Articles by: Cody Norman

 

• Forever Up and Coming Is Not Such a Bad Thing

  Editorials September 24, 2012 at 2:56 pm Comments are Disabled

  Being “there” implies complacency. It implies that students, staff, faculty and administration are content with what this institution has become. And it suggests that Mason, a university based solely upon the principal of innovation, has nothing left to innovate. On Monday, The U.S. News and World Report compiled its data and released to the public its fifth annual list of the best universities. The criteria focused on universities that are making the most promising changes in the area of academics, faculty and student life and, after claiming the No. 1 spot in 2011, Mason was pinned as the No. 1 up-and-coming university in the nation. It may seem off-base and out-of-touch to consistently refer to any institution as up-and-coming. It seems natural that, at some point, the university would finally arrive at its intended destination and graduate to a list of more stagnant universities. Not a chance. An old Hindu proverb states, “There is nothing noble about being superior to some other man. The true nobility is being superior to your previous self.” It would be an incredible honor for Mason to frequently top the list of up-and-coming universities for the rest of the institution’s existence. Such an honor denotes […]

   
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  Book Review: No Easy Day

  9/11 Commemorative Issue, Lifestyle, Special Issues September 16, 2012 at 2:38 pm Comments are Disabled

  Everyone remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing on Sept. 11, 2001. But what were you doing on May 2, 2011? Former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, under the pen name Mark Owen, describes how he spent his day in detail in his new book, “No Easy Day”, the firsthand account of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. Despite my reservations about being lost in a book that detailed the military, a topic I don’t usually find myself interested in, I downloaded “No Easy Day” on Kindle. By the end of the first chapter, I was hooked. Bissonnette is a brilliant writer and vividly captures his emotions and memories of his training as a SEAL and the missions that led to the capture and killing of bin Laden. In between chapters, I frequently stopped to remind myself that the story I was reading was a true first-person account and not a fictional account of the throes of war. But as I continued to read, I became concerned about the content of the book and its nature. In the preface, Bissonnette stresses that he went to great lengths to avoid disclosing sensitive material and military secrets. Though it […]

   
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  Cabrera’s Road to Mason Filled with Aspirations of Success

  News1 September 16, 2012 at 2:36 pm Comments are Disabled

  Angel Cabrera paced through a small town in western Spain. He was a small boy and didn’t care that the town was impoverished and faltering in many ways. As he walked through the streets, people stopped him to ask who he was related to in the town. Cabrera spent many summers in the town, talking to people about his grandfather, and always received stories of great admiration for one of the men who had a great impact on his life. “Listening to all these people talk about the admiration they had for my grandfather, I always thought there was no better job than being a teacher,” Cabrera said. “I always thought that being a teacher was the most magical thing anyone could do.” After years of schooling, Cabrera, a holder of four degrees, became the dean of the IE Business School in Madrid, ranked one of the top business schools in the world, and was later named the president of Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. “I wanted to be in education early one,” Cabrera said. “From there to becoming a university president is a series of accidents.” Named the sixth president of the university and taking office in […]

   
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  Here, You Are Family

  Sports September 16, 2012 at 2:31 pm Comments are Disabled

  Emily Harvey, a sophomore majoring in anthropology, is breaking out this season on George Mason’s women’s soccer team. She was recently recognized as the CAA Women’s Soccer player of the week.  The award came after recording her first goal against George Washington University, and a last minute game winning assist against American University. “I didn’t expect the award at all, it really was a surprise,” Harvey said. “I really just try to go out and do whatever it is the team needs me to do. If that means scoring a goal I go out there and work for a goal, if that means picking up team moral and getting us pumped up then that’s what I do.” Emily has had a longer road to Mason’s Soccer program than one would guess. “I grew up an army brat and we moved a lot,” Harvey said. Both of her parents worked for the military and their jobs took them along the Atlantic coast from Maryland to New Jersey, Rhode Island to Pennsylvania, and even Florida. “I still think of Maryland as my home though; we always went back in-between moves,” Harvey said. Everywhere their family went her and her siblings played soccer. […]

   
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  Professors Promote Diplomacy Through Sport

  9/11 Commemorative Issue, Featured, Special Issues, Sports September 16, 2012 at 2:25 pm Comments are Disabled

  The power and the impact of sport is undeniable. Serving many functions in our lives, sport works to develop communication skills and promote teamwork, all the while bringing communities together as one. Perhaps lesser known, sport can also promote a world of peace and cross-cultural understanding that is stronger than any barrier languages and cultures may build. “You don’t need to speak the same language because you are out there just playing and competing in sports,” said Craig Esherick, Associate Director of the Center for Sport Management. In many ways, the language of sport is the only universal language in the world. Through a grant awarded by SportsUnited, a division of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Mason professors Esherick, Dr. Bob Baker and Dr. Pam Baker have been working in a diplomatic effort to promote peace and shape the world view on America and its citizens. “More than anything, we overcome linguistic challenges by having strong interests in the American culture,” said Marlon Moreno, a Mexican coach who visited the United States as part of the program in mid-August. Esherick and Bob Baker began working with the State Department on a new sport initiative […]

   
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  USAF Veteran Finds Healing in Philosophy Program

  9/11 Commemorative Issue, News1, Special Issues September 16, 2012 at 2:21 pm Comments are Disabled

  As American Airlines Flight 77 approached the Pentagon, it took out power lines and a generator before smashing into the western side of the building. Fifty-three passengers and six crew members were killed in the crash and a section of the Pentagon collapsed from impact. Senior Airman Rachel Moran, a computer systems operator for the Air Force at the Pentagon, just happened to not be at work that September morning. “It was a surreal time,” Moran said. “Things at work didn’t really change until the war in 2003 but in other aspects of life everything changed immediately. Everyone was just in shock.” One week after the attacks, letters containing anthrax were mailed to several news media offices and politicians, killing five and infecting 17. Just one year later, John Allen Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo terrorized the Beltway with a spree of sniper shootings. The series of events heightened the fear and threat of terrorism in the country, and partially led to Moran’s decision to retire in 2004 to spend more time at home with her family. Before she worked for the Air Force, Moran served in another capacity as a military spouse. She and her husband had decided that […]

   
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  Deployment Helps Strengthen Father-Daughter Bond

  9/11 Commemorative Issue, News1, Special Issues September 16, 2012 at 2:19 pm Comments are Disabled

  Colonel Matthew Haber sat at the foot of his daughter’s bed, repeating the words, “I love you” as tears rolled down his cheeks. Anna Haber was just 11 years old when her father broke the news: He was being deployed to Stuttgart, Germany and would be away for four months. She lay in bed that night, watching her father cry for just the second time in her life, but she was still too young to really understand. “At that age, it doesn’t set in until the next day when your dad isn’t there,” said Anna, now a junior marketing major at Mason. “At that point, you can’t just call and tell him to come home.” Col. Haber spent four months in Germany, leaving his wife to care for both Anna and her younger brother, Michael. Both children were becoming increasingly involved in sports and choir but Jane Haber, Anna’s mother, did what she had to do to keep everything as normal as possible. “It helps having good kids,” Mrs. Haber said. “You have no choice. You just do what you have to do. But the kids made it easy.” Still, though, his time in Germany would pale in comparison to […]

   

• School of Management Prepares Students for Career Excellence

  News1 September 16, 2012 at 2:17 pm Comments are Disabled

  Every great idea begins with a great plan. Sir Winston Churchill once said, “Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.” Fortunately for Mason students, the School of Management has developed a way to eliminate advance worrying through a Plan for Academic and Career Excellence (PACE). “The purpose of PACE is to get students out of here on time with no surprises,” said Meggan Ford, Assistant Director of Academic Services. “We want students to be successful academically, get out of here on time and graduate with no surprises.” Though it has been in place since 2005, a $25,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation allowed the School of Management an opportunity to overhaul the technology in order to better serve the students. The grant assisted with upgrades that allow for more interactivity, including the ability for students to view their individual progress toward personal goals, use interactive checklists and post accomplished goals to their social media pages. While the PACE website was being upgraded, the School of Management’s academic and career advisors considered that today’s students prefer multimedia rather than large blocks of text and, in response, added more video and audio presentations. “We really tried to go through and […]

   
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  Proud to be an American

  9/11 Commemorative Issue, Editorials, Special Issues September 16, 2012 at 2:14 pm Comments are Disabled

  A robed figure of Libertas, Roman goddess of freedom, stands tall in New York Harbor. Dedicated in 1886 by the people of France, Libertas bears a torch upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence: July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet as this statue, the Statue of Liberty, serves as a representation of the American culture and welcomes immigrants arriving from abroad. But what does it mean to be an American? As you stand atop the hill, watching the guard pace back and forth with such precision as he guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the skyline of Washington D.C. faintly peers through the trees. More than 400,000 headstones mark our nation’s fallen heroes, lying in the forefront of the nation’s capital. Pausing for a moment to pay my respects to my great-grandfather, Captain James E. Herbert, I was overcome by the sacrifice made by each of these young men and women. Each of the headstones, markers that stretched across the 624-acre mass of rolling hills, signified the true cost of our nation’s greatest quality. Freedom is not free. Freedom comes at the significant cost of the more than 400,000 people […]

   

• Green Colleen: Red, White & Chew

  9/11 Commemorative Issue, Editorials, Special Issues September 16, 2012 at 2:12 pm Comments are Disabled

  When I was in fourth grade, I was confused beyond belief as to why terrorists had attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing thousands of innocent people. In my naivety, I had failed to grasp the concept of the word terrorist, one that my young ears had never heard before. Unfortunately, I learned more than I ever should have about the evils of the world as a ten year old on that terrible day. As a resident of Northern Virginia and the descendent of veterans on both sides of my family, being patriotic and recognizing the sacrifice made by millions of Americans, both civilian and enlisted, for their country, is one of my greatest duties. Politics aside, I couldn’t agree more with President Obama’s encouragement for all Americans to go out and volunteer to recognize the 9/11 attacks and honor the victims. Though I was young, I remember being amazed as the whole country pulled itself together and became united as neighbors, friends and family reached out to help and support one another in the wake of the attack. That mentality has fallen by the wayside over the past 11 years, but this Tuesday, take a moment to remember […]