����AV

Blake Silver collects and analyzes data to enable the Honors College to fulfill its mission. His research in Sociology focuses on higher education, inequality and mobility, second-generation immigrant studies, and the transition to adulthood.

Zofia Burr is the founding dean of Mason's Honors College. She is a poet and has researched African American literature and the reception of modern American poetry.

Clare Yordy is a December 2020 graduate of ����AV

Andersen Guske is a December 2020 ����AV graduate

����AV’s Honors College launched a program this year to help cultivate an anti-racist community by creating a space in which students can discuss issues of racial and social justice. The program, called “Honoring Our Community,” involves encouraging honest conversations among groups of four or five students working with a facilitator. Students who volunteer for the program meet once a month during the academic year.

Kristen Alleyne and Elene Lipartiani, incoming freshmen at ����AV, have been honored with I-Achieve scholarships for academic excellence. The awards are being given for the first time this year, as part of a grant Mason received from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation last fall.

Despite a path to ����AV that was challenging and, in her own words, “unconventional,” incoming freshmen Juliette Reyes moved on to campus this fall.

The Parkland, Florida, native will be double majoring in government and international politics and conflict analysis and resolution, a decision based on an initial interest in politics in high school that grew into a passion.

When Taurus Patterson was looking at colleges, ����AV struck him right away as a place that he could call a “second home.”

“I felt like I would be welcome,” said Patterson, 18. “Everyone I met was so nice, and it didn’t seem forced. When I visited the campus, people just started talking to me, and it was so natural. I already felt like I belonged.”

Patterson is a member of Mason’s Honors College, a University Scholar and a recipient of the Merten-Womble Scholarship. He says he’s looking forward to studying finance in the School of Business, and is considering a second major in public administration.

“A long time ago, I wanted to be president, and then I wanted to be a financial consultant,” Patterson said. “Really, I have a passion for both finance and politics, so I would like to be able to combine these interests.”