Articles by: jdavis15

Illegal Downloading a Growing Problem at Mason

News1 October 3, 2011 at 11:08 pm 1 comment

Illegal downloading of content at George Mason University is becoming a major issue for students. Claudia Holland, head of the Copyright Resources Office at Mason, is a registered copyright agent who is designated to receive copyright infringement notices from anyone, including students and enforcement groups. When students log into UAC Wireless on Mason’s Internet connection, “they agree to abide by the statements and the responsible use of computing which includes copyright,” Holland said. “The trend has been over the past 20 years or so since the advent of the Internet that people who own content have gotten much more concerned about how their material is distributed,” Holland said. “The infringement notices that we receive from the content industry have increased quite a bit.” “Most of the enforcement groups that contact us represent artists. There are different groups that represent and probably are paid by that member, who is an artist or creator of some sort to act on their behalf to identify infringing content and stop it,” Holland said. “They have bots [that] go out and search the Internet the same way that people are using peer-to-peer file-sharing software. These bots then look for content; they may look for a […]
Cochrane Collaboration for Policy Establishes GMU Branch

News1 October 3, 2011 at 11:06 pm Comments are Disabled

George Mason University is now home to a branch of the Cochrane Collaboration, making it the first university in the world to be so. The mission of the Cochrane Collaboration College for Policy at George Mason University is to bring the highest rigor of evidence into U.S. policy on health care and social policy, according to Catherine Gallagher, director of the center. “In other words, we’re giving scientific evidence to lawmakers on issues they’re considering,” Gallagher said. The Cochrane Collaboration has existed since 1993 internationally, and has grown to be the gold standard in evidence of effectiveness. Cochrane is an international, nonprofit collaboration that generates information on health care and social issue decision-making by utilizing a process of systematic review. Cochrane is present in 113 nations and has roughly 30,000 contributors working as authors and systematic reviewers. Cochrane wanted to establish a presence in the U. S. While they are leaders around the world in providing information, their presence was lacking in the U.S. policy arena, which as Gallagher notes, tends to be more value judgments than evidence and rationality judgments. “It’s harder to get traction in the U.S. policy arena,” Gallagher said. Gallagher came to Mason in 1999 and, […]
Mason Universal Auxiliary Enterprises

News1 October 3, 2011 at 11:04 pm Comments are Disabled

George Mason University’s Auxiliary Enterprises plans to release their report on the AE Green program for campus-widesustainability efforts in early October. Dan Waxman, assistant to the executive director of retail operations in Auxiliary Enterprises, is overseeing the movement to make Mason a greener campus. “I work as an environmental consultant with each of the areas around campus to track and guide their actions and help set goals,” Waxman said. “Our mission is to sustain auxiliary enterprises at GMU. At AE Green we’re focused on the big picture and how we can help the campus and students out best.” The program began in 2008 as the Office of University Services’ sustainability projects, and originally focused on just Mason Dining and Print Services. The program has since grown, doubling in size from last year to include 23 departments and services. Funding for the program comes from within the department and from grant money. “Some of the programs don’t require much funding and actually end up being cost saving,” Waxman said. The Mason Child Development Center has been a focus area for the program. A garden planted on-site is now a Certified Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation, and serves as a […]
Mason Takes Back the Night

News1 October 3, 2011 at 11:03 pm Comments are Disabled

Every year at George Mason University, students, faculty and staff come together to participate in “Take Back the Night,” a rally against sexual assault. This year, “Take Back the Night” will happen on Oct. 4 during Turn Off the Violence Week. “‘Take Back the Night’ is a rally against sexual assault and domestic abuse,” said Mabinty Quarshie, president of the Feminist Student Organization. “We like to do it in October because October is also Sexual Violence and Domestic Abuse Awareness Month and we usually partner up with Sexual Assault Services and they have been a huge help. This year is the 21st consecutive year that we have done ‘Take Back the Night.’” According to Quarshie, organizing and planning of “Take Back the Night” started last July. There are many student organizations and on-campus service organizations hosting the event, including Sexual Assault Services and the Office of Housing and Residence Life.“The Office of Housing and Residence Life have been extremely helpful. They are buying the T-shirts for us,” Quarshie said. In an effort to promote the event, posters and flyers will be hung up around campus. A Facebook event has been created to get the word out to as many people […]
Former Mason Student, Veteran Finds Purpose in Volunteer Work

News1 October 3, 2011 at 11:03 pm Comments are Disabled

Mark Little has no time for self-pity. A roadside bomb in Iraq severed both his legs below the knee, but the former George Mason University student plays ice hockey, swims, skis, runs and basically does everything that a person with two missing legs is not supposed to do. His latest quest involves performing physical exploits for charity. Little was part of a team at his gym, CrossFit Liberation in Lorton, Va., that helped raise more than $19,000 for the 2011 Fight Gone Bad 6 CrossFit fundraiser. One of the charities benefiting from the worldwide event was the Special Operations Warrior Foundation which helps the special operations military community. For the fundraiser, Little, along with other former military members, performed a CrossFit workout wearing military gear including a ballistic vest with plates. Little said wearing the extra gear makes the workout harder and helps honor military personnel killed in action or wounded. “We are reminding everybody, even our civilian friends who are [working out] with us, that this is what we are doing it for,” Little said. “It’s the guys [who] wear the uniform, [who] put on the kit, and literally wear this burden every day while they are deployed. The […]
Mason Bids Farewell to Ricci Heishman

News1 October 3, 2011 at 11:01 pm Comments are Disabled

George Mason University bids farewell to Ricci Heishman, a research professor who passed away Sept. 25 due to cancer. According to an email sent by Sanjeev Setia, chair of the Department of Computer Science, to his students after his death, Heishman spent 20 years in the Navy before spending 10 years at the NOVA campus in Manassas where he was the assistant dean of computer science and information technology. He joined Mason in 2008 after obtaining his Ph.D. in information technology. Many students at Mason, however, are most familiar with Heishman because he taught CS 112 and CS 211, two classes that are required for computer science majors and others involved in engineering, as well as a computer ethics class. “Heishman is the only reason I paid attention in that class, and I got an A,” said junior computer science major Connor Payne, who took 112 with Heishman his freshman year. Many of Heishman’s colleagues also had positive things to say about him. “Ric touched all of us during his all-too-brief stay in our department. We will miss him deeply,” said Setia. Pearl Wang, associate chair of the Department of Computer Science, described Heishman as very supportive of his students, […]
Experiencing Culture Through Dance

Lifestyle October 3, 2011 at 10:59 pm Comments are Disabled

Hips swayed to a Latino beat as feet swiftly tapped the hardwood floor of the Johnson Center Studio Tuesday night. “Right, left, right, tap, five, six, seven,” a novice couple repeated in unison under their breath in an attempt to stay coordinated. “One thing I’ll tell you about Cuban salsa is that we’re down!” said Jim Lepore, the club’s faculty adviser, as he explained the seven basic steps of the dance. “It’s low!” Just like every other week, the Azucar George Mason University Salsa Club and its prospective members had come together for a two-hour lesson. This week, the group was learning rueda, a form of salsa that is danced in a circle and involves switching partners. “The key to partnering is stay close to your partner and keep tight elbows,” said Lepore as he demonstrated rueda with one of the more experienced female dancers. The salsa club, now in its seventh year, allows students to come together through the medium of a social dance. “The demographics reflect the salsa community at large,” Lepore said. “There’s usually a core Latino population, but that sits somewhere under 50 percent. The rest are made up of people who love dancing and they […]
John Carlos to Visit Mason

News1, Sports October 3, 2011 at 10:56 pm Comments are Disabled

At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos made a remarkable stance against racial inequality. The respective 200-meter gold and bronze medal winners held their black-gloved fists high in protest of the treatment that blacks received in the U.S. Nearly 43 years later, the moment in time is still relevant and considered one of the most courageous and significant moments in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Currently, Smith and Carlos spend their days talking with people about their experiences and spreading their messages of racial equality. Carlos and Dave Zirin — a sportswriter and radio personality who has co-written an autobiography with Carlos titled “The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World” — will be at George Mason University tonight at 6 p.m. in the Johnson Center Cinema. “[The book], traces [Carlos’] life from his upbringing in Harlem up to the Olympics and beyond,” said Zirin. During the event they will be viewing the documentary, “Not Just a Game,” and speaking about their new book. Based on Zirin’s bestselling book “The People’s History of Sports in the United States,” the documentary argues that American sports have long been at the […]
A Military-Friendly School

News1 October 3, 2011 at 7:34 pm 2 comments

George Mason University provides a variety of services and programs on campus that are dedicated to ensure student success. This has been recognized by G.I. Jobs magazine, which recently named Mason a Military Friendly School for the third year in a row. “It is important that a school knows and recognizes its military population,” said Aaron Emery, the military transition coordinator at the Office of Military Services, a subset within the Office of Admissions. “Specifically, ‘military friendly’ means that we are providing many services that are helpful to the military population.” “We are here to advocate for military students,” Emery said. “We are interested in how to make a military student successful at Mason.” Emery said that other universities are struggling to become as military friendly as Mason, often because their administrative bureaucracy gets in the way. “Some schools just focus on admissions and credit-transferring, or just one side of the process,” Emery said. “But there is no one, cookie-cutter answer.” In fact, other universities often call Mason to praise its programs and seek advice upon seeing the success that military students and Military Services experience. “Other universities sometimes struggle with how to set up this type of program,” Emery […]
‘Moneyball:’ A Fresh Take on a Trite Genre

Sports September 26, 2011 at 8:16 pm Comments are Disabled

Sports movies have become cliché over the past 25 years with stories of underdog players or teams coming together to win the big game. In this fall’s sports movie representative, Moneyball, the cookie-cutter plotline is not the case. However, the adversity that the characters must face is still prominent. The story revolves around Oakland Athletics general manager, Billy Beane, played in the film by Brad Pitt. Beane has faced his fair share of difficult, life-changing decisions throughout his life and the film does a great job showing the thought process that he had to go through in making them. As a teenager, Beane was a top baseball prospect and was offered a hefty, first round contract by the New York Mets while also pondering a joint football-baseball scholarship to Stanford University. After much deliberation, Beane took the Mets offer and started his career in Major League Baseball. Though his playing career would be short-lived and filled with disappointment, Beane worked his way up through the ranks to eventually become general manager of the Oakland A’s, with the lowest salary in baseball. In order to be competitive, he must find a way to acquire top talent for a bargain. In the […]