Mason Media Blog

Come join your fellow Patriots as they attempt to break the world record for the largest game of dodgeball on Friday, Sept. 3, from 9 to 11 p.m. on the Fairfax Campus. Mason faculty and staff members, students, alumni and members of the community are invited to participate.

The University of Alberta holds the current record for the largest number of participants — 1,200 — in the dodgeball game.

Players will be placed on either the Green or Gold team and will receive a commemorative dodgeball shirt with their team color. More than 100 silver balls will be placed in the middle of the court, and when the whistle blows, players will battle it out to take home the titled of “Winner of the World’s Largest Dodgeball Game.”

Before the game begins, players will be entertained by various games, challenges and other entertainment. After the game, organizers hope to arrange a giant group photo.

Participants are encouraged to register online. On-site registration will also be available.

For more information about the dodgeball game and other events during Welcome Week, visit the website.

According to the new Poets & Writers issue (September/October), George Mason University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program is tied with Purdue University for 36th place in the country. This is the magazine’s second annual rankings of the Top 50 programs in the country. Mason was ranked #37 last year.

Mason’s non-fiction tract is ranked #7 in the country. Its poetry tract is ranked 26th, fiction is at 36th.

Mason’s MFA in Creative Writing program, started in 1980, offers three concentrations. Each concentration—fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—requires 48 semester hours and takes at least three years to complete. Course work blends writing workshops with craft seminars and the study of literature. Each concentration also requires completion of a thesis (a book-length manuscript). Faculty publications total more than 65 books, and alumni and students publish with both small and major presses.

For more information about Mason’s MFA program, visit their web site.

Joseph Pancrazio, director of the bioengineering program in the Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Len Nichols, professor and director of the College of Health and Human Services’ Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics, discuss how technology is changing the face of health care. Watch the video.

“Eat, Pray, Love” is not just a best-selling book and movie blockbuster, it is a worldwide phenomenon and a bit of an enigma. The story, about how a woman’s experiences on a journey around the world lead to her spiritual, emotional and physical happiness and fulfillment, has generated hundreds of merchandise spin-offs. Usually the stuff of sci-fi and children’s films, related marketing and merchandising campaigns for “Eat, Pray, Love” are promoting clothing, jewelry, books, candles, music and other goods aimed at providing that same sort of spiritual and emotional need. But can buying stuff tied to a book or movie—especially one about experiences—really make you happy? Isn’t materialism supposed to be evil?

Mason psychologist Todd Kashdan, who studies the science of happiness, says, yes, money can bring you happiness—depending on what and why you’re spending it.
In a 2008 national survey of Americans, 93 percent said people are too focused on working and making money, and 87 percent said living in a materialistic world makes it difficult to teach children morals (Center for a New American Dream, 2008).

“The prejudice and hatred of materialism is widespread. When people hear that buying something can make them happy, they become very skeptical very quickly,” says Kashdan.

Kashdan says that there is one way to sidestep these automatic, reflexive reactions to money and materialism: look at the motive for the purchase. “Think of materialism as a means to boost self-esteem,” he says. “A woman wearing a fur coat and a man driving a mint condition 1963 Corvette feed our stereotype of self-enhancing, materialistic people. When people spend money to acquire tangible objects for themselves they get nothing more than a short-term boost of happiness. Soon after, they need their next ‘fix.’”

However, if we aim to purchase and live through meaningful events, we can find longer lasting satisfaction, Kashdan says. “Consider a family saving up money to go horseback riding together at a dude ranch or a romantic couple dining once a month at an exquisite seafood restaurant. Money is being spent on experiences and memories that can be savored. What researchers have shown is that when people spend money on experiences, especially when they include other people, the boosts to happiness are more intense and last longer.”

“This is why the mindful protagonist of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ found profound happiness through experiences, and without money, she would have never been able to afford those experiences.”

Still not convinced? Then how about a little generosity—spend your money on someone else. Kashdan says this kind of purchase might give you the best boost of all.

“Spending money on other people as a sign of generosity or love has a more intense, lasting impact than spending money on the self,” he says.

Mason was named in the top 150 of the best national universities on U.S. News and World Report’s list of Best Colleges of 2011.

Mason is one of five other universities in Virginia to be listed in this category. The other schools are the University of Virginia; the College of William and Mary; Virginia Tech; and Virginia Commonwealth University.

In addition, Mason was ranked for the third consecutive year in the top five “Up-and-Coming Universities.” Mason is one of 28 national universities and the only university in Virginia to be recognized in this group.

For the ninth consecutive year, Mason’s Writing Across the Curriculum program was included in the U.S.News’ listing of “Academic Programs to Look for.” Mason is one of only 23 schools, and one of only 10 public institutions, highlighted in the special category “Writing in the Disciplines.”

More information about the U.S. News and World Report rankings can be found here.

George Mason University has been selected to receive a $28.5 million Investing in Innovation (i3) grant from the U.S. Department of Education and will lead the Virginia Initiative for Science Teaching and Achievement (VISTA). The project is a partnership that includes 47 Virginia school districts, six universities, SRI International and the Virginia Department of Education. University partners include the College of William & Mary, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and James Madison University.

The VISTA project will be led by Donna R. Sterling, professor of science education and director of Mason’s Center for Restructuring Education in Science and Technology (CREST). The goal of VISTA is to improve science teaching and student learning throughout Virginia, especially in high-need (high-poverty, high-minority) schools.

The VISTA project expands on prior research and active-learning programs conducted within Mason’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) and CREST over the past 15 years. VISTA will build an infrastructure to provide sustained, intensive science teacher professional development to increase student performance.

“Science teaching in Virginia is hindered by two fundamental, unmet needs. Elementary school faculty often lack a solid grounding in the inquiry-based nature of science, while on the secondary level, teacher shortages have led to the hiring of uncertified teachers,” says Sterling. “Our model to improve K-12 science teaching was previously incorporated into two programs that have produced statistically significant gains in teacher instruction and student achievement.”

To read more, visit: http://news.gmu.edu/articles/3884.

According to two recent reports by The Education Trust, Mason has been recognized as one of the few universities in the nation with little or no disparity in graduation rates between African American and Hispanic students and white students.

Focusing on two underrepresented minorities – African Americans and Hispanics – the reports found that graduation rates across the nation are 15 to 20 points lower for these students than for white students. At Mason, however, more than half (57 percent) of whites graduate, compared with 63 percent of African Americans and 59 percent of Hispanics.

The reports indicate that Mason was one of four public colleges and universities in Virginia to have very small graduation gaps between whites and African Americans and between whites and Hispanics.

“Mason is intensely globally diverse as nearly every student who comes to the university is going to find a cohort of students they can see themselves fitting into. This reality is virtually impossible to replicate,” says Andrew Flagel, dean of Admissions. “The fact that minority students feel such comfort at Mason contributes greatly to the statistics that show African American students graduating at a higher rate.”

The Education Trust is an advocacy group that promotes high academic achievement for students at all levels with a focus on low-income families.

More information and copies of the full reports can be found here.

Len Nichols

CHHS’ Len Nichols is scheduled to participate in a health care discussion on C-SPAN at 12:15 pm today which will be hosted by the Alliance for Health Reform.  Health care administrators will give an overview of how states and the federal government will begin implementing provisions of the new health care law President Obama signed on March 23rd. Speakers include representatives from the Health and Human Services Department, insurance companies and the states. The program can be watched live at http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN.aspx