Mason Media Blog

In response to new legislation passed earlier this month by Virginia’s General Assemble, Mason will host university administrators from across the state for a conference, “Higher Education in Virginia: Looking Toward the Next Decade,” on Tuesday, April 5, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Johnson Center Cinema on the Fairfax Campus.

The legislation will enable the commonwealth’s higher education institutions to meet the goal of issuing an additional 100,000 degrees over the next 15 years, thus making Virginia home to one of the most highly education workforces in the nation.

Representatives from Virginia’s colleges and universities, state higher education agencies and national higher education associations and organizations are expected to attend the conference.

The conference will address how to meet the goals of the new legislation, which were identified by the Governor’s Higher Education Commission on Reform, Innovation and Investment.

Panel discussions will address ways to increase student graduation rates and student diversity; the relationship between the public, private and for-profit sectors and their influences on higher education issues; the role of research in higher education in Virginia; and the future of global education at Virginia colleges.

More information about the higher education conference can be found here.

After nearly a four-month journey, a variety of musical instruments finally made their way to the St. Charles Head Together community in Jacmel, Haiti. The community was rocked by a devastating earthquake in January 2010 that affected the lives of more than three million people.

Members of the Jacmel Wesleyan Church: Olive Loloi, Miguerline Durant, Hermanie Durant and Pastor Robert Noel. Photo by Schuyler Richardson

The instruments were donated by Instruments in the Attic, a community-outreach program of the Potomac Arts Academy, a branch of Mason’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. The instruments included two keyboards, two acoustic and electric guitars, a drum set and other smaller instruments.

The plan to donate the instruments to Haitians was set in motion by Mark Denicore, a Virginia attorney specializing in structural engineering. While working with the Community Coalition for Haiti, a nonprofit organization based in Vienna, Va., Denicore was approached by Pastor Robert Noel, who longed for musical instruments to help draw people to the church where they might find some comfort.

In October 2010, the instruments were loaded onto trucks to make the long journey to Haiti. Four months later, Denicore returned to Haiti to personally deliver the instruments to the Jacmel Wesleyan Church, as well as two orphanages: Le Petite Angels and the Center Refuge to Save Unfavorable Kids.

“In our long-term plans for the Instruments in the Attic program, we have been thinking of ways that we can take this program to the international level,” says John Kilkenny, assistant director for the Potomac Arts Academy. “So when we were approached about the need for musical instruments for the people of Haiti, we couldn’t have imagined a more perfect fit.”

Since the program began in 2008, Instruments in the Attic, which is directed by Potomac Arts Academy Director Libby Curtis, has collected and distributed more than 200 instruments to Mason’s music-education students who need them to complete their degrees. In addition, instruments are available for use by several local education and outreach programs.

For more information about Denicore’s efforts, see his blog.

Kristien Zenkov

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” This phrase couldn’t ring truer for Mason literacy expert Kristien Zenkov, whose program “Through Students’ Eyes” employs a novel approach to help students develop richer connections to school.

The program uses a “photovoice” method, which combines photographs and written reflections to allow middle and high school students of diverse backgrounds in underserved communities to document what they believe is the purpose of school, what support exists for their academic success and what barriers prevent them from achieving.

Zenkov, an associate professor of literacy and secondary education in Mason’s College of Education and Human Development, launched the first “Through Students’ Eyes” program with 20 students at Lincoln-West High School in Cleveland, Ohio in 2000.

Since then, the program has expanded to other schools throughout Ohio, as well as to schools in Colorado, Massachusetts and Connecticut. In addition, Zenkov has worked with students at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, Va. Recently, he began working with students, including those in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program, at Metz Middle School and Osbourn Park High School in Manassas and Smarts Mill Middle School in Leesburg.

The program usually runs at three or four different schools each year and can last from two months to one year. During this time, students are armed with digital cameras and spend several months snapping photographs and writing about school and what it means in their lives.

“In urban cities across the country where dropout rates are consistently high, there is often a disconnect between school curricula and the value it has in students’ lives,” says Zenkov. “This project serves a dual purpose: It engages students in exploring the meaning of school while helping to improve their ability to read and write.”

More information about the program can be found here.