George Mason University

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{{infobox University |name= George Mason University |motto = Freedom and Learning |established= 1957 |type= Public university |faculty= 4,265 |students= 29,728 (2005) |campus= Suburban, 806 acres (3.2 km²) total across three campuses; fourth to open in 2009 |city= Fairfax |state= Virginia |country= USA |website= http://www.gmu.edu/ |image= Image:GMU Seal.jpg |endowment= $135 million <ref>College Overview from Peterson's</ref> |president= Alan G. Merten |nickname= Patriots }}

George Mason University, GMU, or Mason is a Public University in the United States. It is located in the suburbs of Washington, DC, in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It currently operates campuses in Arlington, Fairfax, and Prince William, with another campus in Loudoun County to open in 2009. The university was founded in 1957 and named after American revolutionary, patriot and founding father George Mason.

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History

George Mason University can trace its roots back to the 1950s when the Virginia state legislature passed a resolution, in January of 1956, to establish a branch college of the University of Virginia in Northern Virginia. In September of 1957 the new college opened its doors to seventeen students. All of whom enrolled as freshmen in a 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.

The City of Fairfax, Virginia, then the Town of Fairfax, purchased and donated 150 acres of land to the University of Virginia for the college's new location, which was referred to as the Fairfax Campus. The Board of Visitors of UVa selected a permanent name for the college: George Mason College of the University of Virginia in 1959. The Fairfax campus construction planning that began in early 1960 showed visible results when the development of the first forty acres of Fairfax Campus began in 1962. In the Fall of 1964 the new campus welcomed 356 students.

Image:Gmulogo-old.png Image:Gmulogo.gif 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 GMC to provide for a 600 acre Fairfax Campus in 1966 with the intention that the institution would expand into a regional university of major proportions, including the granting of graduate degrees.

On April 7, 1972 the Virginia General Assembly enacted legislation which separated George Mason College from its parent institution, the University of Virginia. Renamed that day by the legislation, GMC became George Mason University.

In 1979 GMU opened its law school in Arlington and moved all of its athletic programs to NCAA Division I. Enrollment that year passed 11,000. The university opened its Arlington campus in 1982, two blocks from the Virginia Square-GMU station in Arlington. In 1986 the university's governing body, the Board of Visitors, approved a new master plan for the year based on an enrollment of 20,000 full-time students with housing for 5,000 students by 1995. That same year university housing opened to bring the total number of residential students to 700.

Through a bequest of Russian immigrant Shelley Krasnow the University established the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study in 1991. The Institute was created to further the understanding of the mind and intelligence by combining the fields of cognitive psychology, neurobiology, and artificial intelligence. In 1992, GMU's new Prince William Institute began classes in a temporary site in Manassas, Virginia. The Institute moved to a permanent 124-acre site located on the Rt. 234 bypass, ten miles south of Manasss, by the year 1997, and is now known as the Prince William Campus. The university graduated more than 5,000 students that following spring.

In 2002 Mason celebrated its 30th anniversary of independence from the University of Virginia and launched its first capital campaign with a goal to raise $110 million. The George Mason University logo, originally designed in 1982, was updated in 2004.

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Attractions

Mason's faculty boasts Nobel Prize-winning economists James M. Buchanan (1986) and Vernon Smith (2002). Another economics professor, Walter E. Williams, is well-known as a syndicated columnist and occasional guest host of the Rush Limbaugh radio show. The College of Liberal Arts and Human Science includes history professor, Roger Wilkins, who shared the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Watergate scandal with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein while he was working at The Washington Post. In addition, one of GMU's professor of communications and Public Policy is Frank Sesno, current CNN special contributor.

While George Mason University is relatively young, particularly compared to established research universities in Virginia, it has grown rapidly, reaching an enrollment of 29,728 students in 2005, and has become the largest public university in the state of Virginia. The University's stated goal is to become the major public research university of the U.S. national capital area. According to a 2005 report issued by the university, enrollment is expected to reach 35,000 students by 2011 with more than 7,000 resident students. The university currently suffers from traffic and parking problems due to the large number of students who commute to attend classes.

The school is ranked by Princeton Review as the most diverse university in the nation. The school has students from all 50 states and more than 135 countries.

Mason also operates the most popular University-run Ropes/Challenge Course in the United States (~20,000 participants per year) at its Hemlock Overlook Center for Outdoor Education.<ref>Hemlock Overlook Center for Outdoor Education</ref>

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Organizations

George Mason offers more than 150 clubs and organizations, including fifteen fraternities, twelve sororities, twenty-four International-student organizations, twenty-five religious organizations, Student Government, club sports, and student media. The university's student publication is the Broadside. Mason also offers an Army ROTC program, called the The "Patriot Battalion."

Mason's club sports include:

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Campuses

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Fairfax

Image:GMUDaytime4-14-2005.JPG George Mason's Fairfax campus is the largest of the campuses, with approximately eighty buildings spread over 677 acres in Fairfax, Virginia. Fairfax also has the largest student population of the campuses, with approximately 17,000 students regularly attending classes.

In the early 1960's four buildings were constructed around a lawn in Fairfax which include the East Building, West Building, Krug and Finley Hall. The first four structures, today dubbed "The Original Four," "around a lawn" were understood as a clear reference to the buildings around The Lawn of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. In addition, in the words of the architects, the architecture of the buildings was meant to reflect Jeffersonian influence through the use of red brick with buff colored mortar, white vertical columns, and sloped shingled roofs.

Master plans were developed to incorporate further development which saw new additions such as Fenwick Library and Lecture Hall. By 1979. the masterplan was developed by the firm of Sasaki & Associates which continued to work alongside the unversity in the years that followed. Student housing first became available in 1977. The 1980's saw the biggest expansion with new buildings being added on each year including the Patriot Center.

Recent years have seen the most activity on campus. Innovation Hall, a new academic building began usage in 2003. Housing units (Liberty Square, Potomac Heights) were opened in 2004 to accommodate an unprecedented amount of demand from students. Fall 2005 saw the number of residential students surpass 4,100. The Sandy Creek parking deck was recently opened, while a research building is scheduled to open in June 2006. Research I will be a four-story 100,000 square-foot facility that will include faculty offices and instructional and research laboratories. It will include a semi-detached tower that will house the Astronomy Department’s rooftop telescope.

However, the university unveiled an ambitious plan in 2005 for the largest development to date on campus; the Northeast Sector. Work has begun and buildings are scheduled to open in phases, but all should be completed by 2008. Planned and executed as a design-build effort, the 450,000 square-foot mixed-use development consists of:

  • Five multistory residence buildings, at 5 to 6 floors each, supporting a total of 1,030 beds.
  • Exhibition-style dining facility with a capacity to seat over 500 diners.
  • Fitness center with cardio, weight training, and indoor basketball and racquetball courts.
  • Retail operations that will include a coffee house/convenience store and wood-fired pizza and pasta restaurant.
  • Various recreation and office spaces.

The Fairfax campus is served on the Washington Metro by the Vienna/Fairfax-GMU station on the Orange line. The CUE bus serves the students through routes from the Metro station to the University. The cost is free of charge for students with a Mason Identification card, and $0.50 for other riders.

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George W. Johnson Learning Center

Image:Kerrystage.jpg The 320,000 square-foot George W. Johnson Learning Center is located in the center of the campus and was built in 1996 at a cost of $30 million. It was named after University President of 18-years, George W. Johnson. It was established to be the hub of the "new quad." It includes a 100,000 square-foot library, movie theater, ballroom, restaurant, food court, bookstore, retail outlets, group meeting rooms, learning labs, STAR computer labs, Copy Center, the Copyright Office, a Credit Union, an Information Desk, Johnson Center and Student Unions Operations, Student Academic Affairs, the Student Government Offices, Johnson Center and University Life Programming, as well as the Paul Robeson Resource Room. Also in the Johnson Center is Admissions, Alumni Affairs, University Scholars, the African American Studies Research and Resource Center, Global Education, the Mason Media Lab, Math Tutoring, the Women's Studies/ Women's Research and Resource Center, the Center for Library, WGMU Radio, Computer Labs, and the Student Technology Assistance and Resource Center (STAR).

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Patriot Center

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The Patriot Center is a 10,000 seat arena for the Men's and Women's basketball team. The arena was built in 1986, and is being added onto and renovated at a cost of $10 million, to be completed in October 2007. The renovations will include the concord area, main storage, food service facilities, offices for basketball coaches, basketball team rooms and lockers.

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Fenwick Library

Fenwick Library was originally built in 1967, with additions in 1974 and the tower in 1983. It was named for Charles Rogers Fenwick, one of George Mason's founders. Fenwick Library is the main research library at George Mason. Its resources include: most of the university's books, microforms, print and bound journals, government documents, and maps. Electronic resources include networked and stand-alone CD-ROMs, the libraries' online catalog, a number of databases available through the libraries' membership in various consortia, and Internet access. Another important collection of research materials housed in Fenwick is the Government Documents collection. This collection includes both federal and Virginia state documents. Both sets of documents contain items from the administrative, legislative, and judicial branches of government, and constitute an invaluable source of primary source materials for students and faculty in political science, public policy, sociology, business and other fields.

George Mason is a member of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, granting it access to resources of thirteen other libraries in the Nation's capital.

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Aquatic and Fitness Center

The 68,000 square-foot Aquatic and Fitness Center opened in 1998 at a cost of $11 million. The center includes an Olympic size swimming pool containing eight 50-meter lanes, twenty-two 25-yard lanes, two moveable bulkheads, and a diving area equipped with two 1-meter and two 3-meter spring boards, a Warm-water recreational pool, Locker rooms, a whirlpool, a coed sauna, and a family changing room. It also offers Wet and dry classrooms, a 3,500 square-foot fitness gallery, containing treadmills, stair climbers, exercise bikes, elliptical trainers, Cybex-strength training equipment, and free weights.

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Center for the Arts

The Center for the Arts includes a 2,000-seat Concert Hall built in 1990. The concert call can be converted into a more intimate 800-seat theater. Most Center for the Arts events take place here, including operas, orchestras, ballets, and musical and theatrical performances. The Box Office, which distributes tickets for all performances, is located in the Grand Atrium. The Terrace gallery on the third floor also includes an outdoor patio. Students who are enrolled atleast half-time receieve free admission to most performances at the Center for the Arts.

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Housing

Fairfax is the only campus of George Mason University with on-campus student housing. There are nine housing areas housing approximately 4,000 students: President's Park, DUCC (Dominion Hall, University Commons and Commonwealth Hall), TAP (Townhouses, Student Apartments, Patriots Village) and YRC (Liberty Square and Potomac Heights). A tenth housing area is currently under construction to house an additional thousand students. About 5,000 more students live off campus in housing adjacent to the University. All on-campus housing includes free local phone service, free voice mail, cable TV, high speed internet, central air-conditioning and heating, furniture, and common bathrooms and lounges.

Image:GMU presidentspark.jpg President's Park opened in 1989 and is the largest housing area, with more than 1,000 students living in two, three, or five person dorm rooms. President's Park is exclusively for freshman. There are thirteen residential buildings, all named after past U.S. Presidents: Adams, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Kennedy, Lincoln, Madison, Monroe, Roosevelt, Truman, Washington, Wilson, and Eisenhower in the center, with a diner, movie theater, vending areas, study lounge, and TV lounge. In addition, free laundry service is available in Adams, Harrison and Lincoln Halls. There are also basketball and sandpit volleyball courts in the area.

Dominion Hall, University Commons and Commonwealth Hall, or DUCC, houses approximately one-thousand students, including some freshmen, sophomores and primarily upper-class students. Dominion and Commonwealth Hall were built in 1981 and are five-story buildings offering double-occupancy suite-style rooms for upperclassmen. University Commons was built in 1986 and is comprised of eight buildings: Amherst, Brunswick, Carroll, Dickenson, Essex, Franklin, Grayson, and Hanover in the center. Hanover features a commons area, TV-lounge, laundry area, and a common kitchen.

Townhouses, Student Apartments, Patriots Village, or TAP, houses approximately 1,000 upperclassmen. The townhouses and student apartments became available in 1987, and Patriots Village which has modules from 1984 through 1988. There are 35 two-bedroom townhouses located 1/8th of a mile north of the campus on Ox Road, which include a living/dining room, full-sized kitchen, two full bathrooms, free laundry services with a washer and dryer, full furnishings, and all utilities paid for. Student Apartments were renovated in 2002 and are located inside Patriot Circle, just west of the main quad. They are comprised of nine three-story buildings of one, two, and three-bedroom units. Apartments include a kitchen, bathroom, and living and dining areas. Patriots Village consists of dozens of permanent modulars located outside of Patriot Circle, just east of Ox Road, offering modular and suite-style units. The modular units are designed for seven residents in two double rooms and three single rooms and contain a common living room, study area, and two bathrooms. The suite style units are designed as a double bedroom connected to a single bedroom with a shared full bathroom.

York River Community, or YRC, includes Liberty Square and Potomac Heights, built in 2003. YRC houses approximately 1,000 upperclassmen combined, with about 500 at each development. Both are fully furnished apartments in two, four, or six-person units. Each apartment has atleast one bathroom for every two students, a full kitchen, including a refrigerator, electric stove and oven, microwave oven, garbage disposal and dishwasher, and a living area. YRC apartments are rented out on nine and twelve-month leases.

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Arlington

The Arlington campus was established in 1979 for its law school. Originally classes were offered in the former Kann's department store. Since then the school has grown to offer a multitude of graduate degrees. In 1996, Arlington's campus began its first phase in a three phase campus redevelopment project. In 1998, Hazel Hall was completed to house the law school, the Mercatus Center, and the Institute for Humane Studies. The second phase, to be completed in 2007 is underway for a 250,000 square-foot building to house the School of Public Policy, the College of Education and Human Development, the School of Information Technology and Engineering, the School of Management, the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, the School of Computational Science, the College of Visual & Performing Arts and academic and student supports services. Arlington's campus is projected to reach an enrollment of 10,000 students by the completion of its redevelopment.

The Arlington campus is served on the Washington Metro by the Virginia Square-GMU station on the Orange line. The station is located approximately two blocks west of the campus.

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Prince William

Image:GMU Princewilliam.jpg George Mason's Prince William campus opened On August 25, 1997 in Manassas. It is located on 124 acres of land. The campus will primarily offer a high-tech/bio-tech and emphasizes bioinformatics, biotechnology, forensic biosciences educational and research programs in addition to computer and information technology. The campus also offers creative programs of instruction, research, and public/private partnerships in the Prince William County area.

Prince William offers: a M.A. in New Professional Studies in Teaching, M.A.I.S. with a concentration in Recreation Resources Management, B.S. in Administration of Justice, Undergraduate programs in Health, Fitness, and Recreation Resources, Graduate programs in Exercise, Fitness and Health Promotion, and Nontraditional programs through Continuing and Professional Education in Geographic Information Systems and Facility Management.

Prince William also boasts the 300-seat Verizon Auditorium, the 110,000 square foot Freedom Aquatic and Fitness Center, and an 84,000 square foot, $40 million Performing Arts Center scheduled to open in 2008. Other buildings on the Prince William campus include: The Occoquan Building, which houses various academic, research, and administrative resources, Bull Run Hall, a 100,000 square foot building which opened in the fall of 2004, and Discovery Hall, which was completed in 1998 at a cost of $20.4 million.

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Loudoun

In the fall of 2005, the university opened a site in Loudoun County, Virginia and announced several months later, the acquisition of 133 acres of land to build a fourth suburban campus that is scheduled to open in 2009.

Mason's Loudoun campus offers four graduate programs: Master's in Business Administration, Masters and doctoral programs in the College of Education and Human Development, Graduate Degree in Nursing, and a Master of Science in Telecommunications. It also offers five undergraduate programs: minor in Business and Management, certificates in the College of Education and Human Development, BS in health science, minor in Information Technology, and an introductory course in Social Work.

As Loudoun's campus grows from a smaller branch of George Mason into a major satalite campus, it will begin to offer the same services as those offered to students attending George Mason University's Fairfax, Arlington, or Prince William campuses.

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Ras Al Khaimah

George Mason has recently opened a new campus in the Ras Al Khaimah emirate of the United Arab Emirates. It is in the process of building a permanent campus Emirates Highway at the Umm Al Quwain-Ras Al Khaimah border to be opened in 2009. Currently, the campus is located at the former Higher Colleges of Technology for Men in the Al Zahara area of Ras Al Khaimah. The future campus will include a library, a student lounge, a recreation and fitness center, sports facilities, and a cafeteria.

The Ras Al Khaimah campus is currently offering four undergraduate degree programs, BS in Biology, BS in Business Administration, BS in Electronics and Communications Engineering, and a BS in Nursing. All credits earned at the campus will be fully transferable to George Mason University in the United States.

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Academics

The George Mason University School of Law is ranked 37th in the United States, and the Industrial/Organizational Psychology graduate program is consistently ranked in the top ten in the nation. The university has additional strength in the basic and applied sciences with critical mass in proteomics, neuroscience and computational sciences. Research support comes to Mason faculty from such agencies as the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Mason is also known for its top tier graduate program in Industrial/Organizational Psychology, which is currently ranked sixth by US News and World Report. It is also home to the Center for History and New Media whose various history websites attract more than one million visitors each month.

Mason's Center for Global Education's Study Abroad program has been rated as one of the top twenty programs in the United States, offering dozens of programs raning from one-week spring break programs to full year programs.

Mason was awarded $25 million, in 2005, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, for construction of a Regional Biocontainment Laboratory at the Prince William Campus in Manassas.

Research at GMU is organized into centers, laboratories, and collaborative programs.<ref>Research and Scholarship from GMU's website</ref>

As of 2006, the following research centers are part of various GMU colleges, or in some cases, span multiple colleges: Template:Col-begin Template:Col-2

Template:Col-2

  • Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study
    • Adolescent and Adult Learning Research Center
    • Center for Neuroeconomics and Law
    • Center for Neural Dynamics
  • School of Computational Sciences
    • Center for Earth Observing and Space Research
  • Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering
    • Center for Air Transportation Systems Research
    • Center for Computational Statistics
    • Center for Distributed and Intelligent Computation
    • Center for Excellence in Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence
    • Center for Image Analysis
    • Center for Secure Information Systems
    • E-Center for E-Business
    • Learning Agents Center
  • School of Law
  • School of Public Policy
    • Center for Aerospace Policy and Management
    • Center for Entrepreneurship and Public Policy
    • Center for Global Policy
    • Center for Regional Analysis
    • Center for Science and Technology Policy
    • Center for Transport, Policy, and Logistics
    • International Center for Applied Studies in Information Technology
    • Mason Enterprise Center
    • Policy Analysis Center
    • State Economic Development Center
    • The Societal Dynamics Research Center

Template:Col-end In addition, GMU's Office of the Provost includes the following research centers:

    • Center for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
    • Center for Global Education Study Abroad(CGE)
    • Center for Global Studies
    • Center for Social Complexity
    • Center for Teaching Excellence
    • Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science
    • Mercatus Center
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Athletics

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The school's sports teams are called the Patriots. The university's men's and women's sports teams participate in the NCAA's Division I, and are members of the Colonial Athletic Association, or CAA. The school's colors are green and gold. George Mason has two NCAA Division I National Championships to it's credit: 1985 Women's Soccer and 1996 Men's Indoor Track & Field.

George Mason University was catapulted into the national spotlight in March 2006, when its men's basketball team qualified for the Final Four of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament by defeating the Michigan State Spartans, the North Carolina Tar Heels, the Wichita State University Shockers, and the Connecticut Huskies (UConn), becoming the first #11 seed to reach the Final Four since the Louisiana State (LSU) Tigers in 1986. Their "Cinderella" journey ended in the Final Four with a loss to the Florida Gators by a score of 73-58 [1]. As a result of the team's success in the tournament, the Patriots were ranked 8th in the final ESPN/USA Today Poll for the 2005-06 season. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, and USA Today featured the story on their front pages.

The George Mason Patriots were also the first mid-major conference team not seeded #1 to reach the Final Four since 1979, when the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) Quakers reached the Final Four as a #9 seed. The Larry Bird-led Indiana State University Sycamores were the last mid-major conference team to reach the Final Four as a #1 seed in the same year.

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Presidents past and present

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Famous alumni and former students

  • Anna E. Cabral, Treasurer of the United States. Part of the law school class of 2007.
  • Hala Gorani, News Anchor, CNN International
  • Brian van de Graaff, Meteorologist, ABC 7 News
  • Mike Kohn, Olympic Athlete
  • Archie Kao, Actor
  • Rob Muzzio, Decathlon Champion, Olympic Athlete
  • Karl Rove, White House Senior Domestic Policy Advisor (attended from 1973-1975)
  • Susan Rook, Former News Anchor, CNN & CNN Talkback Live
  • Zainab Salbi, President, Women for Women International
  • John Wilburn, Managing Editor, Houston Chronicle
  • Debora J. Wilson, President, The Weather Channel
  • Chris Widger, Catcher, Chicago White Sox
  • Shawn Camp, Relief Pitcher, Tampa Bay Devil Rays
  • William Winfree, Ph.D., Physicist
  • Mark Winegardner, Author
  • Rebecca Wee, Poet
  • Muna Abu-Sulayman, United Nations Goodwill Ambassador
  • Kristi Lauren Glakas, Pageant Contestant
  • George Evans - Retired US Army, Gulf War veteran and George Mason basketball great
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References

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External links

Template:Spoken Wikipedia

Template:Public colleges and universities in Virginia Template:Colonial Athletic Associationga:Ollscoil George Mason ja:ジョージ・メーソン大学

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