Office of Community and Local Government Relations

Building community and connections in Arlington

Lauren Reuscher — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 18:44:02 +0000

Building community and connections in Arlington Lauren Reuscher Wed, 11/08/2023 - 13:44

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The Movers and Shakers Mixer event returned to Mason Square in late September, connecting ��AV students with Arlington’s business, government, and community leaders.

The Movers and Shakers Mixer gave students the opportunity to connect with leaders in the local Arlington community. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

Since its inception in 2019, the Movers and Shakers Mixer has become a highly anticipated networking event for the Mason Square community. This year, more than 150 students, faculty, staff, and community members participated.

Bryanna Buker, a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in international security, aspires to work in transnational crime at an intelligence agency. As a new resident, Buker said the event was an ideal opportunity to engage with other community-focused Arlingtonians. Her future career prospects also motivated her to attend.

Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

“I wanted to meet people who could help shape my ideas of potential career opportunities post-graduation,” Buker said. “I’ve been debating going to law school after I finish my program. Meeting the recruitment team from the Antonin Scalia Law School allowed me to learn how to transition to law school.”

Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

Caroline Wesson, a doctoral candidate in political science, regularly attends Movers and Shakers. “I always leave with several business cards and excitement about ways I can get involved and engage my community through my research and skills,” Wesson said. “I was fortunate to speak with individuals from business and government who are passionate about economic growth and inclusion in our community, and those interested in how technology is transforming our society.”

Attendees had the opportunity to enter a raffle for one-on-one networking lunches with Arlington leaders. Amber Pittman, a graduate student in global commerce and policy, was one of the drawing winners. She recently connected with Jennifer Owens, president and CEO of Arlington Community Foundation, for their lunch meeting.

Owens expressed gratitude for the opportunity. “Thanks to the staff for creating events and opportunities, like Movers and Shakers, to foster connections between community members and students,” she said.

These pathbreaking teams give a new look and feel to Mason’s public spaces

Lauren Reuscher — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 16:13:35 +0000

These pathbreaking teams give a new look and feel to Mason’s public spaces Lauren Reuscher Thu, 04/20/2023 - 12:13

The Patriot Pathbreakers Award, established by Human Resources and the Staff Senate, honors high-performing staff teams that embody the ��AV value of “Thriving Together.” These innovative teams use individual talents to overcome obstacles and make progress toward their goals. They have adapted their services and processes when necessary to meet the changing needs of the Mason community. Their work makes Mason All Together Different.

The Patriot Pathbreakers Award recipients will be recognized with other faculty and staff honorees at Mason’s Outstanding Achievement Awards ceremony on Tuesday, April 25, from 10–11:30 a.m. in the Johnson Center, Dewberry Hall. The ceremony will also be live streamed on GMU-TV; the link to watch the ceremony is posted on the Outstanding Achievement Awards website.

Creative Services, Office of University Branding

Creative Services designed the signage and banners displayed at Mason's 50th anniversary celebration in the Johnson Center. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

Team members: Ron Aira, Claire Brandt, Melissa Cannarozzi, Evan Cantwell, Priyanka Champaneri, Joan Dall’Acqua, Brian Edlinski, Sierra Guard, Rebecca Kobayashi, Jeeun Namgoong, Kerianne Plunkett, Michaela Reilly, DeRon Rockingham, Corey Schaut, Rebecca Siddon, Azriel Towner

The Creative Services team provides creative support, brand stewardship, resources, and consulting to departments, schools, and colleges across Mason. This team of graphic designers, writers, editors, photographers, videographers, and production staff creates materials that capture and convey the university’s brand to internal and external audiences.

Mason’s 50th anniversary celebration was one of the team's biggest projects to date.

“The 50th anniversary was a momentous occasion in Mason’s history, and Creative Services was tasked with creating materials that both celebrated Mason’s past while also generating excitement in our community toward the future,” wrote a nominator. “The production staff researched new and innovative media and delivery methods to mark the anniversary in ways that Mason had never showcased before, including large-scale environmental advertising.”

Creative Services helped set the scene for the anniversary celebration with window clings on Mason buildings, new light pole banners, sidewalk stickers, column wraps in EagleBank Arena, staircase decals, and more.

Through a cohesive campaign of print, digital, and large-scale environmental collateral, Creative Services succeeded in creating an environment that celebrated Mason’s 50th anniversary and generated excitement and energy about the university’s next 50 years—and beyond.

“The 50th anniversary celebration was an all-in effort for every team in the Office of University Branding, and the work of the Creative Services team was absolutely pivotal to our success,” said Paul Allvin, vice president and chief brand officer. “From designing the now-familiar event graphics to giving the celebration both graphics and audiovisual excitement, the work of this team helped to make this university-wide celebration an unqualified success.”

Mason Square Plaza Activation Initiative

Mason students, faculty, staff, and community members gathered for a concert on the plaza at Mason Square. Photo by Ron Aira/Creative Services

Team members: Toni Andrews, Kenneth Darby, Margaret Duke, Sophie Gorshenin, Sara Hawes, Cathy Pinskey, Colin Stucki, Melissa Thierry

The Mason Square plaza activation initiative focused on the outdoor programming space at ��AV’s campus in Arlington, Virginia. With the construction of Fuse at Mason Square underway—which will add more than 345,000 square feet of space to the campus—vibrant new programming has already arrived on the plaza, making it a lively gathering place for the campus and nearby community.

The launch and continued success of new public programming on the plaza is due to the work of a collaborative team of staff from University Life, Mason Square Administration, Facilities, and the Office of Community and Local Government Relations.

The activation project was modeled after a similar project at Bryant Park in New York City, with a goal of turning Mason Square’s plaza into a gathering place that would revitalize its neighborhood, offering free events and activities for the community.

Chess game on the plaza at Mason Square. Photo by Ron Aira/Creative Services

The schedule includes exercise classes, musical performances, a farmers’ market, informal speakers, and more. The team did not have a manual or a guidebook when building this initiative, a nominator wrote. They learned as they went along. They visited Bryant Park to see ideas in action. They followed their instincts and tested ideas to discover what would work best for Mason and the local neighborhood.

By turning the plaza into a lively gathering place, they are helping establish Mason as an anchor for the local community.

“Mason is always looking for innovative pathways to engage our community partners,” said Paul Liberty, vice president for government and community relations. “With the plaza activation and the development of Fuse at Mason Square, Mason students and staff and the Arlington community are coming together for a unique experience due to the efforts and creativity of this partnership. The Mason Square plaza activation team has brought Mason to the community and the community to Mason.”

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Classes and city council are in session for this senior

Colleen Rich — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 14:52:28 +0000

Classes and city council are in session for this senior Colleen Rich Tue, 03/21/2023 - 10:52

While most college seniors are counting the days until graduation and finishing up coursework, ��AV physics major Billy Bates decided to take on new challenge. In fall 2022, he ran for Fairfax City Council and won. He was sworn in in January.

Physics major Billy Bates is one of the newest members of the Fairfax City Council. Photo by Ron Aira/Creative Services

This was not an impulsive move for Bates. He said he has been involved in politics and the Young Democrats since he was 14. “That’s when I started paying attention to politics, volunteering, and emailing the city council about different issues,” said Bates, who attended nearby Fairfax High School.

Bates didn’t waste any time immersing himself in the Virginia political process. He has worked for OneVirginia2021 (now UpVoteVirginia) and interned on the campaigns of U.S. Representative Gerry Connolly and former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe. He also campaigned for State Delegate Alfonso Lopez (49th district) and then worked in Lopez’s district office conducting policy research.

One of Bates’s first political supporters was Mason alum Catherine S. Read, the new mayor of the City of Fairfax, who was also sworn in January.

“She was one of the first people to urge me to run for city council,” said Bates, 20, who plans to graduate in December. “She really did a lot to help me out throughout the campaign.”

“He is smart, he is committed, and he’s about as geeky, wonky, and in the weeds about local government as you can imagine,” said Read of Bates. “He’s so smart and plugged in. Everyone is finding out how smart Billy is.”

Bates’s commitment to the City Council involves three or four weekly meetings a month and an occasional weekend retreat. And for right now, Bates isn’t thinking about going into politics full time.

“I don't really have any interest in going beyond City Council because the way I see it, it's kind of like cake, you know?,” he said. “I look forward to it every week, but if I had it all the time, I'd get tired of it.”

Since coming to Mason, Bates has dabbled in several majors, taking courses in government, business, and bioengineering. He has even considered law school. He said he decided on physics in part for the challenge of it.

“Writing and that kind of analytical thinking are already kind of a strong suit of mine so I decided that I'd get more out of doing a major like engineering or physics, which strengthens a side of my skillset that doesn't really come as naturally to me.”

Bates’s concentration is in computational physics, and he plans to continue with physics in graduate school. He aspires to do theoretical research and ultimately earn a PhD. This spring, he is taking Physics 402 Introduction to Quantum Mechanics with Professor Mingzhen Tian. “That's honestly my favorite class so far. I really enjoy it.”

When not doing school work or handling council responsibilities, Bates hits in the gym. He finds the physical activity is critical for managing stress. He also enjoys hiking with family and friends. One of his favorite trails is in Daniels Run Park in Fairfax near his high school. And it’s obvious he is a big fan of Fairfax.

“There are some really beautiful spots,” he said of his hometown. “It has a lot of character, a lot of history. It’s my home.”

Other alums serving on the Fairfax City Council are Kate G. Doyle Feingold, PhD Criminology, Law and Society ’20, who is serving her first term on the council, and the first Mason alum to sit on the City Council—Jeffrey C. Greenfield, BA Political Science ’89, MPA ’92, who is serving his 13th term.

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She has ideas to bring Mason and Fairfax City together

Colleen Rich — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 15:49:14 +0000

She has ideas to bring Mason and Fairfax City together Colleen Rich Wed, 03/01/2023 - 10:49

"Just so you know," Catherine Read said casually during a recent conversation, “I’ve got more ideas than a dog has fleas.”

Fairfax Mayor Catherine Read in her office. Photo by Cristian Torres/Strategic Communications

And new ideas are exactly what she said is needed for ��AV and Fairfax City to come together in a partnership that will benefit both.

“You look at our downtown and where are the students, where is the activity, where is the energy?” said Read, the first Mason alum, and first woman, to be Fairfax mayor. “I’m thinking, ‘We live next door to the largest public university in Virginia, so what is the city not doing well? What kind of things can we do between the campus and the city?’ That’s what we should be asking ourselves.”

Read, BA Government and Politics ’84, is passionate about building that relationship, as it is so much a part of her personal and career arc.

She did, after all, meet her first husband at Mason during a work-study job researching 19th-century literary reviews in the old New York Tribune. She is on the board of Fall for the Book and has her Mason degree framed and proudly displayed in her City Hall office.

“It is so important to have local politicians who have a connection to both the town and the university,” said Professor Michele Greet, who directs Mason’s Art History Program and is Read’s long-time neighbor. “Catherine is the perfect person to seek paths toward greater collaboration.”

Read, who grew up in Southwest Virginia, came to Mason as a transfer from Emerson College in Boston, where she was a theater major. She knew of Mason only because Emerson’s forensics team, of which she was part, was consistently beaten by the powerful Patriot squad.

While at Emerson, though, Read took a class, “Political Thought,” that she called “a clarion call to switch from a course of study focused on my passion for theater and think about another passion I’ve had since my elementary school: history and politics.”

That background, nurtured and expanded at Mason, guided the legislative advocacy work with nonprofits that occupied much of Read’s past 10 years.

Her biggest wins include successfully helping the Virginia Autism Project lobby for autism insurance reform that, when it passed in 2011, required insurance companies to provide medically necessary behavioral therapies.

Read also helped the Virginia Alliance for Breastfeeding Laws successfully push for a 2015 law that allows mothers to breastfeed their children anywhere the mother is lawfully present.

“When you talk about what are you going to do with a degree in government and politics, you have to understand how the political system works and you have to help other people understand how good policy gets made,” Read said. “Being mayor is being able to make that kind of difference, but I have a bigger platform.”

That platform, Read said, includes building a bench of young, hungry political talent in Fairfax City and establishing a “21st-century culture in a city that has been very traditional up until this point.”

And that’s where Read’s ideas to build bridges between Mason and Fairfax come in.

Already there are plans for a June Pride celebration in the city, and something informally called the “CUE Crawl: A pub crawl without alcohol” that will take place in August during Mason’s Welcome Week.

That’s when incoming students will have a chance to get a taste of the city by riding the free CUE (City-University Energysaver) Bus through Fairfax, stopping at pubs and restaurants that will serve food, mocktails, and non-alcoholic beer.

“We are thrilled to work with Mayor Read and her team to create the first Fairfax Pride celebration this June,” said Josh Kinchen, director of Mason’s LGBTQ+ Resource Center. “While we are still in the planning stage, we expect to have multiple ways for folks to engage with local LGBTQ+-owned businesses and have a space to dance. We are proud to work with Mayor Read as an engaged alum to further deepen the relationship between Mason and the Fairfax Campus’s home city.”

“I’ve got skin in the game,” Read said. “My Mason degree has grown in value as Mason has grown in stature in Virginia and globally. I consider it an amazing return on investment.”

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Students get front-row seat to legislative process at Mason Lobbies

Colleen Rich — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 18:05:20 +0000

Students get front-row seat to legislative process at Mason Lobbies Colleen Rich Wed, 02/01/2023 - 13:05

The 40 ��AV students who traveled to Richmond for Mason Lobbies on Jan. 26 shared their college experience with legislators and highlighted the need for increasing financial aid for Mason students, increased funding per student, and increased staff and faculty salaries for the university to be more competitive in the Washington, D.C., metro area. They also highlighted Mason’s diversity and production of STEM and workforce-ready graduates.

Mason Lobbies group poses for a group shot outside the State Capitol. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

This was the first in-person Mason Lobbies since 2019 due to the COVID pandemic. The joint effort is led by the Office of Student Involvement and the Office of Government and Community Relations. Students were accompanied by Mason President Gregory Washington, Vice President for University Life Rose Pascarell, and members of Mason’s Community and Government Relations team.

“In addition to the policy positions Mason focuses on throughout the year, students brought their own anecdotes and experiences which drove those points home to legislators,” said Lauren Posey, associate director of state government relations at Mason.

Paul J. Wyche, a sophomore cybersecurity engineering major and speaker of Mason’s 43rd Student Senate, helped plan the day. “Our goal was not only to make legislators aware of the lack of funding Mason receives in comparison to similarly sized institutions but also get them energized and passionate about changing this,” he said.

Following the spirited welcome, students split up into groups and made their way to lawmakers’ offices.

Students met with Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Rogstad Guidera and Mason alumni Delegate Charniele Herring, BA Economics ’93, and Senator Jeremy S. McPike, BA Public Administration ’97, MPA ’06.

Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

“Get engaged in the political process now,” McPike told the students. “Everything we, as legislators, do touches your lives. Policy, regulations, and education it’s all intertwined.”

Michele Adjei-Fah, a senior biology major who plans to attend medical school, said Mason Lobbies is a unique opportunity for students to use their voices to improve Mason. “It’s important for students to highlight their concerns and ensure Mason receives the support it needs from the state. Being able to address concerns directly to legislators is empowering.”

For freshman government and international politics major Gabriella Grabovska, a native of Ukraine, Mason Lobbies was a front-row seat to American democracy. “It was a great experience for students to look inside how government really works and how decisions are made, while legislators learned more about Mason. Hopefully, they will offer more support for our institution.”

“Legislators are just like us,” Wyche added. “They may seem like intimidating individuals who don’t have time to hear your concerns, but that’s certainly not the case. Most of them enjoy hearing from people, even if they aren’t their direct constituents.”

Delegate Michelle Maldonado said events like Mason Lobbies are valuable for legislators because they hear diverse perspectives that help them make better decisions. “No one group should be burdened with changing society. It’s all of our responsibility to make society better. Listening to diverse groups of people helps us to make better decisions.”

She encouraged students to believe in themselves. “You have all that you need to succeed,” she said “Surround yourself with people who will bring out your skills and talents. There are more people that want you to succeed than fail.”

Posey echoed Maldonado’s assessment.

“The students were professional, organized, and effective,” Posey said. I know we’re all going to be in good hands with this next generation of leaders and advocates.”

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Mason alum Debbie Jones reflects on 32 years of leadership at Prince William County Chamber

Colleen Rich — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 21:52:11 +0000

Mason alum Debbie Jones reflects on 32 years of leadership at Prince William County Chamber Colleen Rich Fri, 12/09/2022 - 16:52

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Business advocate. Connector. Artist. Proud Mason alumna.

Those are a few words that describe Prince William Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Debbie Jones, BA ’78. After more than 32 years of service in the Chamber of Commerce, Jones is retiring this December.

Debbie Jones. Photo provided

She began her Chamber career in 1990 as the communications coordinator at the Prince William County–Greater Manassas Chamber. She was promoted to president and CEO in 1993.

“As an art major who never took a business class, I never expected to spend most of my career running a business organization,” said Jones.

Mason’s hallmarks of innovative problem-solving and collaborative teamwork are universal, Jones said, and students across every discipline learn and carry them with them into the workforce.

Jones reflected, “I pride myself on always finding creative ways to solve a problem, work with others, and form a team to get things accomplished.”

In 2010, she faced one of the greatest challenges in her career—managing the merger of the Prince William–Greater Manassas and the Prince William Regional Chambers of Commerce. As chief operating officer, she worked to transition Chamber members, staff, and Board of Directors into the newly created Prince William Chamber of Commerce. In July 2014, she was promoted to the Prince William Chamber’s top job, president and CEO.

Jones is a renowned connector. “Over the years, I helped to connect the business community, governments, educators, and not-for-profit organizations.” She’s most proud of the work that’s been accomplished at the Prince William Chamber to make it a go-to resource for organizations seeking collaborative relationships and partnerships.

Her work with the Prince William Chamber expanded her relationship with Mason. She is the membership chair of Mason’s Science and Technology Campus Advisory Board, where she has been a member since the board’s inception in 1999.

The Prince William Chamber has also sponsored SciTech Campus events, such as the 50th Anniversary Celebration that was held earlier this fall.

“Debbie and the Prince William Chamber are big supporters of Mason,” said Molly Grove, associate director of community and local government relations at the Science and Technology Campus. “Through Debbie and the Chamber, we’ve been able to make connections to key regional partners that have positioned Mason for success in the years to come. She’s a real gem and a great partner. She’s a special friend!”

Jones’s impact also extends to Mason students. Mason School of Recreation, Health and Tourism students have held internships at the Chamber, where they can apply their classroom knowledge in the real world.

She encourages all students to “take advantage of every opportunity, take chances, do new things, and meet people. You never know whom you will meet and how they will change your life.”

In 2019, Mason’s Alumni Association recognized Jones’s accomplishments with the Thomas W. Iszard IV, Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Visual and Performing Arts. She calls upon fellow alumni to, “Make a difference! Get out there, meet people, and give back—your time, treasures, and talent.”

What’s next on the horizon for Jones?

The next phase of her life, “Debbie 2.0,” features plenty of self-care, specifically walking and traveling, spending time with family and friends, devoting more time to her art, and making time to relax and regroup.

While her time at the Chamber is concluding, Jones plans to continue to use her connections and skills to make a difference.