward Wegman, statistician
• Boris Willis
• Christine Fox, acting deputy secretary of defense

School of Business

• Teresa J. Domzal, dean of the School of Business
• Jim Larranaga, Mason's head men's basketball coach from 1997 to 2011
• Anthony Sanders, Distinguished Professor of Real Estate Finance
• Raymond W. Smith

School of Law

• Jonathan H. Adler, American legal commentator and law professor
• Helen M. Alvaré, an advisor to Pope Benedict XVI's Pontifical Council for the Laity, as well as an ABC News consultant
• Peter Berkowitz
• David Bernstein
• Lawrence J. Block, Federal Judge
• Frank H. Buckley
• Henry N. Butler, Republican Candidate for member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 11th congressional district
• Susan Dudley, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President George W. Bush
• Victoria Espinel, United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator
• Adrian S. Fisher, lawyer, diplomat, and politician during the 1960s and 1970s
• Sandra Froman, President of the National Rifle Association of America
• Sigrid Fry-Revere, founder and president of Center for Ethical Solutions
• Ernest Gellhorn
• Douglas H. Ginsburg, judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Ronald Reagan's nominee to the United States Supreme Court
• Irving Kayton, founder of the Patent Resources Group, Inc. (PRG)
• William Kovacic, former member of the Federal Trade Commission
• Michael I. Krauss, former Commissioner for Québec's Human Rights Commission
• William H. Lash, former United States Assistant Secretary of Commerce
• James LeMunyon, former United States Assistant Secretary of Commerce
• Robert A. Levy, is the chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute and the organizer and financier behind District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court Case that established the Second Amendment as affirming an individual right to gun ownership.
• Leonard Liggio, Vice President of Atlas Economic Research Foundation
• Deborah Platt Majoras, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission
• Henry Manne
• James C. Miller III, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and Budget Director for President Ronald Reagan
• John Warwick Montgomery^[69]
• Timothy Muris, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission
• Paul F. Nichols, is a former delegate to the Virginia General Assembly.
• Raymond O'Brien
• Daniel D. Polsby, Dean of Law
• Jeremy A. Rabkin
• Steve Ricchetti, he served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff in the administration of President Bill Clinton and on March 5, 2012 he was appointed to be counselor to Vice President Joe Biden.
• Chuck Robb, former Governor of Virginia and former U.S. Senator
• William J. Roberts, copyright royalty judge
• Kyndra Miller Rotunda, Army JAG officer
• Hans-Bernd Schäfer
• Loren A. Smith, Federal Judge
• Michael Uhlmann
• Clay T. Whitehead, former director of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy
• Todd Zywicki, former Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission

School of Recreation, Health, and Tourism

• Steve Baumann, Chief Executive of the National Soccer Hall of Fame
• Charley Casserly, General Manager of the Washington Redskins and Houston Texans
• Craig Esherick, former head coach of the Georgetown basketball team

George Mason University Press

George Mason University Press is the official publishing extension of George Mason University. GMU Press is distributed through University of Virginia Press.^{[citation needed]}