ARIE

Students present research on therapeutic alliances, neurodivergent voices, and immigrant parental support groups

Lauren Reuscher — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 17:38:48 +0000

Students present research on therapeutic alliances, neurodivergent voices, and immigrant parental support groups Lauren Reuscher Wed, 03/27/2024 - 13:38

��AV student researchers were among those that gathered on the Fairfax Campus last week for the Access to Research and Inclusive Excellence (ARIE) National Conference. In addition to speakers and breakout sessions on various topics, the two-day conference opened with a poster session with 49 groups presenting their research. These were three of the poster sessions presented.

A total of 49 poster sessions were presented at the Access to Research and Inclusive Excellence (ARIE) National Conference on the Fairfax Campus. Photo by Evan Cantwell/��AV

“Addressing Power Imbalance in the Therapeutic Alliance” centers youth client, caregiver, and clinician voices to understand what contributes to a culturally responsive therapeutic alliance and tackles the implications for an imbalance of power in achieving desired outcomes. Clinicians, youth clients, and caregivers were recruited from a specialty anxiety community youth clinic. Researchers are in the process of identifying additional themes represented in participant transcripts and writing up their findings into a manuscript for publication.

Researchers include Sasha Flowers, doctoral student in clinical psychology; Amanda Sanchez, assistant professor of clinical psychology and primary investigator, ACCESS Lab; and MacKenzie Feeken, program coordinator, Center for Evidence-Based Behavioral Health, all from Mason’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences; and Michal Weiss, clinical research coordinator, and Emily M. Becker-Haimes, clinical director, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

“It feels very meaningful to present my research to audiences that recognize the importance of inclusive excellence and action through research. In my work, action through research means that the effects of my study should extend beyond the walls of the research lab to address mental health inequities.” –Sasha Flowers

Mason President Gregory Washington (center) attends poster presentations at the ARIE National Conference. Photo by Evan Cantwell/��AV

“Including Neurodivergent Voices through Probing Interviews: A Methodological Approach to Enhance Hiring Practices” focuses on the unique skills and perspectives of neurodivergent individuals, who face disproportionately high unemployment rates. Traditional hiring practices often exacerbate this issue, overlooking the diverse information-gathering and processing needs of neurodivergent individuals. In this study, researchers used the probing interview as an innovative methodological approach to actively engage participants through structured, hands-on activities. The researchers plan to test the validity and effectiveness of probing interviews and recommend further studies applying these methods.

Researchers include Niloofar Kalantari, doctoral student in information technology, School of Computing, College of Engineering and Computing; JeongJin Kim, doctoral student in industrial-organizational psychology, College of Humanities and Social Sciences; Sarah Marie Wittman, assistant professor of management, Costello College of Business; Vivian Genaro Motti, associate professor, information sciences and technology, School of Computing, College of Engineering and Computing.

“At the ARIE conference, we networked with industry representatives who are interested in advancing the lives of neurodivergent individuals at work, and this opportunity opened up doors to future research collaboration with them.” —Niloofar Kalantari and JeongJin Kim

“Building a Support Group for Immigrant Parents with Immigrant Parents: A Community Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) Project” focuses on parent support groups, which often fail to be culturally responsive, strengths-focused, and socio-politically relevant because educators and social service providers do not address the real parenting challenges and contexts of the target population. This project involved 15 meetings with the partner organization, Amigas de la Comunidad, in Alexandria, Virginia, to collaboratively develop a support group through identifying needs/topics for parenting support, culturally relevant strengths and considerations, resources for immigrant families, and supports for parents’ and children’s mental health. The research team will pilot the parent support group this fall, collect data to explore the effectiveness of the intervention, and develop a proposal for future funding.

Researchers include Maribel Tohara Nakamatsu, doctoral student in education, and Rachael Goodman, associate professor, College of Education and Human Development.

“Presenting at the ARIE conference allowed me to showcase the hard work we have been doing in partnership with Amigas de la Comunidad. Additionally, it provided a good opportunity to meet people who share similar interests with us." —Maribel Tohara Nakamatsu

The conference, held on Mason’s Fairfax Campus, included scholars, researchers, and practitioners from higher education, K-12, community organizations, nonprofits, government, foundations, and businesses.

One of the keynotes, educator and priest associate Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu, the daughter of Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, shared her ideas about seeking common ground in times of conflict and the value of engaging everyone, including those with different perspectives and different cultural and economic backgrounds.

Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu (center) was one of the keynote speakers at the ARIE National Conference. Photo by Ron Aira/��AV

Other speakers included Nolan L. Cabrera, professor of educational policy studies and practice at the University of Arizona, and a panel discussion with industry leaders with experience at organizations including LMI, ManTech, Peraton, Everyone Matters, Inc., and more.

Mason President Gregory Washington emphasized the limited diversity in positions of leadership in the United States, including key roles in business, government, education, media, and entertainment. Washington said, Mason’s inclusive approach to education and learning as the largest public university in the commonwealth can address gaps in access to opportunity and prepare graduates to lead successful careers.

Mason was recently awarded the Institutional Excellence Award from the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE).

Learn more about the ARIE National Conference

Read about the keynote speakers

Topics

ARIE

Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion

Research

diversity equity and inclusion DEI

Supporting underserved graduate students focused on health equity research

Shayla Brown — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 19:24:51 +0000

Supporting underserved graduate students focused on health equity research Shayla Brown Tue, 12/06/2022 - 14:24

Photo by Getty Images

The Communicating Health Equity and Healing Justice Research Lab (CEHJ) came to life on ��AV’s campus in October 2021.

“It started out an all-Black women endeavor, but now it has expanded to Black and Brown men as well as alternative gender identity individuals,” said Akila Ka Ma’at, the director of the lab and core faculty member with Women and Gender Studies Program and the Communication Department.

The lab allows students to engage in the production of research projects and contribute to data collection efforts through an immersive experiential learning and training experience. Its members focus on the mental and reproductive health of Black women as well as identify factors related to internalized racism.

Ashley Dawson, who joined the lab as an undergraduate student, is getting her master’s in public health with a concentration in health promotion. She hopes to become a public health consultant as well as a program developer so she can provide health intervention for underserved communities.

“Currently, we’re working on the impact of the “Strong Black Woman” stigma on the birth outcomes in Black women,” said Dawson. “This allows us to address the intersectionality and social determinants that are either negatively or positively impacting prenatal health.”

Sahana Natarajan, who recently graduated from Rutgers Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, is currently working as Mason affiliate faculty in collaboration with the CEHJ research lab.

“Health communication was something I had never really done before. Despite that, Dr. Ma’at believed in my potential and went to great lengths to mentor me,” said Natarajan. “I’m still in the process of learning how to lead. I’m starting to lead my own projects.”

Natarajan is currently working on a pilot testing a survey to access racial stress and related factors among prenatal Black Women.

“This lab is really about team collaboration. Along with that, addressing health disparities. If that’s something that’s important to you, I think the lab will really benefit you in terms of increasing your abilities and your impact in the world,” she said.

Mason sociology student J Orisha is also a part of CEHJ and working on this project. “I think it’s important that there be more spaces like this for students. [My research interests have] honestly been changing the more involved I get on campus and meet more professors, but it’s centrally around African American/Black studies and anti-racist, decolonized research,” said Orisha.

“It’s an open environment where you mess up, great, you learn and keep moving. I never experienced that in the other schools,” Orisha said. “They’re actually trying to listen to their students. They really do care, and I really, really appreciate it.”

Ma’at hopes to collaborate with more disciplines and more community stakeholders. She wants the lab’s research to extend into the African diaspora and include immigrant communities in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

The CEHJ Research Lab meets on Tuesdays from 2-3 p.m. and Thursdays from 1:30-2:30 p.m. in Robeson Room 240A in the Johnson Center.

Topics

African and African American Studies

Women and Gender Studies

ARIE

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Research

Communication Department

Conference draws faculty, students to Mason Square to share a vision for an inclusive, anti-racist future

Colleen Rich — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 21:02:42 +0000

Conference draws faculty, students to Mason Square to share a vision for an inclusive, anti-racist future Colleen Rich Wed, 10/26/2022 - 17:02

��AV’s first Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence (ARIE) Conference celebrated both the impact of research and the shared goal of shaping a more equitable future.

The Research Panel: Conducting Research through and Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Lens. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

“There’s so much research happening today—and this is the beauty of this conference,” said keynote speaker Gail Christopher, executive director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity and a senior scholar in Mason’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being. “We can do the research to change the narrative to drive new stories, to amplify those new stories, to demystify and refute the fallacies. Research is an important part of getting rid of antiquated beliefs.”

More than 400 people attended the Monday conference either at Mason Square or virtually. Sharnnia Artis, Mason’s vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion, marked the event as a milestone for one of Mason President Gregory Washington’s signature objectives. Artis, who facilitated the Mason groups that planned the conference, also served as emcee.

Washington launched ARIE within weeks of arriving at Mason in July 2020 to root out any biases in Mason practices and policies with the ambition that Mason would become a national exemplar for inclusive excellence. Mason is the seventh most diverse public university in the country—and the most diverse public university in Virginia— according to U.S. News & World Report.

Anne M. Kress, president of Northern Virginia Community College (left) with Mason's Sharnnia Artis. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

“There is a generation coming behind us—68 million people of the most diverse group of individuals that this country has ever had,” Washington said in opening the afternoon session of the conference. “They’re going to inherit the country, and they’re going to have to know how to deal with an environment that’s diverse. They need to be prepared to deal with one another.”

Washington later welcomed Northern Virginia Community College President Anne M. Kress and Virginia State University President Makola Abdullah for a presidential panel on advancing anti-racism and inclusive excellence in higher education.

The morning panel focused on conducting research through that lens. It featured three Mason professors and panelists from Harvard and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Charles Chavis, director of Mason’s John Mitchell Jr. Program for History, Justice and Race, noted that he had returned the previous day from a research trip with students to the Maryland Eastern Shore to work with descendants of racial violence. He talked about treating research subjects as collaborators and partners and empowering them to tell their own story.

Mason students shared their research during the poster session. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

“I see what we do as service first,” Chavis said. “And in that service our research needs and our research focus really is birthed out of the expressed needs of those we’re serving.”

During that morning panel, Jerome Offord Jr., Harvard associate university librarian for anti-racism, said he isn’t looking for allies in the cause. He’s looking for “co-conspirators.” That term caught on in the room came up throughout the day.

“This is not just a BIPOC issue,” Offord said. “This is an us issue. I need people who are going to take the risk professionally, personally, academically. People have to be willing to be in the front of the center conversation with me, not in a break room supporting me, not sending me emails saying ‘great job.’”

On an afternoon panel about translating research into action, Mason professor of integrative studies and history Wendi Manuel-Scott used the Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial as an example. The memorial, dedicated earlier this year, came about after five students set out to learn more about the people George Mason IV enslaved at Gunston Hall.

Manuel-Scott said that early in her teaching career she used to get “blank eyes” from students when she talked to them about civil rights actions.

Mason President Gregory Washington chats with students during the poster session. Photo by Stephanie Aaronson/Office of University Branding

“Today, I don’t get blank eyes,” she said. “Students are incredibly engaged and passionate and fearless. That is everything. Don’t lose that audacity, don’t lose that courageous spirit. Continue to ask those questions. Because the memorial that you see today would not exist if our students hadn’t been willing to ask the questions that they asked and challenge us as faculty members to step up.”

Student and faculty researchers across disciplines displayed about 40 posters highlighting research related to anti-racism and inclusive excellence.

Christopher noted that it takes more than passion to eradicate racism. It requires realistic strategy and creativity to assess the challenges, particularly in the age of disinformation.

“It’s a matter of grace and it’s a matter of love and understanding that we’re all on this journey, and we’re each at different places,” Christopher said. “There are extremes, and some people will stay at their extreme no matter what. But there is a wide swath in the middle, and our job is to mobilize that middle and to do so with great intention.”

Topics

Campus News

ARIE

President's Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence

diversity equity and inclusion DEI

Student Research

Strategic Direction

Veteran Mason athletics leader Nena Rogers to serve as Interim Director of Intercollegiate Athletics

John Hollis — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 17:42:21 +0000

Veteran Mason athletics leader Nena Rogers to serve as Interim Director of Intercollegiate Athletics John Hollis Tue, 10/11/2022 - 13:42

Nena Rogers, ��AV’s Senior Associate Athletic Director of Intercollegiate Athletics for Academic Services, will serve as the university’s Interim Assistant Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics while a national search for a permanent director is conducted. Photo provided

Rogers, who has served various roles in the Mason Intercollegiate Athletics department since 1998, earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Mason. A standout student-athlete in track and field, Rogers was a 1988 NCAA champion and Olympic qualifier in long jump. She also earned four All-America honors competing in the long jump and triple jump for Mason. 

Rogers will begin as interim athletics director on October 13 and will serve until a permanent successor begins. In September, current Assistant Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Brad Edwards announced he will leave October 12 to become CEO of NFL Alumni.  

“Nena Rogers meets the moment perfectly. She is a Patriot through and through, and she brings an impeccable track record of helping students thrive as both outstanding students and athletes,” Washington said. “She has dedicated most of her adult life to the development and well-being of Mason’s student-athletes, and is a trusted hand of stability and continuity during this time of transition.” 

“I am humbled and honored to lead our athletics department. Mason has proven instrumental not only in my personal development, but also in the lives of the thousands of student-athletes I have had the honor of working with throughout my career,” Rogers said. “Our vision will continue to center on the education and well-being of our student-athletes. We will contribute to the strong foundation established by Mason, which values diversity in thought and actions and inclusive excellence."  

Since Rogers was tapped to lead Mason Athletics’ academic services in 2016, 394 student-athletes have achieved the George Mason Provost Scholar Athlete Award, including a record number 65 in 2020-21. The award recognizes the student-athletes who have earned at least 38 credit hours and have achieved a cumulative grade point average of 3.75 or better. 

Rogers has also supervised the Patriots’ women's volleyball and lacrosse programs since 2020, and she began overseeing women’s basketball this year. She also manages the athletics department’s Dr. Frank Pettrone Center for Sports Performance. As interim director, she will ultimately oversee all 22 of Mason’s Division I sports.

Rogers also was the driving force behind the development of Intercollegiate Athletics’ life skills program, which focuses on student-athlete welfare by coaching students on personal growth, career development, and commitment to community service. 

Rogers is chair of Mason Athletics’ Diversity and Inclusion Committee and has been newly appointed to a position on the President’s Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence. In spring 2021, Mason was named one of just 10 Division I athletic departments to post a perfect score of 100 on Athlete Ally's Athletic Equality Index.

Rogers is a double-degree holder from Mason, earning her bachelor’s degree in education in 1988 and later a master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies with a concentration in higher education.

After graduating in 1988, Rogers returned to Mason in 1998 as the assistant coach for jumps and sprints for the women’s track and field program. In 2000, she transitioned to athletics administration.

A Virginia native, Rogers lives in Woodbridge with her husband, Dennis, and has two daughters, Maya and Kia.

Topics

An Interview with the 2022 recipient of the Margaret C. Howell Outstanding Achievement Award

Natalie Bui — Wed, 04 May 2022 15:20:07 +0000

An Interview with the 2022 recipient of the Margaret C. Howell Outstanding Achievement Award Natalie Bui Wed, 05/04/2022 - 11:20

Congratulations to Jessica Kallista, adjunct faculty for the School of Art!

Read her interview below to learn about her fantastic contributions to ARIE and DEI initiatives around Mason. The $2,000 award is sponsored by the Office for DEI. Recipients reflect the hard work of our Mason community members committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Learn about the award's nomination criteria.

What is your affiliation with Mason and how long have you been a Patriot?

At heart, I have been and always will be an incredibly community-minded person, and Mason is no exception. I’ve been affiliated with Mason since I arrived in 1997 as an MFA Poetry student, and each year that relationship seems to change and grow. I received my MFA from Mason in 2002. Since 2014, when I founded Olly Olly, an alternative art space in Historic Fairfax, I’ve worked with a number of Mason students, faculty, and alumni—providing a space for them to launch exhibitions, hold poetry readings, and engage in creative community. In addition to being a member of Mason’s School of Art faculty—teaching Critical Theory and Aesthetics—I also served as Gallery Director of Mason’s Buchanan Partners Art Gallery at Hylton Performing Arts Center from 2017-2019. I’m currently curator and co-moderator of CVPA’s Kritikos Anti-Racist Reading Group, and I serve on CVPA’s DEIA Senior Advisory Council. In addition, I am a Mason-parent, as two of my children are currently working towards their undergraduate degrees here at Mason. I’ve seen Mason grow from a much smaller University to the now 50-year-old institution we see before us today, and I can see its potential to bring diversity, equity, inclusion, and access to every member of this community.

Describe your role in the ARIE Taskforce’s Research Committee and why you were interested in joining the Taskforce.

As an artist and a faculty member in the School of Art, I wasn’t sure what to think of being asked to join the ARIE Taskforce’s Research Committee. But Rebekah K. Hersch, one of the chairs of the committee, was a great help in orienting me towards the larger definition of research—one that is inclusive of creative activity and work—and the goals of the committee. I think that this committee’s work is one important ingredient in our larger efforts in the DEIA space. The work is one more way to infuse the Mason community’s culture with a foundational understanding of, belief in, and work towards an equity-minded experience for every member of the Mason community.

Describe any other ARIE/DEI related initiatives you’re involved in.

I hope to bring a DEIA lens into every space I enter. The critically foundational bell hooks, who we so sadly lost last year, wrote about how the body of a professor is part of the curriculum. My body is part of the curriculum in all classes I teach and in all syllabi I create. As a Black, Queer, Autistic woman, I hope that my very existence in these spaces signals possibility to students who might not otherwise see a Black, Queer, Autistic woman as a professor, a gallerist, a curator, an artist, or policy maker. I also participate in numerous more explicitly DEIA-related activities such as the ARIE Taskforce’s Research Committee, CVPA’s DEIA Senior Advisory Council, and of course CVPA’s Kritikos Anti-Racist Reading Group (which has been active with 7 week programs for the past 6 semesters). All of these activities are important to our overarching efforts, and I’m especially excited about our upcoming Summer program of the Kritikos Anti-Racist Reading Group, during which we will focus entirely on Black Joy. This summer’s program runs from June 24 to August 5. We meet via zoom on Fridays from 1:00-2:30. All are welcome. https://cvpa.gmu.edu/events/arts-context/kritikos-anti-racist-reading-group

How has your work within the ARIE/DEI space impacted your career and/or education goals? What impact do you hope ARIE/DEI will have on the institution?

This is a great question, and my experience is that the deeper I dive into this work the more energized I feel about working for change, the more excited I am with the kinship I have found with others at Mason who are dedicated to this work, and the more clearly I can imagine the equitable future we are working to build. I can see a Mason community in which DEIA is successfully and perpetually infused within everything from the faculty to the student body to the curriculum to the ways we name, shape, resource, and support all aspects of education. And it is a beautiful future!

What advice would you give someone who wants to get involved with ARIE/DEI work?

I think CVPA’s Kritikos Anti-Racist Reading Group is an amazing example. We bring people with a variety of roles within and outside of Mason together (students, faculty, staff, alumni, community members). Together we listen and respond to one another by utilizing critical thinking in community. We dive deep and question everything together. The structure of our group dismantles hierarchies and stands as a model of the world we are working to create. I would also say to remember to find and focus on Black Joy, remember to rest and recover in the kinship of others, remember that self-care precedes the ability to care for others, self-care is part of the work, and remember that you aren’t alone in this work. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the people doing this work at Mason, and the strength that they give me to return again and again to this work.

Please tell us anything else you’d like to share with our readers.

Over the years at Mason I’ve worked in so many capacities and with multiple people in such a wide variety of roles, and what I’d want to share most of all with your readers is my immense gratitude for the opportunities, the experiences, and the relationships that the Mason community provides, each of which has been instrumental in all I’ve been able to create and accomplish at and with Mason. Mason continues to be an enriching environment full of vital scholarship, community, and creativity, and I know the future Mason can be even better.

Get more information on Mason's Outstanding Achievement Awards.

Topics

ARIE

diversity

Mason community invited to review, discuss task force recommendations

Colleen Rich — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 19:41:39 +0000

Mason community invited to review, discuss task force recommendations Colleen Rich Thu, 02/18/2021 - 14:41

Editor's note: The link for the draft recommendations has been updated. We apologize for the inconvenience.

��AV President Gregory Washington and members of Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Task Force invite the university community to the first of two virtual town hall meetings, which will be held 2-3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23.

Registrations to participate in the town hall via Zoom have reached capacity, and the university community is encouraged to tune in to the event live through GMU-TV at gmutv.gmu.edu/live.

The task force’s six committees—University Policies and Practices, Training and Development, Curriculum and Pedagogy, Student Voice, Research, and Campus and Community Engagement—have worked hard over the past five months and are ready to share their initial recommendations for the Mason community's feedback and consideration. The draft recommendations are available for review, and there is a form for you to provide feedback.

More information about the task force is available at arie.gmu.edu, including additional information about the committees.

Topics

President's Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence

Campus News

Faculty and Staff News

ARIE

Mason Lighting the Way: Josh Kinchen

Colleen Rich — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 21:07:11 +0000

Mason Lighting the Way: Josh Kinchen Colleen Rich Thu, 02/11/2021 - 16:07

Mason Lighting the Way

Spotlights from the Task Force

More than 100 faculty, staff and students are working on ��AV’s Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Task Force, which is taking a hard look at the current state of diversity and inclusivity efforts at the university and making recommendations for the future.

These individuals come from across our campuses and bring their different skill sets and expertise to this work. In this series, we will spotlight members of the task force and find out what drives them.

Josh Kinchen
Associate Director, LGBTQ+ Resources

Task Force Committee: University Policies and Practices

Josh Kinchen

Josh Kinchen uses the pronouns he/him, and he wants you to know that. He was co-chair of the team that revamped ��AV’s Chosen Name and Pronouns Policy and worked to add “gender expression” to the nondiscrimination policy.

As associate director of the LGBTQ+ Resources in the Center for Culture, Equity, and Empowerment (CCEE), formerly ODIME, Kinchen advises student groups, sits on many committees and does a lot of consulting and training with schools, colleges, and departments across the university that want to learn more about working with LGBTQ+ students.

“Some of that work looks like training; some looks like conversation,” said Kinchen who serves in leadership roles in the national association ACPA-College Student Educators International. “It's more helping people connect the dots.”

It is work that Kinchen feels called to do.

Kinchen enlisted in U.S. Marine Corps after high school and was at boot camp when 9/11 happened. After his service, he worked some hospitality jobs before ending up at a community college in North Carolina where he was working while taking classes. He found he really loved higher education.

“I had an advisor who said, ‘You should think about working with students for a living.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, that!’” he said.

In the years between that “aha” moment and Mason, he earned a BA in communication studies and an MEd in higher education administration from University of North Carolina-Wilmington, where he also held a graduate assistant position working with LGBTQ+ students. Before coming to Mason in February 2018, he was working at Florida State as the program coordinator for student governance and advocacy.

Kinchen said he was excited to be working on the Policies and Practices committee because this work directly impacts the students and communities he and his CCEE colleagues interact with on a daily basis.

“This is the ecosystem that I work in,” he said. “There are some places that you when say ‘diversity and inclusion,’ the only aspect that comes out is race and ethnicity, which of course is incredibly important. [LGBTQ+ work] is intersectional with every other identity. So having someone who brings LGBTQ+ work into that conversation elevates the whole process.”

For Kinchen, the task force is about coalition building and helping his colleagues understand the nuances of identity and how things might affect people in different ways.

“I think the folks that do diversity inclusion work, none of us would consider ourselves experts because there's always more to know,” he said. “Having more people at the table with different perspectives and understandings makes the work richer, more dynamic and just better in general.”

“It behooves all of us to understand who our students are, to know what they need. We have to understand the complexity of the world for us to be able to do our work. Every social movement in the past 50 years has started on a college campus. Students can lead the way because they are intuitively understanding what the next thing is—and we get to be a part of that process.”

Topics

Faculty and Staff News

Mason Lighting the Way spotlights

President's Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence

Campus News

ARIE

Mason Lighting the Way: Dominique Dowling

Colleen Rich — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 18:36:10 +0000

Mason Lighting the Way: Dominique Dowling Colleen Rich Wed, 02/03/2021 - 13:36

Mason Lighting the Way

Spotlights from the Task Force

A few weeks ago the United States was captivated by poet Amanda Gorman and the words she spoke at President Biden’s inauguration. Among them were: “For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

President Gregory Washington wants Mason to be a national exemplar in anti-racism and inclusive excellence, and these task force members are helping to light the way for this important work.

Dominique Dowling
Junior, Integrative Studies Major
Committees: Student Voice and University Policies and Practices

Junior Dominique Dowling has been working to enact social change since high school. She joined the GMU NAACP chapter in her second year at Mason, and now she is the group’s vice president.

Through the chapter, she has been involved in numerous panels and committees, which inspired her to do more anti-racism work on campus.

“Being part of the NAACP has exposed me to different initiatives and people who have been doing this work for years,” said the integrative studies major. “It made me realize that anti-racism work requires an ongoing dedication because there is always work to be done.”

Dowling has been involved with a number of organizations including Student Government. She said she was excited to be involved with the task force because she believes students are often left out of the conversation.

“Many times our voices are not heard due to the lack of representation or the simple fact that one student can't express the concerns of more than 30,000 students,” said Dowling. “I felt like this was my opportunity to elevate the voices and grievances that many students have.”

When asked about her career goals, Dowling is clear about her aspirations: She wants to one day be the U.S. secretary of education. Toward that goal, she plans on continuing on at Mason to complete her MEd and then become an elementary school teacher and eventually work in school administration. And she said her task force work has influenced her trajectory.

“I want to implement anti-racist and social justice components into my teaching,” she said. “Through administrative roles, I want to help other teachers to also implement those principles so that young people don't have to wait until they get the opportunity to take a college course on identity to become aware of inequities.”

Topics

Mason Lighting the Way spotlights

President's Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence

Campus News

Students

ARIE

Fighting the fires of social and racial unrest

Mariam Aburdeineh — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 20:16:18 +0000

Fighting the fires of social and racial unrest Mariam Aburdeineh Thu, 01/21/2021 - 15:16

In This Story

Gregory Washington

To honor the memory of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and recognize those on campus who actively live out his vision, ��AV will host the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Evening of Reflection and awards ceremony on Thursday, Jan. 28, at 6 p.m. via Zoom.

“This year, it is particularly important to continue on with the Evening of Reflection, as we consider the state of our nation,” said Hamal Strayhorn, director of the Office of Coalition Building and Diversity Education at Mason. “Our nation has experienced the loss of 400,000 lives to COVID-19, social and economic disparity in full view, the continuation of black bodies being murdered by police without accountability and racial unrest. On Jan. 6 we all witnessed a failed insurrection in our nation’s capital, which was rooted in divisiveness and racism.”

“Our hope is that students and attendees will understand that in our nation and world there is still a lot of work to do around issues of social justice, equity and inclusion and that ‘the time is always right to do what is right,’” Strayhorn said, quoting Dr. King.

Mason President Gregory Washington will be the event’s keynote speaker and will address this year’s theme of “The Burning House,” which comes from another Dr. King quote:

“I’ve come upon something that disturbs me deeply. We have fought hard and long for integration, as I believe we should have, and I know we will win, but I have come to believe that we are integrating into a burning house…”

“How will our commitment to anti-racism work be like the ‘firefighters’ preventing the ‘house’ from burning completely down?” Strayhorn said. “[President Washington] will also look at how the work of anti-racism touches and affects our students, professional members, the local community, the commonwealth and eventually our nation.”

Following the keynote address, representatives from the student body will have the opportunity to ask questions relating to the theme, the work the university is doing around anti-racism, or how they can play a part in keeping Dr. King’s vision at the forefront of social change, Strayhorn said.

Students, faculty and staff who are doing influential work centered on Dr. King’s vision will also be honored with the Spirit of King Awards.

“The MLK Evening of Reflection shows that ��AV is committed to diversity, excellence, and inclusion and to addressing the hard questions of where we are as a people and nation,” Strayhorn said.