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ODKM Looks Toward 30th Anniversary, Adds New Faculty Member

Andrew J Schappert — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 14:47:15 +0000

ODKM Looks Toward 30th Anniversary, Adds New Faculty Member Andrew J Schappert Fri, 09/27/2024 - 10:47

The Schar School of Policy and Government’s Organization Development and Knowledge Management (ODKM) master’s program is preparing to celebrate its 30th anniversary next year, when it welcomes its 30th cohort to the program. To mark the milestone, the program is launching an ambitious #30in30 campaign, aiming to recruit 30 students for Cohort 30. (The average cohort is 20.)

Program Director Tojo Thatchenkery: The goal was to ‘create a truly interdisciplinary department which would be one of the first of its kind anywhere.’

“ODKM is the best kept secret at ��AV, and we don’t want to be a secret any longer,” said program director Tojo Thatchenkery. “It’s a unique program that is preparing working adults for the complex business environment so many are experiencing in this postpandemic reality.”

After three decades of developing leaders in a variety of for-profit and nonprofit industries, “we are focusing a lot of energy on recruitment while celebrating 30 years of this program that has turned out so many influential changemakers over the years,” he said.

New core faculty member Stacey Guenther is up for the challenge. She joins after serving as an adjunct faculty member of the program and is herself a 2004 alumna of ODKM, cohort number seven.

“ODKM is near and dear to my heart. It was deeply transformative for me, and my life changed radically after I entered the program,” Guenther said.

Stacey Guenther: ‘It was deeply transformative for me, and my life changed radically after I entered the program.’

Guenther has been closely connected to George Mason since graduating 20 years ago. She was one of the founding staff members of the university’s Center for Consciousness and Transformation (now known as the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being), worked as a corporate facilitator at George Mason’s team development and experiential learning facility the EDGE, and for five years served as adjunct faculty for the School of Integrative Studies.

In addition to teaching in the program, Guenther will spearhead ODKM’s #30in30 campaign, which will involve a social media push, the development of an advisory board, alumni relations efforts, and relationship-building with local and regional organizations.

“I’m looking forward to telling the ODKM story,” she said. “It is the only program of its kind in the immediate region, and there is no better academic program for leaders and helping professionals in the area.”

In mid-September, the current cohort of ODKM students hosted a daylong learning community in which they became instructors to those from many walks of life and at varying stages of their own careers. The capstone event is traditional in the program as the Schar School students practice what they have learned in the course. This learning community’s theme was styles of conflict and titled “The Art of the Ordeal: Conflict Tools and Techniques.”

ODKM was founded by Thatchenkery as he was completing his PhD dissertation at Case Western University in April 1993.

“I was looking for a job in a business school, but what I was working on—postmodernism and hermeneutics—wasn’t particularly attractive to them,” he said with a laugh.

As it happened, George Mason was beginning a new academic department called Program on Social Organizational Learning (PSOL), with a tenure-track position for researching and teaching hermeneutics. “Within an hour I had sent my application,” he said.

The cohort-based ODKM program features a “learning community” capstone, where students take over as teachers. Photo by Bryan Regalado.

The founders of the program, economics professors Don Lavoie and Jack High, “wanted to create a truly interdisciplinary department which would be one of the first of its kind anywhere,” Thatchenkery said. “As we all know, academic departments have disciplinary boundaries. Economics departments have economists and psychology departments have psychologists. But how about a department with faculty from different disciplines such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, computer sciences, literature, management, and economics?”

That was, he said, “a revolutionary idea at that time and I was sold on it. A few weeks later I would get a job offer from Don Lavoie and my first day on the job was mid-August 1993.”

It wasn’t long after that Thatchenkery was pitching a master’s program in organization learning (OL), which would be the first such program anywhere, he said. After much internal maneuvering around various disciplines and hard-earned approval by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), the PSOL degree program launched in fall 1996 with its first 23 students, cohort number one.

The program was rebranded ODKM in fall 2009 and continues to teach mid-career students leadership, creative problem-solving, and analytical skills invaluable to their organization, work, and lives.

For more information about George Mason’s Organization Development and Knowledge Management program, see the program’s website.

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Mason Students, Grads Claim Top Prizes in TraCCC’s 2023 Anti-Counterfeiting Hackathon

Andrew J Schappert — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 21:27:32 +0000

Mason Students, Grads Claim Top Prizes in TraCCC’s 2023 Anti-Counterfeiting Hackathon Andrew J Schappert Tue, 11/14/2023 - 16:27

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Trading under the team name of CyberCrustaceans, ��AV students Anthony Perry and Daniel Horvath—both Honors College students—defeated five finalist teams to win the $20,000 top prize at the Bring Down Counterfeiting Hackathon 2023 (BDC 2023). The hackathon, a nationally advertised competition that began in September, brought together individuals and teams to develop technology-based solutions for combating counterfeiting.

From left, Anthony Perry and Daniel Horvath, aka Team CyberCrustaceans, won the top prize in the Bring Down Counterfeiting Hackathon 2023. Photos by Ayman Rashid/Office of University Branding

BDC 2023 was organized by the Schar School of Policy and Government’s Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) in partnership with strategy and analytic firm Blue Clarity, which administered the competition. Major sponsors included e-commerce and technology company Amazon.com Inc. and the Global Innovation Policy Center, a department within the U.S. Chamber of Commerce devoted to promoting innovation, creativity, and strong intellectual property protections.

CyberCrustaceans’ $20,000 winning entry, called Veritas Ex Machina, was deemed by a panel of practitioner judges to be a breakthrough combination of X-ray technology, optical scanning, and artificial intelligence designed to sift through enormous volumes of small parcels to detect the likelihood of counterfeit product.

The $10,000 Student Prize, SafeURL, was won by a team of Mason graduate students called Tech Titans who tackled the digital domain of counterfeiting with a system designed to uncover fraudulent websites. By employing sophisticated machine-learning algorithms, they crafted a user-friendly platform that helps users discern the legitimacy of URLs, enhancing online security and trust.

The Tech Titans team, which also took home the $2,500 Crowdsource Prize, included Siva Satyanarayana Raju Pusapati, Sampath Sai Yelleti, Hemanth Kumar Reddy Tiyyagura, Chandra Kiran Viswanath Balusu, Anusha Bhavanam, and Poojasree Keerithipati.

The $10,000 CINA prize for research, sponsored by Mason’s Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis Center (CINA), went to Mason students Salem Abdul-Bak and Krishna Purohit (also an Honors College student) and for the Legitima project, which bridges technology with policy. The program uses serialized tokens and a Chrome extension that functions as a digital passport for products, enhancing consumer trust and enabling verification of authenticity. In addition to $10,000, the students receive a semester of mentoring by CINA experts and the opportunity to present their project to a wider audience.

Three other teams with promising concepts won honorable mention prizes worth $1,000 each, bringing the total prize money to $45,500.

Support and prize money came from a variety of organizations including Amazon, Statista, Mapbox, the National Crime Prevention Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center, and the International Coalition Against Illicit Economies.

TraCCC founding director Louise Shelley converses with Patrick Kilbride, senior vice president of the Global Innovation Policy Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Hackathon With Purpose

This is the second Hackathon TraCCC has hosted. The competition featured some 80 contestants—faculty and students from many different universities—registering as teams or individuals and working for more than two months to perfect their ideas. Six competitors making the finals were non-Mason.

The competition has two goals: Bringing attention to the serious harms caused by counterfeiting, and encouraging students and others to develop solutions using technology and policy to address the problem.

Counterfeiting is a global problem: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that pirated and counterfeit products make up 2.5 percent of world trade or roughly $464 billion a year. Many if not most of those counterfeit goods present a danger to the public. As an example, during the COVID-19 crisis, TraCCC researchers were able to prevent 67 million counterfeit masks for frontline workers from entering the U.S. market.

“We need the data to show how this problem operates so we can begin to address it,” said TraCCC founding director Louise Shelley of the Hackathon. “And working together, we need public, private, and research partnerships to begin to solve it.”

She added that an additional—and unexpected— benefit of the exercise is to involve technology-oriented students who discover an affinity for policy. She said the participants praised Mason and appreciated the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

Six finalist teams presented their solutions at Mason Square in Arlington, Virginia, on November 4 during Hackathon Demo Day, defending them under questioning from a panel of judges that included leading practitioners from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Customs and Border Patrol, and Amazon. While the judges deliberated, a series of notable speakers, including Summer Kostelnik, policy advisor from the White House Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement, offered their views on trends in counterfeiting and what needs to be done to counter them.

Hackathon 3 will be announced later in 2024.

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Schar School Undergrads Get a Surprise Visitor: A North Korea Defector

Andrew J Schappert — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 15:24:11 +0000

Schar School Undergrads Get a Surprise Visitor: A North Korea Defector Andrew J Schappert Fri, 11/10/2023 - 10:24

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North Korea defector Justin Seo: ‘There is no one message that could solve the problems of North Korea, but if the people can stay strong, perhaps positive change lies ahead.’

North Korea currently presents both direct and indirect security concerns for the U.S. and, indeed the world. Its nuclear arsenal and missile capabilities pose a direct threat to specific regions, while its potential to influence other nations is strong.

Former South Korea navy captain Joshua Park is a visiting research fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government at ��AV. He is also an adjunct professor, teaching a course called North Korea Security (GOVT 444) that calls on his extensive military experience in conveying a robust foundational understanding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and a thorough examination of its intricate network of foreign relations. Ultimately, Park delves into the intriguing dynamics between North Korea and the broader strategic competition among nations.

On a Thursday in September, Park introduced to the class a guest speaker who provided exclusive insight to contemporary life in North Korea and its foreign relations. The speaker, Justin Seo, is a defector from North Korea, having escaped from North Korea to China with his family in 2005.

Seo vividly narrated a detailed PowerPoint presentation that illustrated the concepts they have been studying as only someone who lived there could.

Seo stated how the propaganda implemented by the North Korean government runs rampant in the news, and civilians have essentially no choice but to believe it. Additionally, most civilians are required to spend a minimum of 10 years in the military, unless their status is deemed unworthy of serving the family of supreme leader Kim Jong Un. In that case, they are likely subject to a life of abject poverty.

North Korea’s flawed education system, he said, was rife with systemic concerns unimaginable to Western thinking.

“In People’s school,” he said, “the students are told to bring valuable things to school. Students may be asked to bring aluminum, herbs, human or animal wastes, rice, firewood, and sometimes money. The teachers collect these items under the dictator’s name to condition students to be subject to the rule of the Kim family at a young age.”

Seo added that students are taught to worship the Kim Jong Un family beginning as early as kindergarten.

Not surprisingly, Seo received a large number of questions from the Schar School class, including one that made his North Korea experience personal: “If you hypothetically had the power to tell all of North Korea one message, what would you tell them?”

“I would tell them to remain aware of their situation and to stay determined,” he said. “There is no one message that could solve the problems of North Korea, but if the people can stay strong, perhaps positive change lies ahead.”

Seo also encouraged the class to share news of the systemic realities of North Korea, such as their human rights violations and a recent summit cementing relations with Russia, as much as possible. He emphasized pressuring the U.S. Congress to accept North Korean people as international refugees.

The students in Park’s class said they were thrilled to have an engaging guest as Seo.

“Being able to hear Mr. Seo describe his background was an extremely fulfilling event,” said Government and International Politics major Jake Moran. “At this moment, I felt very grateful that I decided to take North Korean Security with Professor Park. Seeing a North Korean defector speak his mind with his presentation truly made the class standout relative to the other government classes I have taken.”

“Justin Seo’s guest lecture painted a vivid picture of the hardships that North Koreans face in their everyday lives,” said government major Jim Corcoran. “After hearing his story and learning about his perspective, I feel that I can better appreciate the human costs that the regime’s systems of oppression impose on their own people.

“I feel that this class, or any class on North Korea, would be incomplete without being able to learn firsthand about what life is like for ordinary citizens.”

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Mason, Schar School Launch Pioneering Program to Fund Federal Internships for Students

Andrew J Schappert — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 14:38:15 +0000

Mason, Schar School Launch Pioneering Program to Fund Federal Internships for Students Andrew J Schappert Thu, 09/28/2023 - 10:38

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��AV President Gregory Washington, right, with Nicola Davis, left, and Danielle Perry. Photos by Nicole Kelleher/Schar School of Policy and Government

Most federal government internships offered to college students are unpaid, leaving many eligible students with no other choice than to pursue opportunities elsewhere. To address this issue, the Schar School of Policy and Government at ��AV launched a groundbreaking program called the Federal Workforce Initiative which will fund some 10 federal internships each semester for students working in various government agencies.

The program is a joint venture among the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, the Schar School, and Mason.

The Federal Workforce Initiative kicked off with an inaugural reception in September at the Virginia home of Schar School alum Colin Hart, MA Global Commerce and Policy ’93, and his wife Marianne. Cohosts on hand included former U.S. Rep. Tom Davis and former president and CEO of the Northern Virginia Technology Council Bobbie Kilberg and her husband Bill Kilberg. Other initiative hosts include former Virginia State Senator Jeannemarie Devolites Davis and former presidential counselor Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty and his wife Donna.

In introducing the Federal Workforce Initiative to the invited audience of community and business leaders, Mason President Gregory Washington and Schar School founding dean Mark J. Rozell described how the program will channel talented students into exclusive federal government internships and provide leadership training, networking opportunities, and other aspects of professional development.

From left, Teresa Freeman, Schar School Dean Mark J. Rozell, and Leslie Durham.

Schar School public policy professor Anne Holton, former interim Mason president, said the program is “a win-win-win situation” for students and the federal agencies they serve, noting that the federal workforce is aging and is desperate to see an influx of “young bright minds” in the near future. She added that the Schar School will increase its regional presence in bringing new workers to federal agencies, and Mason students will be afforded training and experiential learning opportunities, thrusting them ahead of peers from other area universities.

Students chosen for the competitive initiative will receive a stipend of $3,500 each semester. Stuart Loomis, a Master of Political Science student at the Schar School and one of the first recipients, spoke movingly about how receiving the stipend during his internship at the Department of Transportation will impact his education, his career, and his life.

Click here to join the growing number of alumni and community members supporting this vital initiative.

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Schar School Study Shows 4 ‘Hubs’ of Illicit Trade—and the Reasons They Flourish

Andrew J Schappert — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 15:33:03 +0000

Schar School Study Shows 4 ‘Hubs’ of Illicit Trade—and the Reasons They Flourish Andrew J Schappert Wed, 09/27/2023 - 11:33

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Louise Shelley: ‘This study underscores the critical need for governments and the private sector to prioritize the fight against illicit activities…’

A major new academic study highlights four geographic hubs of illicit trade for organized crime and specifies how each of the hot spots shares an enabling environment for criminals. In identifying the locations and the lax regulation and governance gaps that create the illicit trade zones, researchers say law enforcement and policymakers can take action to curtail the massive human, economic, societal, and security harms across the world.

The study, Smugglers’ Paradises in the Global Economy: Growing Threats of Hubs of Illicit Trade to Security and Sustainable Development, and its alarming findings were announced at the 2023 International Law Enforcement Intellectual Property Crime Conference organized by Interpol in Oslo in late September. A copy of the report and the accompanying research can be found on the Hubs of Illicit Trade page.

“This study underscores the critical need for governments and the private sector to prioritize the fight against illicit activities and to crackdown on organized crime within their Free Trade Zones and other hot spots,” said Louise Shelley, Hubs of Illicit Trade project director and University Professor at ��AV. Shelley is also director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government. TraCCC’s Anti-Illicit Trade Institute (AITI), codirected by former U.S. diplomat David M. Luna, also participated in the project.

The study reveals that four global hubs—South America (the Argentina-Brazil-Paraguay tri-border area), Central America (Panama, Guatemala, and Belize), the Middle East (Dubai), and Eastern Europe (Ukraine)—share an enabling environment that fuels illicit trade, facilitated by regulatory laxity, and are points of convergence for different types of criminality, such as corruption, money laundering, and other security threats that contribute to the movement of illicit goods and contraband in Europe and the United States, amongst others.

“Our mission is to advance robust international cooperation, not only with European institutions and inter-governmental organizations but also with national law enforcement authorities,” Luna said from Oslo. “An important step in this direction is to strengthen the policing of Free Trade Zones and foster effective cross-border law enforcement and judicial actions, including participation in diplomatic fora.” Those include the upcoming global tobacco control meetings (MOP3) in Panama, the April 2024 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Working Party on Countering Illicit Trade, and the Oslo conference.

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Mason Alum Katie Rose Is Crowned Miss Virginia 2023

Andrew J Schappert — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 17:19:54 +0000

Mason Alum Katie Rose Is Crowned Miss Virginia 2023 Andrew J Schappert Thu, 07/06/2023 - 13:19

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Miss Virginia 2023 Katie Rose: ‘I am forever thankful, proud, and humbled to call myself a George Mason Patriot.’ Photo by David Hungate/Roanoke Times

Katie Rose, a 2018 graduate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at ��AV, won the crown as the 70th Miss Virginia on Saturday, July 1, in a pageant held at the Berglund Center in Roanoke, Virginia. She accepted the title and sash from Miss Virginia 2022 Victoria Chuah.

Rose, who competed as Miss Loudoun County, performed a ballet routine during the talent competition. Along with the title, Rose was awarded a $20,000 scholarship as well as a spot in the Miss America pageant later this year.

Rose graduated from Mason with a degree in government and international politics before attending the University of Richmond’s law school.

“[Mason] shaped me in many ways, and it is an incredible honor to call myself an alumna,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “I am forever thankful, proud, and humbled to call myself a George Mason Patriot.”

As a student, Rose joined Mason’s chapter of the Alpha Phi sorority and attended a Washington, D.C., intensive session hosted by the school’s study abroad unit. “She was a special student, very enthusiastic, dedicated, and very well organized,” said Schar School Director of External Programs Michal McElwain Malur, who accompanied the students during the spring break intensive. “She was very memorable, a serious student, a natural leader, and a role model.”

Over the course of the pageant competition season, Rose’s community service initiative has been raising awareness for domestic violence issues.

“I’ve already been able to go into schools as Miss Loudoun County and talk about my elementary-level school curriculum about building healthy relationships,” Rose said during the interview portion of the Miss Virginia competition. “And the reason I know that this works is because at the end of one of my presentations a kid actually came forward and told me that he had been abused.

“I know that I want to encourage and have a platform for every child to feel that they have a safe place to come forward if they choose to do so,” Rose said.

Additional reporting by Cooper Dehr. Reprinted with permission of the Roanoke Times.

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Study: When Recreational Cannabis Is Legal, Codeine Demand Drops

Andrew J Schappert — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 13:49:46 +0000

Study: When Recreational Cannabis Is Legal, Codeine Demand Drops Andrew J Schappert Tue, 01/24/2023 - 08:49

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Catherine Maclean: ‘…[C]annabis use is arguably less harmful to health than the nonmedical use of prescription opioids.’

A new study published this month in Health Economics finds a significant reduction in pharmacy-based codeine distribution in states that have legalized recreational cannabis use. The finding is promising from a public health policy perspective because misuse of prescription opioids contributes to more than 10,000 overdose deaths a year in the U.S.

The study was coauthored by associate professor Johanna Catherine Maclean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at ��AV. The research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

So far, 21 U.S. states have passed recreational cannabis laws; legislatures in other states are considering similar measures.

“A reduction in the misuse of opioids will save lives,” said doctoral candidate Shyam Raman who is affiliated with the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the lead author of the study. “Our research indicates that recreational cannabis laws substantially reduce distribution of codeine to pharmacies, an overlooked potential benefit to legalizing recreational cannabis use.”

Maclean, who specializes in the study of substance use disorder and public policy, said that while cannabis and opioids can be used to minimize chronic pain symptoms, they aren’t equivalent in their impact on overall health.

“Increasing legal access to cannabis may shift some consumers away from opioids and toward cannabis,” she said. “While all substances have some risks, cannabis use is arguably less harmful to health than the nonmedical use of prescription opioids.”

The study is believed to be among the first to separately examine the impact of recreational cannabis laws on shipments of opioids to hospitals, pharmacies, and other endpoint distributors. Previous studies have focused on medical cannabis laws or the use of opioids by subsets of consumers, such as Medicaid beneficiaries.

The researchers analyzed data from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Automation of Reports and Consolidation Orders System which tracks the flow of controlled substances in the U.S.

Key findings from states that passed recreational cannabis laws:

A 26 percent reduction in pharmacy-based distribution of codeine and as much as a 37 percent reduction after recreational cannabis laws have been in effect for four years.
Minimal impact on distribution of other opioids such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and morphine in any setting.
Minimal impact on codeine distribution by hospitals, which often have less permissive policies than pharmacies.

“This finding is particularly meaningful,” said senior author Coleman Drake of the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Public Health. “Where previous studies have focused on more potent opioids, codeine is a weaker drug with a higher potential for addiction. It indicates people may be obtaining codeine from pharmacies for misuse, and that recreational cannabis laws reduce this illicit demand.”

“Our study contributes new information to policy debates regarding legalization of recreational cannabis, which is a complex decision,” added Maclean. “Lawmakers could weigh the benefits we document alongside benefits and costs across a range of health, social, and economic domains potentially impacted by cannabis as they determine whether legalization is appropriate for their constituents.”

W. David Bradford of the University of Georgia also contributed to the study.

Additional reporting by Jim Hanchett, assistant dean for communications for the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. Cornell’s announcement is here.

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George Mason Students from Ukraine Describe Horrors of War from Afar

Andrew J Schappert — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 15:12:48 +0000

George Mason Students from Ukraine Describe Horrors of War from Afar Andrew J Schappert Wed, 04/20/2022 - 11:12

From left, Solomiya Shpak, Mariana Verbovska, and Mariia Panga address the audience during the Schar School ‘Ask Me Anything’ session about developments in their home country of Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine was brought home on April 7 when three students with direct ties to the besieged country presented an “Ask Me Anything” session with members of the ��AV community. The 90-minute event took place with an audience of about 30 at Van Metre Hall at Mason Square (formerly the Arlington Campus).

Solomiya Shpak, one of the panelists and current postdoctoral fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government at Mason, was in Kyiv as Russia started bombing Ukrainian cities early on the morning of February 24. Shpak, eight months pregnant at the time the war began, told the audience how she and her family escaped Kyiv to western Ukraine by car.

Facing continued peril in Lviv, the family took the arduous 22-hour drive to the Romanian border. Her husband, however, was not permitted to leave the country and remained behind while the rest of the family continued to Hungary.

“Thankfully, we reached Budapest safely and stayed there for another week where friends from Hungarian Academy of Sciences organized a place to stay for us,” she said. “In Budapest, we decided that the best decision for us would be to go to Washington, D.C., where I can have huge support network.”

That network included Schar School faculty, fellow students, and other Ukranians, as well as former colleagues of her husband’s from the National Endowment for Democracy. Administrators at the Schar School offered a postdoctoral fellowship upon her return.

Mariana Verbovska, a Fulbright fellow at Mason’s Department of Communication, came to the university in November 2021 with her husband and 3-year-old son; the rest of her family, including her mother and father, remained in Ukraine to face the eventual Russian onslaught.

“My parents live in a region that has a border with Belarus, so they are not safe,” she said. “My friends are in Lviv and Kyiv, and it's heartbreaking to read the news and get messages from them.”

Mariia Panga, a PhD student at the Schar School, shared how she found out about the war from her new home in Arlington, Virginia, near Mason Square.

“It was around 11 p.m.,” she told the Mason audience. “I was watching the live broadcast of the UN Security Council. There the permanent representative for Ukraine told the Council that Putin declared war on Ukraine. I started panicking. I looked at my phone and I saw posts on Facebook that Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa were being bombed. I will never forget this moment.”

One of the participants asked a question about the current safety of the panelists’ families and friends. The panelists were unequivocal and in unanimous agreement: “Nobody is safe in Ukraine,” they said.

They also verified news reports that Russia is targeting residential buildings, hospitals, and bomb shelters.

Other questions from the audience touched on how those in the U.S. can assist Ukraine (donate to reliable humanitarian organizations, contract Congressional representatives), how the war might end, and why Vladimir Putin is obsessed with Ukraine.

Panga also announced an online petition for the Mason community.

In the end, the panelists offered they only thing they could be sure of: hope.

“But we are resilient,” Verbovska declared. “I firmly believe that love and truth will win, and that this is a historic turning point.”

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From Classroom to Real World: Schar School Students Engage at Global Climate Conference

Andrew J Schappert — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 15:46:29 +0000

From Classroom to Real World: Schar School Students Engage at Global Climate Conference Andrew J Schappert Fri, 02/04/2022 - 10:46

For four days in November 2021, eight students from the Schar School of Policy and Government attended COP26, the world’s largest global climate conference, in Glasgow, Scotland.*

The trip, part of the Schar School summer course, Climate Policy: A Global Transdisciplinary Approach for the Future, allowed students the opportunity to meet with delegates, negotiators, youth activists, and indigenous groups at the conference. While there, Schar students received a crash course in the complexities of climate change policy and negotiations.

“It was a really great experience getting to see the general process of COP, but also various types of stakeholders that come to the table and how they interact,” said Mason senior Conner Cuevo.

The quick jaunt packed a lot of punch, inspiring in Cuevo a passion for how government and international institutions like the U.N. work and how they can solve global issues.

“It has given me a wealth of experiences to draw from and an endless source of materials that I continue to reference and apply to my classes, and even outside of class,” he said.

His network also expanded: “When you’re in a small group like that, you make a lot of friends.”

Schar School and other ��AV students enrolled in the 3-credit virtual study abroad “Climate Policy” course figuratively “travel” the planet, studying global challenges with experiential learning opportunities and collaboration on a group project with students from the University of Rwanda.

The class features TED-style talks from 20 guest speakers from 18 different countries, including Ma Jun, the top Chinese environmental activist and is one of TIME magazine’s most influential 100 people, and Erik Solheim, a former head of the UN Environmental Program.

“The level, the number, and backgrounds of all speakers that came to class really gave a well-rounded viewpoint,” said Schar School senior Jake Mazzoccoli, who took the class and the trip to Scotland.

For Mazzaccoli, the most interesting event at COP26 was a private session hosted by the Norwegian Africa Business Association (NABA) that featured top negotiators and policy makers from Africa, as well as experts from KPMG. Through a collaboration with NABA, the students helped craft a white paper that resulted from the session, which was moderated by Carol Pineau, a journalist and senior fellow at the Schar School.

Attending COP26 really opened his eyes, Mazzoccoli said, and showed him why things don’t move as quickly as he and others hoped.

“COP is the center of the issue, but it’s frustrating because it’s often just words on paper. It really lit a fire under me,” he said. “I didn’t really understand the complexity and sensitive nature. The problems aren’t simple. You can’t just go over there and fix it.”

But the class offered him a way forward, as he heard about issues directly from their sources and made contacts with high-level officials.

“Climate Policy: A Global Transdisciplinary Approach for the Future” will be taught again in fall 2022, with an in-person visit planned to COP, held this year in Egypt. For more information on the Schar School’s study abroad classes, visit abroad.gmu.edu.

*Students followed numerous COVID-19 protocols, including vaccinations, boosters, and testing before and after travel.

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