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D.C. Bike Share Program Brings Resource to Students

Featured, News1 October 31, 2012 at 10:48 am Comments are Disabled

Mason students, staff and faculty members can now travel efficiently around campus, while promoting a sustainable environment at the same time, thanks to Patriot Bikeshare. Founded this September, Patriot Bikeshare enhances transportation options around campus and makes bicycles more accessible for people who do not own them. “It is an easy way to travel short distances,” said bicycle and recycling coordinator Tyler Orton, who works with the Office of Parking and Transportation as well as the Office of Sustainability. Patriot Bikeshare is unique because it is the only fully automated bikeshare model. Unlike other models, such as Washington D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare, no permanent infrastructure is needed. The bicycles, provided by ViaCycle, are unlocked through a mobile application or through sending a text message to a designated number. At this point, 20 bicycles are available for rental from four on-campus locations: the Northern Neck Starbucks, the Johnson Center North Plaza, the Shenandoah (Sandy Creek) parking deck and the SUB I Quad by Krug Hall. Riders can pay $3 for a one-time 12-hour rental, or pay $6 to become a monthly member and receive unlimited two-hour rentals. Riders are charged $1 for each additional half hour. The bicycle fleet was purchased through […]
Campus Students Host “Love Week” to Raise Money for Kids in Need

Featured, News1 October 31, 2012 at 10:43 am Comments are Disabled

Paper. Pencils. Pens. These items are most likely taken for granted by students at Mason. But to the children living in Old Naledi, Botswana, they make a world of difference. Under the direction of staff member Brett Miller, Mason’s Campus Crusade for Christ organization, otherwise known as Cru, chose Botswana as the country it will be aiding during this year’s Love Week beginning on Oct. 29. In its previous two years, the organization has chosen to help Haiti and South Sudan. Mackenzie Snider, a conflict analysis and resolution major who has taken on a leadership role in this year’s Love Week, says the goal is to raise $18,000, to package two thousand backpacks with school supplies and to start a mentorship program for the children in Old Naledi. Additionally, Cru staff will send student-made videos, supplying the children with added encouragement. “We’re trying to change all of these kids’ lives and the country of Botswana,” said Joanna Kirby, a junior psychology major, who is co-directing the event with Erwin Camacho, a sophomore systems engineering major. Cru’s objective is not simply to provide the children of Old Naledi with supplies that will improve their lives, but to allow the children and […]
Golfer Finds Right Fit at Mason

Featured, Sports October 23, 2012 at 10:53 am Comments are Disabled

Kevin Yerks’ collegiate golf career almost never got off the tee. His drive to Mason took detours in Miami and Harrisonburg. It took a shot-in-the-dark email to Mason’s men’s golf coach Scott King for Yerks, a junior at Mason, to find his collegiate home in Fairfax. Yerks’ post-high school golf career started with a scholarship to Johnson & Wales University in Miami, Florida. After a semester, Yerks realized that the Sunshine State was not a fit for him. He decided to bide his time at a community college just outside of Harrisonburg, Virginia, waiting for an opportunity to play collegiate-level golf again. “For a while, I thought I might not get a chance to play again, as many coaches had already filled their rosters and did not have a spot on their team,” Yerks said. “I was seriously thinking about never playing again.” That’s when King stepped in with an open spot on Mason’s men’s golf team. “I owe a lot to him for getting me here and giving me a chance at playing collegiate golf,” Yerks said. Yerks began playing golf around the age of four with his grandfather in Williamsburg, Va. Yerks quickly fell in love with the […]
Trap and Skeet: Greatness Hiding in Plain Sight

Featured, Sports October 23, 2012 at 10:48 am 2 comments

Despite their national titles, dedicated and diverse members and their unique sport, Mason’s Trap and Skeet Club is still not getting much recognition on campus. Trap and Skeet is a sport where people aim for perfection. The goal is to shoot as many birds or clay discs as possible. There are four rounds with 25 targets and the winner is determined by who hits the most birds. Seniors Sean Renfroe, Michael Campbell and sophomore Renee Murphy are all members of the team that have picked up the sport recently and excelled greatly. All three came to the team as inexperienced shooters. In Murphy’s case, she just began shooting a little over a year ago, but is now the best female on the east coast. The team members attribute this all to their coach Gary Olin and the support from the local shooting community. Olin is only a volunteer coach, but still spends around 100 hours every month with the team. A lot of other teams do not have a coach and are just student-run. Coaching has pushed Mason to the top and is the reason it can proudly call itself the best university on the east coast. “After a while, […]
Fox Film Critic Kevin McCarthy Reviews His Time at Mason

Featured, Lifestyle October 23, 2012 at 10:31 am Comments are Disabled

An intense action sequence is playing out on the screen, and just when you think that there is no hope and the hero has seen the end, he comes through and saves the day in an epic display of knowledge and knife technique. The mind blowing graphics and beautifully demonstrated use of characters is just too much, and a single tear of awe and appreciation rolls down the viewer’s cheek. According to Kevin McCarthy, Mason Alumni and CBS movie critic, this phenomenon is known as nerd tears. Nerd tears, those moments of insane giddiness, are the namesake of McCarthy’s website where he posts movie reviews and celebrity interviews. Since he graduated in 2006, McCarthy has built a career in film critique and radio. It all started the first time he saw The Terminator 2, the second film in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s popular science fiction action franchise. McCarthy, a young boy at the time, fell in love with film. He was fascinated by the technical aspects that went into making the movie and its main actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, would become his childhood hero. He never could have known that this cinematic experience would be the beginning of a bright career in film. […]
A Night of Blood Curdling Fun at Hallow Inc.

Featured, Lifestyle October 23, 2012 at 10:26 am Comments are Disabled

As we stand in line outside of the Rockville, Maryland strip mall, our stocky host gives a dramatic appraisal of the situation. “This,” he explains, “is a very dangerous place, and you will be very, very lucky to make it out alive.” Already I’m excited, and I can feel my adrenaline level rising. Our host, now our survival guide, brings my friends and I up to date on the “situation.” Something is horribly wrong inside this building, and it is up to us, the brave and adventurous explorers that we are, to find out what happened. A government program for studying the effects of nuclear radiation on humans, canceled long ago, has fallen into the wrong hands. The result is housed in the warehouse before us. Our job is to check the situation out. We’re not sure what went wrong, but as our survival guide finishes his speech, he lowers his sun glasses for dramatic effect. Below his eye. A bite mark. Our survival guide is in the early stages of zombie infection. At Hallow Inc’s The Warehouse: Project 4.1, your experience begins the minute you line up outside the building. From that point on as you enter the lobby, […]
Wish Tree Project Inspires Professors

Featured, Multimedia, News1 October 23, 2012 at 10:18 am Comments are Disabled

Students may have been wondering why there are tags hanging on trees. Suzanna Scott, professor of New Century College’s Art, Beauty, and Culture course, and Lynne Constantine, professor of The School of Art’s Aesthetics course, decided to bring the Wish Tree Project to the George Mason campus as part of their curriculum. For those who don’t know, Yoko Ono originally started The Wish Tree Project in 1996. Scott says, “People participate in the work by writing their personal wishes for peace on white shipping tags and tying the wishes to a tree branch.” This project was started on the George Mason Campus on October 1st and will end on October 18th. When asked why the project would end, Constantine replied, “In a way, the very fleetingness of the tree’s presence here is important. Any longer, and it would simply become part of the landscape. This way, both its appearance and its disappearance are events, opportunities for paying attention.” Once the wishes are taken down on the 18th, they will be shipped to Reykjavik, Iceland where Yoko Ono is collecting all the wishes and building a memorial for her late husband, John Lennon. Both Constantine and Scott were eager to bring […]
TWITTER: Social Media Tells Story of Obama Rally

Featured, News1 October 5, 2012 at 12:29 pm Comments are Disabled

[View the story “Obama Fills Center for the Arts” on Storify]
Twitter Account Gives Voice to Mason Public

Featured, News1 October 4, 2012 at 2:51 pm Comments are Disabled

Social media is constantly becoming a more integral part of the way society functions. Many companies, institutions and universities are beginning to use social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, to connect to the world, including a wider base of customers and students. Mason recently became a huge player in this game with its implementation of the “Mason Nation Project.” Mason’s new president, Dr. Angel Cabrera, was the brain behind the project. With the help of the university’s Office of Media and Public Relations, the project is now in full swing. The idea was inspired by Sweden’s creative use of its Twitter account. “The curators of Sweden are different every week and tweet on behalf of the country. Dr. Cabrera thought it would be really cool if Mason did something similar,” said Tara Laskowski, Mason’s social media coordinator and Office of Media and Public Relations senior manager. Following this model, Mason gives a new person access to the Twitter account @GeorgeMasonU each week. “This project reflects the diversity of the university, but it also compliments the social nature of our new president. Dr. Angel Cabrera is an avid Twitter user, and because of that, the Mason community has gotten […]
End of the World: Zombie Apocalypse

Featured, Lifestyle, Multimedia September 24, 2012 at 3:24 pm Comments are Disabled

Fifty-eight years after the United States government launched Project 4.1 to study the medical effects of nuclear fallout, Justin Watson and his friends have continued working on the experiments, with disastrous results. Watson, who graduated from Mason in 2010 with a degree in government and international politics, has opened an urban haunted house called The Warehouse with four colleagues in Rockville, MD. The Warehouse features an imaginary scenario of a continuation of Project 4.1. The haunted house centers on the story line of Atomic Advancements, a private pharmaceutical company that decided to continue the work on the decades-old research project to study the response of human beings who were exposed to significant radiation from high-yield weapons. That is when everything went horribly wrong. The Warehouse, which is located a block from the White Flint Metro station, is a 37,000 square foot department store in a dying shopping mall. Watson and his company have transformed the space into 17 rooms with zombies, decaying bodies and armed guards. A hospital wing, jail and laboratory are all included, but Watson has kept the final room a secret. He promises that it will be different than your average ending to a haunted house. “Our […]