Category: Event Recap

Funnel Cakes, Rides, and MAX: Mason Day 2025 Brings the Energy

By Tiffany Boggs, Student Media, Photo courtesy of Mitchell R 

The scent of funnel cakes wafted through the air as students screamed with delight on spinning rides, and the beat of live music pulsed across George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus.

Mason Day is the longest-running tradition; this is an event that’s filled with a carnival of sights, sounds, and flavors, culminating in high-energy performances. It’s a special day to many and brings students together as one large community before the end of the year.

On Friday, April 25, Mason Day took place at Parking lots K and L, hosted by Student Involvement. The event is set every April before finals begin, and it’s a time for students to “let off some steam around the end of the year and enjoy live music, and be outside having a good time,” said Executive Director Lauren Long.

Mason Day included a wide array of activities, DIY, tie dye stands, and Midway Mania games. To name a few, 9-hole mini golf, friendship bracelet stamping, and coin toss case game. There were food trucks, epic rides, and performances by Mason students who opened for headliner artist and actor MAX. Over 4723 people attended, some students volunteered, and some who attended for the first time shared what they enjoyed most.

Sophomore, Biruk Mengistu, who attended his first Mason Day shared that it was an interesting experience seeing all of George Mason come together. “I feel like I haven’t been able to see all of Mason’s 4,000 students in one place, which is kind of cool. You definitely run into a lot of people that you know, a lot of people from classes. A lot of people from the area, co-workers, family, and friends,” he said.

Most students expressed what Mason Day meant to them. For Sophomore Yohanna Hawaz, it means unity. “Mason Day gives me the opportunity to sit back, relax, and see the school do something entertaining and enjoyable for all students,” she said.

Senior Scott Tatum expressed his appreciation for George Mason having an event he feels is like a reward for all the hard work he’s done.  “It’s been like a massive community event the entire time. It’s basically the combination of all the hard work we do all year, we’re able to just let loose and have a great time. It’s like the university is saying here is your reward for making it through the year, you spend your time doing games, getting food, doing any number of activities, and listening to good music,” he said.

Juniors Trinity Webber and Hannah Johnson described their favorite part of Mason Day as riding the cliff hanger, the fried Oreos, and the caricature of MAX’s performance. “It was very fun and exciting. MAX is a great performer and got the crowd hype, and the caricature was really nice to get and funny to look at,” said Webber.

According to Long, around 200 volunteers between students and staff, helped make Mason Day happen. She said the event took three days to set up adding the extra activities and increasing the food trucks to reflect the diversity of the school. “This takes a village to lift this,” Long said. Many University Life departments were involved, including Housing and Residential Life and University Career Services. She commented on how intense planning an event like Mason Day is, but it’s one of her favorites, and it’s worth seeing her entire staff, students, and volunteers coming together to celebrate the event.

Long had this to say about what Mason Day is all about. “Our unit is about enhancing that student experience. It’s about involvement and engagement and creating a sense of belonging, and it’s so exciting…standing back and looking, and seeing the smiles on students' faces,” she said.

Students Webber and Johnson said they would attend Mason Day next year. “Honestly, yeah, it was cool and they had a lot more pop-ups [activities at Mason Day included mini-golf, laser tag, and gaming truck for e-sports fans] if I were to go again, I would go just for the pop-ups”, said Johnson. 

We look forward to Mason Day 2026 and hope we can make more memories with our students next year!

The Health and Fitness Expo is an annual event that promotes health and well-being by connecting members of the George Mason community with vital well-being services. This year, at the 28th annual event, we had around 350 faculty, staff, students, and members of the surrounding community in attendance.

"Over the last few years, the HFE planning team has been working to bring the Health and Fitness Expo back to its full capacity. This year's event was the largest Expo since 2019," said Stephanie Amirsoltani, Health and Wellbeing Coordinator. The Expo features George Mason departments and community partner organizations with a total of 62 exhibitors that provide health and well-being services to the George Mason community.

The Health and Fitness Expo really takes a holistic approach to health, fitness and well-being. Attendees enjoyed the opportunity to take home a plant from Greenhouse and Gardens Program. Other highlights included interactive fitness activities with Mason Recreation, and the opportunity to sample a tasty and nutritious snack following a cooking demonstration from Mason Dining. Student Health Services and the School of Nursing also offered cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, and vision screenings to attendees.

Community organizations also donated attendee door prizes this year. Sun and Moon Yoga Studio donated two free yoga classes and Dental Cosmetix donated a Sonicare toothbrush.

The Health and Fitness Expo planning team is represented by faculty and staff from Student Health Services, Mason Recreation, Mason Dining, Risk, Safety, and Resilience, Human Resources, Counseling and Psychological Services, and the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being. The Health and Fitness Expo Planning Team would like to thank Michael Galvin, who annually volunteers as the event DJ.

Next years Health and Fitness Expo is currently scheduled for Thursday, March 19, 2026. To learn more, please visit our website at hfe.gmu.edu

By Tiffany Boggs, Student Media 

What began as an international night in the 1970s turned into a weeklong celebration in 1981.

For 44 years, international students from around the world have come together to celebrate their cultural background with music, dance, food, and sports. It’s a week of recognition, learning, and appreciation for diversity at George Mason University.  

 A variety of events took place from March 28 through April 6. The iWeek Committee hosted three events: the traditional Parade and Festival, a tour around the world, and the international dance competition.  

The parade and festival had three hundred students participating, walking across the Mason campus representing their home country. The event was followed by a ceremony and a table fair, in which thirty organizations signed up for students to connect with multicultural groups hosted by Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) and other departments at Mason, according to the Assistant Director for International Engagement, Office of International Programs (OPS), Jonathan Carmona. 

Tour around the world, the food tasting event where students visited tables representing a country, learned about the cultural foods from different continents and regions. Finally, the international dance competition. Eight teams competed, incorporating unique dance styles from diverse cultures. The winners of the 2025 iWeek dance competition was Mason Ke Rang, the South Asian dance group. 

A few international students shared their experiences participating in Iweek and the pride they take in their country.  

“I feel very proud. As an international student, I’m very proud to represent Uzbekistan, plus in the U.S. and at George Mason, not a lot of people are familiar with this country,” said Gulbanhor Nortojieva, who participated in the parade and festival. Nortojieva shared she came to the United States three years ago, and everything was a culture shock from the food and language. Nortojieva feels iWeek gives international students the opportunity to know one another, how diverse Mason is, and to reunite.  

Chengeng Yin and Xiyas Huang celebrated iWeek in the parade and dance competition, representing their home China. 

“As for me, I think it’s such an opportunity for us to spread our culture because during this competition we used the Chinese song and the traditional clothes, and the traditional dance positions. So, we want many friends to see how Chinese dances are and how we would perform so that they can better understand our culture,” said Yin.  

For non-international students, iWeek is a meaningful time for them too. Awareness of students who come from all over the world and acknowledging global issues. 

Tara Zamani, born in the United States, but her family is from Iran. She would visit Iran “a couple of times every year” before Covid-19, but due to the conflict in the Middle East, it’s unsafe for Zamani to visit. Despite the global issues, she looks at iWeek as a time of “unity.”  

“Every country has some sort of issue, whether that be political or economic. In general, there’s always going to be an issue, however, we are being united by how proud we are of our culture and roots. So, I think it’s very important we take time to celebrate that and take time to celebrate the beauty in each of our cultures instead of the hardships,” Zamani said.  

Carmona ended with appreciation for the fact that international students feel connected to iWeek, and the hard work is paying off.  

“It makes me see the purpose of the work I do and makes me feel that I’m doing my job correctly. Even though how busy it is and how much time, work, and hours it takes, I’m always very grateful for that. I’m always very grateful that students feel celebrated and represented in any way we can in that week, and I think that’s just priceless,” he said. 

By Mary J. Demarco, Student Media

In 2005, Mason undergraduate student Hilton Pereira entered the Mason career fair with his eyes set on adding experiences to his resume through internships and volunteer opportunities. What he didn’t expect was to change both his major and career path after signing up to volunteer at a local fire department during that career fair.

“This job fair made a huge impact on my career choice. I was going one way and then found the fire department and fell in love with it,” Pereira said. 

Twenty years later, Pereira now returns to the job fair not as a student but as a mentor along with his colleagues at the Prince William County Fire and Rescue. From February 18 to 20, 2025, he, along with 191 other companies, congregated in the lower level of the Johnson Center to meet with students in hopes of recruiting new interns and employees. 

This event didn’t happen overnight. It took three years of planning and coordination to make the three-day career fair work. 

Matt Myers, Associate Director for Employer and Alumni Engagement at Mason Career Services, explains that each day of the three-day event is designated towards a specific field. 

“I gathered some ideas from them [other universities] and that's how we came to STEM day, [a] business, government, and nonprofit day, and then our all majors day where it could… be a good fit for everybody involved,” Myers said. 

Along with a team of staff from Career Services, Mary Claire Kraft, Career Services Senior Manager in charge of employment and alumni engagement, has spent the past 3 years working on preparing the 2025 Mason Career Fair. Kraft emphasizes the influence student feedback has in planning future events. 

“This year, our switch to a three-day fair was in response to student feedback. We wanted to have a more spread out environment, a place that students could navigate with a little more comfort,” Kraft said. 

Current Mason sophomore Zachary Grim attended all three days with an open mindset to working for any company that offered a position. 

“My parents told me when searching for jobs and internships to cast a wide net,” Grim said. “I'm just looking at all sorts of stuff. Obviously stuff like writing and communications, internships because that's where I really want to focus on. But also stuff like Afax, Fairfax County Parks, maybe even the police department and global internships because I want to study [and] work abroad.”

In “casting a wide net,” Grim talked to just about every booth in the room. Most notably he found the Trader Joe's booth and Global Internship booth to be the most informative and helpful in his search for a job. During a conversation with an employee at Trader Joe's, Grim recalled that the employee went out of her way to provide information on the specific store location and contact information. 

Meanwhile, Freshmen Alison Crane and Rachel Lay navigated their first career fair, initially feeling overwhelmed. However, as they acclimated to the environment, they found the career fair to be very enriching. 

“Every single stand I've looked at, somebody's talked to me pretty soon. It was quite nice actually,” Crane said. 

Crane and Lay’s anxieties over the situation were quelled by the supportive job fair participants. It’s people like Pereira who made the difference. 

“I just like to have conversations with students from different majors, from different career paths, from different ideas of what they want to do, but really just give people the opportunity to open up their minds and look at different opportunities that they would not otherwise have thought about,” Pereira said.