Category: Uncategorized

Mason students begin returning to campus with Move-In Weekend

Students returning for the Fall 2020 semester move into resident halls with a 25% reduction in students living on campus as part of a the safe return to campus plan. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services/George Mason University

Disability Services ensures equal access for students

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a variety of changes to the Mason student experience. This “new normal” can be especially challenging for students with varying abilities.

Disability Services—an Office of University Life serving 2,000 students with a wide spectrum of disabilities and conditions—acted quickly to adapt its programs and services to ensure equitable academic access in this new environment. For example, students with autism or ADHD needed support to best adapt to new routines in quarantine. During finals, students who would have utilized the Disability Services Testing Center on campus for extra time or specific technologies needed to be accommodated in a different way.

Welcome2Mason Events Coming Soon

The fall semester can be a busy time for both new and returning students. To help in this transition, Mason offers a variety of programs and events throughout the first month of the fall semester to support the entire Mason community.

For new students, learning to navigate campus, making connections with peers, and understanding university resources can be overwhelming, but Mason strives to aid students during this pivotal time. The Preamble and Welcome2Mason are a few of the first experiences in the fall semester that will usher in the 2020-2021 year.

Gradstravaganza: Graduate Student Welcome to be Held August 21

All new and continuing Mason graduate students are invited to Gradstravaganza, Mason’s annual graduate student welcome event. Join us for a virtual version of Gradstravaganza, featuring mini-workshops highlighting strategies for success in graduate school, special sessions for Graduate Assistants (GRAs, GTAs, and GPAs), opportunities to meet and connect with fellow Mason graduate students, and more! Brought to you by Graduate Student Life, the Office of the Provost, the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning, and the Graduate and Professional Student Association. More details, including a full schedule of session and how to participate, will be available on the Graduate Student Life page in early August.

Summer 2020 Student Emergency Assistance Fund Update

University Life’s Summer 2020 Student Emergency Assistance Fund (The Summer Fund), which opened May 26, has seen over 1,150 requests for help so far. The Fund continues to address the needs of students who face unexpected financial challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, the Summer Fund has disbursed $820,790 and assisted 603 Mason-enrolled students with emergency needs such as rent payments, utilities, food, medical bills and health insurance, and laptops to continue their learning. Emergency funding for summer closes Friday, August 7. Applications for Fall 2020 emergency assistance funding are available beginning Monday, August 17.

University Life is grateful for the continued support of Mason’s Giving Day, Patriots Helping Patriots, and funding from the CARES Act, which provided much-needed assistance to Mason students. More information on Student Emergency Assistance Fund.

Mason Meet-Ups Coming Soon

Mason’s new student orientation goes virtual

Patriot Leaders 2020. Photo by: Ron Aira/Creative Services/George Mason University

GMU Esports Expands and Becomes Part of Mason Student Involvement

GMU Esports is now a Departmental Student Organization. Previously existing as one of over 450 Registered Student Organizations, within this new structure, GMU Esports will be housed in the Student Involvement office (located in the Hub, Room 2300). The new space will provide gaming computers and space for teams to practice and compete in online competitions, as well as for the leadership team to work on creating and planning events and activities to increase student participation in the esports community at Mason.

GMU Esports, under Student Involvement, will also gain broadened funding and support, including a new Graduate Assistant position that will serve as an advisor alongside the Executive Director of Student Involvement. Both will take the lead in building the infrastructure for the department’s expansion. “Student Involvement and University Life are excited to expand esports gaming at Mason. We started with the GAMEmason annual gaming-con event and are looking forward to the increase in student engagement as the GMU Esports group grows. So far, the students have been amazing to work with,” Lauren Long, Executive Director of Student Involvement, said.

GMU Esports aims to bolster its top collegiate teams and players competing in League of Legends, Overwatch, Rocket League, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and offer a year-round home for the greater esports community at GMU. Teams in other esports will be fielded as well, providing competitive opportunities for a variety of other games and will expand in accordance with student interest.

According to Peter Parker, Student President of GMU Esports, “With GMU Esports now becoming a part of Student Involvement, we’ll be able to provide support in the future to our top teams and players to be the best they can be, as well as create ways for students who are passionate about esports but don’t necessarily want to be top competitors a way to actively participate in other roles. With this new structure, we can begin developing new community events, and make mainstays like our Smash weekly even better.”

GMU Esports is set to formally launch in the Fall 2020 semester. More information regarding the program will be announced over the coming months. To stay updated on what’s happening, follow:

Joint message from Anne Holton and Greg Washington

We are going to keep this statement brief. Words are failing all of us in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. When leaders reach for words like outrage, horror, or despair, they only do more damage when they are not matched by action. As James Baldwin once famously said, “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.”

So, no words without action. We are determined to keep George Mason University true to its motto, to be a place of “freedom and learning.” We will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure every member of Mason Nation, and every visitor to our campuses, is safe: physically safe, emotionally safe, culturally safe, and intellectually safe, to become who they want to be.

To do that, today we directed the senior leadership of Mason to conduct a thorough review of our academic, research, public service, student service, campus law enforcement, and alumni offerings that contribute to social justice, racial equity, and peaceful conflict resolution. And we have directed them also to root out areas where we have fallen short of our intentions, through either conscious or unconscious bias.

Where we have services and expertise to offer a hurting, grieving community, we will step up – to the Mason community, to northern Virginia, to the national capital region, and beyond. We simply will not allow this moment to divert Mason from the long-standing pursuit of access to excellence, which is our ultimate tool to fight the perpetuation of racism.

And where we learn we have failed the diverse community we so proudly serve, we will direct necessary resources to fill the void. The COVID-19 pandemic has put us under unprecedented financial duress, but nothing is more strategically or morally vital to our future than truly living up to our mission to be an “inclusive academic community committed to creating a more just, free, and prosperous world.”

In the weeks and months ahead, we will have more to say about what we have to offer to advance social justice and healing, and about what changes we will make to improve how Mason will better serve the community and the nation as a whole. We invite you to stay tuned and be prepared to act with us.

Our nation is fighting two pandemics – the COVID-19 virus, and the pandemic of racism in America. George Mason University will address both with the same vigor and sense of urgency.

Sincerely,

Anne Holton, Interim President

Greg Washington, President-designate