Campus News

Virtual townhall for updates on West Campus

Melanie Balog — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 19:18:04 +0000

Virtual townhall for updates on West Campus Melanie Balog Mon, 01/22/2024 - 14:18

George Mason University will host a virtual townhall on Monday, January 29, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. to present a West Campus update for community feedback, comments, and questions.

The update will include members of the Washington Freedom and details on a proposed temporary stadium that would bring cricket, the second-most watched sport in the world, to the region, strengthen the local economy, and improve the university’s baseball program facilities.

Attendees can use the following link and do not need to pre-register to attend the virtual discussion. Please enter the Zoom meeting with your video off and mics muted. Questions and comments will be shared through the Chat feature. Zoom link.

This Zoom meeting can accommodate up to 1,000 attendees and will be recorded and posted to construction.gmu.edu.

Stream restoration on Fairfax Campus will create scenic pathway

Colleen Rich — Mon, 01 Aug 2022 16:15:48 +0000

Stream restoration on Fairfax Campus will create scenic pathway Colleen Rich Mon, 08/01/2022 - 12:15

Map showing the restoration project. Photo provided by Mason Facilities

Work has begun on the “Necklace Phase One and Stream Restoration” project on George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus, Mason Facilities announced.

The project includes the restoration of the main stream channel, as well as adjacent tributaries, beginning at the southwestern corner of the Patriot Circle/Aquia Creek Lane intersection and finishing at the northern end of Mason Pond.

It represents the next phase in Mason’s Master Plan, which is the framework that guides decisions concerning the university’s physical environment.

Illuminated, paved and mulched pedestrian trails will be constructed in addition to the restoration. Once this project is completed in late 2022, the Mason community will be able to enjoy a curated, scenic pathway from the intersection of Patriot Circle/Aquia Creek Lane to Mason Pond Drive.

Photo provided by Mason Facilities

The restoration process will ensure that Mason continues to be in compliance with state stormwater regulations, which support the revitalization of the Chesapeake Bay, while showcasing Mason’s forward trajectory within the Master Plan. In addition to following these laws, Mason’s goal is to achieve an environmentally sound and aesthetically vitalizing stream restoration for long-term stability and enjoyment.

Natural features and techniques were utilized to develop a design that will mimic the characteristics of a stable, natural environment. Those features will also help stabilize the degraded stream. After removal of invasive foliage, a diverse mix of native vegetation and trees will be planted to reforest and help minimize erosion and improve water quality.

These new features will be a welcome addition to Mason’s nationally accredited Arboretum, which includes labeled outdoor signs on Mason’s campuses.

Topics

Campus Improvements (Construction)

Construction

‘Breaking ground on Virginia’s future’ at Mason Square

Colleen Rich — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 21:56:51 +0000

‘Breaking ground on Virginia’s future’ at Mason Square Colleen Rich Wed, 04/06/2022 - 17:56

The new 345,000-square-foot facility will serve as a technological hub in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor connecting students, faculty, industry and government. Photo by Ron Aira/Creative Services

George Mason University officially welcomed a new era in Arlington with Wednesday’s groundbreaking ceremony for Fuse at Mason Square, which will serve as a technological hub in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor connecting students, faculty, industry and government.

Mason President Gregory Washington joined a slew of elected, industry and university officials in celebrating the start of construction of the new 345,000-square-foot facility that will embody Mason’s commitment to Northern Virginia’s next-generation workforce.

“We are not just breaking ground on a building—we are truly breaking ground on Virginia’s future,” said Mason President Gregory Washington. Photo by Ron Aira/Creative Services

The building is slated to open in 2025.

“We are not just breaking ground on a building—we are truly breaking ground on Virginia’s future,” Washington said.

The first-of-its-kind building will bring together the public and private sectors in a collaborative alliance to address the world’s grand challenges.

“We’re all looking forward very much to see the institutional growth here, the people who will gather and collide here, and the innovations that will emanate from here,” said Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president for global innovation policy and communications, and a Mason law school alum. “If this were a book, I’d love to turn the pages ahead a few chapters and see where all this is going, but I’m confident that you are all on the right trajectory.”

Other speakers in the roughly 90-minute program included state Secretary of Education Aimee Rogstad Guidera; Mason Rector Jimmy Hazel; Mason Board of Visitors member and President’s Innovation Advisory Council member Dolly Oberoi; Arlington County Board Chair Katie Cristol; Mason students Maya Chatterjee and Jared Ponmakha; Clark Construction Group Senior Vice President Dave Tacchetti; Mason Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance Carol Kissal; and Jamie Martin of Mason Innovation Partners. Trishana Bowden, Mason’s vice president of advancement and alumni relations, served as the program’s host.

Mason students Maya Chatterjee and Jared Ponmakha spoke as part of the groundbreaking. Photo by Ron Aira/Creative Services

Fuse at Mason Square will serve as the home to faculty and students working with the Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA) and its partners, as well as graduate programs within Mason’s new School of Computing.

The collaborative effort is designed to promote digital innovation, active learning and cutting-edge research in the presence of business entrepreneurs, tech incubators, and education and policy makers.

Developed in partnership with Mason Innovation Partners, led by Edgemoor Infrastructure and Real Estate, Fuse at Mason Square will be a LEED Platinum, smart, net-zero-ready building with Fitwell 2-star and RELi resiliency. It will feature a green roof for energy-efficient heating and cooling, an agile floor design to enable responsive team or project growth, and specialized labs for robotics, virtual reality, simulation, security and data visualization.

Other amenities will include community seating in a double-height atrium, a 750-seat theater-style multipurpose room, retail, a public plaza and a below-grade parking garage, making it a natural gathering place for the campus and nearby community.

This Arlington expansion supports the state of Virginia’s Tech Talent Investment Program (TTIP), a 20-year program designed to produce more than 25,000 additional graduates in computer science, computer engineering and software engineering.

“Fuse at Mason Square will rise into the Arlington skyline,” Washington said, “and one day, it will actually greet the 22nd century.”

Topics

Campus News

Masonat50

Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA)

Arlington campus

Campus Improvements (Construction)

Construction

Mason Square

Fuse at Mason Square

Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial to be dedicated

Colleen Rich — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 16:08:11 +0000

Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial to be dedicated Colleen Rich Mon, 03/28/2022 - 12:08

It was the summer of 2017, and five George Mason University students and three faculty members were beginning their research into the children enslaved by George Mason IV, the university’s namesake.

Wendi Manuel-Scott, a professor of integrative studies and history, and one of the faculty members on the project, recalled how the students at one point “began to talk about how it would be awesome if years from now they came to campus and there’s a plaque that honors the enslaved people held by George Mason.”

As it turned out, they got much more than a plaque, as what was the Enslaved Children of George Mason project led to the Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial, a focal point of how the university is addressing its identity as it relates to a complicated Patriot.

“The purpose of the project was to raise awareness about George Mason IV, the man, the patriot and the slaveholder,” Manuel-Scott said. “Our goal was to focus on expanding our community’s understanding of Mason, and to focus on the people he owned and what they thought about freedom.”

The memorial on the Fairfax Campus (see the video) is the centerpiece of the newly renovated Wilkins Plaza, named for the African American civil rights leader, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and beloved Mason professor.

One panel is dedicated to to Penny, an enslaved girl given by Mason to his daughter. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

It will be dedicated at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, April 4, as part of the university’s 50th anniversary celebration.

“I started that project the summer after my sophomore year, and it sounded cool to have research that maybe would contribute to a memorial on campus," said Mason alum Kye Farrow, BA History ’19, MS Management ’20. "But it was really difficult at the time to see how it would get there. So, yes, still today, I'm absolutely amazed the work we did went to the product that's there today."

Other students on the project were Alexis Bracey, BA Global Affairs ’19; Ayman Fatima, BS Systems Engineering, BA Government and International Politics ’21; Farhaj Murshed, BS Statistics ’20; and Elizabeth Perez-Garcia, BS Criminology, Law, and Society ’19.

It was important each student came from a different academic discipline, Manuel-Scott said.

“Each brought a different way of seeing and thinking, and a different way to analyze and explore records,” she said. “That interdisciplinarity created a richness in terms of the project.”

Mason faculty Gabrielle Tayac and Wendi Manuel-Scott gather water from the Potomac River to use in the fountain on Wilkins Plaza. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

The project was launched by Manuel-Scott; Benedict Carton, a faculty member in History and Art History; and Mason alum George Oberle, Mason’s history librarian and a term faculty member in the Department of History and Art History.

All are leaders in the Center for Mason Legacies, an interdisciplinary and collaborative research center established by the University Library and College of Humanities and Social Sciences that encourages student research to preserve and examine the legacy of George Mason IV and the people he enslaved.

The Enslaved People of George Mason project “shows that Mason is striving to be an exemplar institution in relation to the idea of promoting student inquiry and being open to where that goes and takes us, even if it’s not always a happy story,” Oberle said.

The memorial includes the iconic statue of Mason. A new pedestal includes four quotes which highlight the different aspects of his life, including the penning of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the foundation of the U.S. Bill of Rights. But Mason also enslaved more than 100 people at his Gunston Hall plantation and did not free any upon his death.

Memorial panels are also dedicated to Penny, an enslaved child given by Mason to his daughter, and James, Mason’s personal attendant. A fountain contains stones in a pattern that symbolize an African custom of gathering and prayer.

To acknowledge an altar that was constructed next to the Potomac River by the enslaved at Gunston Hall, and to acknowledge that the land on which the university was built was originally inhabited by indigenous people, water from the Potomac River will be poured into the fountain.

“It’s a way to interconnect the worlds, between the place of enslavement, the place of difficulty, but also a place that’s life-giving,” said Gabrielle Tayac, an associate professor of public history at Mason, and a Piscataway tribal citizen. “To pour the water into the fountain that recalls those connections and all of those hopes and dreams and memories the people had, it’s a way of awakening and blending those intentions.”

Said Carton: “Our project sought to guide students’ sense of moral duty, as they branched out to discover hidden histories. This duty is focused on reconstructing the everyday humanity of enslaved people whose lives had deep meaning, despite the cruelties of enslavement.”

“The moral duty,” he said, “is in the learning.”

Topics

Campus News

Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial

Masonat50

Center for Mason Legacies

Wilkins Plaza

Campus Improvements (Construction)

diversity

DEI

Construction kick-off on Arlington Campus the ‘start of something big’

Colleen Rich — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 19:12:52 +0000

Construction kick-off on Arlington Campus the ‘start of something big’ Colleen Rich Mon, 01/03/2022 - 14:12

Concept rendering by Mason Innovation Partners / EYP

The first steps of the construction project that will reshape and reimagine George Mason’s Arlington Campus are scheduled to begin this week, weather permitting.

“This is the start of something big for Mason,” Carol Kissal, Mason’s senior vice president for administration and finance. “And when it’s done, it will have fundamentally changed our campus, as well as the broader Arlington community.”

The action won’t be dramatic at first, said Cathy Pinskey, program director at Mason Facilities, but will ramp up over time, given that the scope of the $235 million renovation includes construction of an approximately 400,000-square-foot building on the site of the old Kann’s department store that will support Mason’s School of Computing and other innovative ecosystems.

Construction fencing will be reconfigured, primarily by the driveway of the FDIC building. There will also be some excavation for sheeting and shoring, and preparation of the site for the new building with relocation of an existing underground storm pipe.

A water line and electric line will be relocated, and drilling for “soldier beams” to support the sheeting and shoring will begin, perhaps later in the month, Pinskey said.

“There may be some noise. You may feel some vibrations,” Pinskey said. “But it’s all safe and done in compliance with rules and requirements. The reality is, the end result will be worth it.”

Topics

Another section of the Core Campus Project set to open

Melanie Balog — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 18:48:26 +0000

Another section of the Core Campus Project set to open Melanie Balog Wed, 10/27/2021 - 14:48

A large area of green space anchored by a new amphitheater is scheduled to open this week in the center of George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus.

The removal of fencing along a good portion of the north side of Wilkins Plaza will provide access to the space, which marks another major milestone in the Core Campus Project.

“I am thrilled,” said Cathy Pinskey, program director at Mason Facilities. “Having the amphitheater is a big deal as an expanded area for student engagement in the center of campus, which we really haven’t had before.”

The amphitheater will have wall seating, tables, chairs, event power sources and accessible Wi-Fi.

The green space will include some of the 35 overcup oak trees that are being planted to replace the trees that were taken out to make room for the expanded plaza. The trees are in grassy areas, as opposed to being surrounded by concrete, as were the trees there previously.

Some of those trees were repurposed to create the wood benches in Horizon Hall.

“As they mature they won’t get root-bound, which is what happened to the trees before,” Pinskey said. “We’re improving what is there to make them last longer.”

Completion of the Core Campus Project is expected by the Spring 2022 semester, when work on Harris Theatre, a meditation labyrinth, and a dining patio next to SUB I are finished.

The Core Campus Project, which includes Horizon Hall, the redesigned Wilkins Plaza and the Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial, has already changed the energy in the center of the campus, Pinskey said.

“You walk around the center part of the campus and it’s always populated by students, faculty and staff, sitting at the tables and on the benches, or sitting on the wall of the fountain,” she said. “It really has provided a whole new outdoor feature that didn’t exist before in a way that it does today.”

A view of the amphitheatre on the north side of Wilkins Plaza. Photo by Cathy Pinskey

Topics

Core Campus Project

Campus News

Construction

Campus Improvements (Construction)

George Mason statue moved to its new home (video)

Colleen Rich — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 09:00:13 +0000

George Mason statue moved to its new home (video) Colleen Rich Fri, 06/12/2020 - 05:00

The iconic statue of George Mason on George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus was moved on June 15 to its new (temporary) home on Holton Plaza. Check out a video of the move.

The move is necessary to make room for reconstruction of the area of Wilkins Plaza adjacent to Robinson B, which itself will be demolished after the opening of Horizon Hall, expected for the spring 2021 semester.

The Mason statue will return to its usual place on Wilkins Plaza in late summer 2021.

The Mason clock, a gift from the Class of 1999 that was moved into storage in December 2018 to facilitate the expansion of Wilkins Plaza, is expected to make its reappearance in July, slightly north and east of its former location near David King Hall.

“Things are moving along pretty well although productivity has been reduced over the past several months due to COVID,” Cathy Pinskey, program director at Mason Facilities, said of the Core Campus Project, which is transforming the center of the Fairfax Campus.

Moving the Mason statue is fairly straightforward, Pinskey said.

After it was loosened from its base, the statue was picked up by a forklift, strapped onto a flatbed truck for safety and shuttled to Holton Plaza.

There it was be placed on a newly constructed base.

Once the statue returns, it will be part of the memorial on Wilkins Plaza dedicated to the Enslaved People of George Mason.

That memorial, designed by landscape architects with Perkins & Will, in association with a diverse team of Mason faculty, staff and students, intertwines the narratives of two of Mason’s slaves: Penny, a 10-year-old girl, and James, Mason’s personal manservant.

At the base of the Mason statue will also be four quotes from Mason that explains his important and complex role in American history as the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and a slaveowner.

New academic building has a name: Horizon Hall

Damian Cristodero — Fri, 22 May 2020 09:30:00 +0000

New academic building has a name: Horizon Hall Damian Cristodero Fri, 05/22/2020 - 05:30

Horizon Hall, under construction as shown in this May 20 photo, is the cornerstone of the Core Campus Project, which is transforming the Fairfax Campus. Photo courtesy of Mason Facilities.

When Debra Lattanzi Shutika talks to students and prospective students at George Mason University, she emphasizes how a humanities degree will broaden their horizons.

That is why the chair of the English Department in Mason’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) believes Horizon Hall is the perfect name for the new academic building that is scheduled to open on the Fairfax Campus in January 2021 .

“Horizon Hall,” she said, “absolutely gets at the expansive possibilities of a humanities degree.”

The name was approved by the Board of Visitors at its May 20 meeting.

The new building, which will replace Robinson Hall A and B and is part of the Core Campus Project, will be a state-of-the-art, six story, 218,000-square-foot structure housing classrooms, conference rooms, community spaces, and a Mason Innovation Exchange (MIX) as well as many of CHSS’s departments and interdisciplinary programs.

Classrooms will accommodate 27 to 118 students and will be outfitted with an instructor computer and display capabilities, all with the goal of fostering discussion and active learning. Large windows throughout the building will maximize natural light in internal spaces like the six-story atrium as well as internal offices.

“It’s going to be such a fantastic building,” Mason Interim President Anne Holton said. “It’s right at the center of the Fairfax Campus. And with these fabulous state-of-the-art, high-tech classrooms, it will expand our active learning classrooms to further enhance the student experience while creating a vibrant, globally connected hub for intellectual exploration."

“The forward-looking vision of the university is so much about facilitating multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work,” CHSS Dean Ann Ardis said. “Populating the building with disciplines in the humanities and social sciences that haven’t always lived in easy proximity to one another on the Fairfax Campus can enable cross-disciplinary interactions and collaborations. And the atrium as well as the garden area adjacent to the Wilkins Plaza will be stunning new spaces for special events and receptions.”

But back to that name: Horizon Hall.

It fits so well, Ardis said, because so many humanities and social science majors are “discovery” majors.

For example, she said, high school curricula don’t typically include exposure to disciplines like anthropology, art history, linguistics or sociology. Many high schools also don’t offer opportunities to study critical languages like Korean, Arabic or Chinese.

“Students often discover their interests and aptitudes in CHSS majors and minors because they are introduced to these disciplines for the first time through Mason Core requirements,” Ardis said. “A lot of our majors grow over time. A college education opens a student’s horizons by introducing you to a far broader complement of disciplinary practices, methodologies and career opportunities.”

Lattanzi Shutika said she knows students who have graduated with English degrees who are working in tech, as publicists, teachers and writers.

“That’s the beauty of getting a degree in English,” she said. “It broadens your horizons.”

Looking ahead, honoring the past

Melanie Balog — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 10:00:32 +0000

Looking ahead, honoring the past Melanie Balog Tue, 03/05/2019 - 05:00

A memorial to honor the enslaved people of George Mason. A building named for trailblazing African American mathematician Katherine Johnson.

Two major campus projects designed to better reflect and symbolize the university’s vision of inclusion were approved by the George Mason University Board of Visitors last week.

Mason will rename a building on the Science and Technology Campus to honor Katherine G. Johnson, a trailblazing African American mathematician who champions civil rights and equal opportunities for women in STEM. And as the next phase of the Enslaved People of George Mason project, the university will build a memorial on the Fairfax Campus that will provide a more thorough perspective of the contradictive life led by the university’s namesake.

Mason President Ángel Cabrera said the two projects support the university’s mission as an innovative and inclusive academic community and enable Mason to “evolve in our symbols to be true to that vision of inclusion.”

“We’re proud to be one of the most diverse universities in the country,” Cabrera said. “That also increases the responsibilities to deliver on our mission, to deliver on our values, to be a space where everybody can thrive regardless of their background. These projects will support and reflect that fundamental aspect of our university.”

Bull Run Hall, the largest building on the SciTech Campus in Manassas, will be named Katherine G. Johnson Hall in recognition of the 100-year-old NASA mathematician who overcame racism and sexism to emerge as an integral contributor to the early success of the U.S. space program. Mason also will create a scholarship in her name.

One of the three main characters portrayed in the 2017 Oscar-nominated film “Hidden Figures,” Johnson performed the complex calculations and flight path analysis of spacecraft that led to the United States achieving flight during the early years of the space program, including America’s first human space flight, early missions of Alan Shepard and John Glenn, and the Apollo 11 flight to the moon in 1969.

Johnson has received several NASA awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2015, and has NASA facilities named in her honor.

The Enslaved People of George Mason memorial, part of the Core Campus Project in Fairfax, and designed by Perkins + Will, will provide a more complete account of the complicated legacy of George Mason IV, a founding father who championed individual freedom but who also owned slaves.

The memorial, scheduled to be completed in 2021, will honor two of the more than 100 people enslaved at Gunston Hall—a 10-year-old girl named Penny and James, Mason’s manservant. The memorial on Wilkins Plaza will be designed to convey the hidden voices of the enslaved, the traditional voice of George Mason, and a space designed for students and others to reflect and share their own voices.

“The three elements provide a space for us to think about the past, the present, and what it means to engage in difficult dialogue,” said Wendi Manuel-Scott, a professor of history and art history at Mason and director of the Enslaved People of George Mason project. “Our intention here is to give visitors an opportunity to see the fullness of George Mason, the enslaved laborers he held, and their contributions to who we are as a nation.”

In addition, four quotes will be added around the bottom of the George Mason statue to convey his conflicted role in American history.

Manuel-Scott, professor of history and art history Benedict Carton, Fenwick history librarian George Oberle, and three of the five undergraduate students involved in the project (Alexis Bracey, global affairs; Kye Farrow, history; Ayman Fatima, government and international politics and systems engineering; Elizabeth Perez-Garcia, criminology, law and society; and Farhaj Murshed, applied statistics) made a presentation about the memorial at the BOV meeting last week. The team began its archival research in the spring of 2017.

Wilkins Plaza is an apt home for the memorial and the Mason statue—late Robinson Professor Roger Wilkins was a civil rights leader known for his insightful writing and speaking about the history of race in America. A fountain that also will be part of the memorial will be embedded with a quill and a Wilkins quote: “We have no hope of solving our problems without harnessing the diversity, the energy, and the creativity of all our people.”

In 2016, inspired by Honors College student questions about the enslaved people of Gunston Hall, Carton and Manuel-Scott applied for a grant through the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR) to dig into the past and seek to understand the life of the school’s namesake and those enslaved by him at Gunston Hall.

“One of the things that this project does is confront the full legacy of our namesake in a way that speaks to who we are as Mason, in a way that’s courageous, in a way that exemplifies what we do best as a university,” said Julian Williams, Mason vice president of Compliance, Diversity and Ethics. “And that is to turn student questions into action, into work with faculty members, and to make that into something that’s long-lasting.”

Core Campus Project moves into next phase

Damian Cristodero — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 10:30:00 +0000

Core Campus Project moves into next phase Damian Cristodero Fri, 11/30/2018 - 05:30

The Core Campus project enters a new phase over winter break with the removal of Robinson A to make way for a new, state-of-the art building. Photo provided.

The university is gearing up for the next phase of the Core Campus Project, which will transform the center of George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus.

The Mason clock, a campus landmark and gift from the Class of 1999, is expected to be moved into storage next week, where it will remain for a year for safe-keeping. This will allow for the expansion of Wilkins Plaza, which will extend from its current end point near the Johnson Center to Southside Dining Hall.

In addition to the clock moving, the university will begin taking Robinson A down during the Winter Break and clear the grounds for construction of the new facility. The state-of-the-art, six-story, 218,000-square-foot building will offer maximum teaching and learning flexibility.

Also to be stored soon is the “Woman in Hammock” statue next to Robinson A.

The George Mason statue will be moved to Holton Plaza in November 2020 and returned to its home on Wilkins Plaza at the end of 2021.

Cathy Pinskey, program director for George Mason Facilities, said the clock will be crated and moved to a campus warehouse until its reappearance in November 2019 slightly north and east of its current location.

“It will be protected,” she said.

Pinskey said the university is working to minimize disruptions caused by the construction, including two unplanned utility outages that occurred during trenching

“We have put in some improved processes that we think are going to reduce the risk [of further outages],” she said.

That includes proactive talks with Dominion Energy to help better locate utility lines.

Pinskey also said that trenching will not be done during final exams.

For more information about the project and the latest construction timeline, visit construction.gmu.edu.