Author: Samantha Hill

Have you accepted the Patriot Pantry Challenge?

President Gregory Washington challenged the Mason Nation to donate 5,000 lbs. of nonperishable food and hygiene items to the Patriot Pantry by the end of February. The Office of University Branding accepted the challenge, donating over 100 lbs. of items before winter break.

Check out the video.

Donations support Patriots who are facing food insecurity and can be dropped off in person in SUB I, Room 3011. You can also order popular items through the pantry’s Amazon Wish List, or make a monetary donation to the Student Food and Housing Insecurity Fund at giving.gmu.edu.

Donate and share on social media using #PatriotPantryChallenge and #MasonNation in your post.

Homecoming 2023: Registration Now Open

Homecoming 2019. Photo by: Ron Aira/Creative Services/George Mason University

Mason celebrates its winter graduates

Graduates attend the Patriot Procession at EagleBank Arena. Photo by: Ron Aira/Creative Services/ George Mason University

Shop on AmazonSmile and Support Mason’s Patriot Pantry

Mason among the six Virginia universities awarded Mental Health Workforce Pilot grants

Dr. Rachel Wernicke, Associate Dean and Chief Mental Health Officer, [email protected]

Patriot Pantry Challenge

Join the Patriot Pantry Challenge! Between now and February, help us stock the Patriot Pantry with 5,000 pounds of non-perishable food and hygiene items. All donations will support Patriots who are facing food insecurity. Check out the video.

Donations can be dropped off in person in SUB I, Room 3011. You can also order popular items through the pantry’s Amazon Wish List, or make a monetary donation to the Student Food and Housing Insecurity Fund at giving.gmu.edu.

Follow President Washington’s updates on the challenge on Instagram and Twitter.

Mental Health First Aid

Complete Mental Health First Aid training to learn how to help someone suffering from a mental health crisis, increase your mental health literacy, and dismantle the stigma associated with mental health and substance use challenges. If you have questions, please contact Katie Clare at [email protected].Participants must attend two consecutive days of training to receive certification.Learn more and register for upcoming training dates.

Meet the Mason Nation: Ric Chollar

Ric R. Chollar’s involvement with Mason helps give shape to the university’s story of LGBTQ advocacy. Photo by: Cristian Torres/Strategic Communications/George Mason University

Ric Chollar’s relationship with Mason began in 1987 when he started teaching in the Psychology Department. He later served as a facilitator for an LGBTQ+ counseling group at Mason, a consultant on what grew into the Safe Zone+ Program, and until 2017, he was a staff member in the LGBTQ+ Resources Center. Chollar continues to teach as an adjunct.

In his work, Chollar aspires to achieve healing, compassion, justice, and liberation.

Photo by Cristian Torres/Strategic Communications

From The LGBTQ+ Faculty/Staff Alliance, The LGBTQ+ Resources Center, and The Women and Gender Studies Center

LGBTQ sidwalk chalk drawing. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

To our LGBTQ+ Community at George Mason University,

This weekend, on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance, a mass shooting occurred at LGBTQ nightclub Club Q in Colorado Springs. We mourn the loss of five individuals. We uplift hopes of healing for the twenty-five individuals injured. We hold all those affected by the ripples of emotional and spiritual trauma as a result of facing great loss and targeted violence.

We are all fighting. Every time we put on clothes that make us feel like ourselves, every time we experience love and connection, every heartbeat and every breath that solidifies that we are still here, still alive—we resist those that wish for us to assimilate, to change, to disappear. To fight, every day, every moment, is tiring. Exhausting. We find communities, we carve spaces, we gather to scream and laugh and cry and to remind ourselves and each other that we are here, we are alive, we are not alone. And to be faced, once again, with an act of violence and horror that destroys the spaces we have carved out for ourselves is a pain unlike any other. We are scared. We are hurt. We are tired.

We are not alone.

Community is our strength. Community is our healing. We hold each other in our grief, uplift each other in our joy. In our understanding of the complexities of identity, we find power in nuance, in our ability to link arms and carry all our victories and tragedies at once, a terrible and beautiful shape that no one person can wrap their arms around but as a group we can hold in firm and gentle embrace.

Resistance takes many forms. It is outrage, and protests, and letters to the governor against anti-Trans bills, and voting against politicians who seek to silence and destroy us. It is also joy, and healing, and laughing together around a shared meal, and allowing ourselves to cry.

We don’t know what comes next. We don’t know when the next strike against our rights or our safety will be. What we do know is that we will be here. In the LGBTQ+ Resources Center, the Women and Gender Studies Center, the LGBTQ+ Faculty Staff Alliance; in student, faculty, and staff government and organizations; in offices, classrooms, and residence halls on every campus; on Zoom and on Teams. We are here.

We are here, feeling the pain of this most recent tragedy that compounds our trauma, we are here.

We are here, the week after mourning over 375 (known) deaths of trans and non-binary siblings worldwide for International Transgender Day of Remembrance, we are here.

We are here, months after the rollback on the rights of queer, trans, non-binary, and questioning youth in Virginia schools, we are here.

We are here, years after the Pulse Massacre, we are here.

We are here, decades after HIV/AIDS’s decimation of our elders, we are here.

We are here, holding on to each other because it is an act of resistance to be ourselves.

We are here.

In solidarity, strength, and healing,

The LGBTQ+ Faculty/Staff Alliance

The LGBTQ+ Resources Center

The Women and Gender Studies Center

The programs and services offered by George Mason University are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After an initial review of its policies and practices, the university affirms its commitment to meet all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.