Recent Posts

• 

  Energy and Enterprise Initiative Creates Conservation Efforts

  News1 October 23, 2012 at 10:14 am Comments are Disabled

  Conservatism is not normally associated with green energy, but one group is aiming to change that. On July 10 2012, GMU announced the formation of Energy Enterprise Initiative (EEI), the brainchild of former South Carolina Congressman Bob Ingles. With this new initiative, Ingles, a moderate Republican who was a casualty of the Tea Party juggernaut in 2010, will advocate for free market solutions to America’s energy & climate problems. Alex Bozmoski, EEI’s Director of Strategy & Operations, described EEI’s philosophy as being “guided by conservative principles of free enterprise and growth, limited government.” Among other things, the initiative proposes eliminating government incentives for solar panels & electric cars, but the catch is that EEI also wants to eliminate government subsidies for oil and gas companies.  EEI will be housed at GMU’s Center for Climate Change Communication. Bozmoski argues that it’s better in the end to pay the true cost of gas at the pump, rather than the price we pay now, which does not account for the costs currently concealed by multiple government subsidies that keep prices artificially low. This initiative favors a revenue-neutral carbon tax that would be offset by cuts in other areas, such as income and capital […]

   

• Mason Security Works to Keep Campus Safe

  News1 October 23, 2012 at 10:08 am Comments are Disabled

  Mason Security depends heavily on the security guards who work to maintain an atmosphere of safety and peace throughout the university, especially in residential areas. James L. McCarthy is the Director of Security for Mason. He is in charge of the university’s entire security force, not only at the Fairfax campus but also at the Arlington and Prince William campuses. Mason Security is technically a division of the Mason Police Department, which has been a nationally accredited law enforcement agency since 1991, according to the department’s official website. In addition to security and patrol officers, it includes police officers, investigators, communications officers and even a LGBTQ liaison officer who serves to facilitate the department’s relationship with the LGBTQ community at Mason. Overall, the Mason Police Department functions much in the same way as any other law enforcement agency. In fact, McCarthy said Mason Police work hand-in-hand with other police departments in the area, most notably those in the City of Fairfax, Arlington, Fairfax County and Prince William County. Based in the security operations center of the Mason Police Department, the security guards themselves have a vast range of responsibilities. In addition to conducting active patrols of the university campus both […]

   

• Mason Earns “B” Grade for its High First-Year Graduate Success

  News1 October 23, 2012 at 10:07 am Comments are Disabled

  Because of rising college costs, students and their families are looking to find schools that provide a quality education, but at the same time don’t break the bank. Mason is a school that, according to whatwilltheylearn.com, fits in this happy medium. The organization recently gave Mason a “B” grade—the criteria being the quality of the education offered and how monetarily successful recent graduates become. The tool focuses on first-year graduate earnings rather than long-term income. Virginia’s higher-education coordinating body, along with College Measures, a nonprofit group supported by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), collaborated in the making of whatwilltheylearn.com’s tool. The study is what insidehighered.com calls “the most extensive, state-level consumer tool for tracking wages of college graduates.” Wage data was taken from the Virginia Longitudinal Data System, which released detailed wage numbers earlier this month, according to insidehighered.com. Mason’s general education requirements for all majors are composition, literature, mathematics, and science classes. Contrastingly, Mason does not require a foreign language, U.S. government or history, or economics class. The logic here is that the more a college prepares a student academically, i.e. the more classes a student is required to take, the more likely the student will be successful […]

   
• 

  Board of Visitors Approves Mason Campus in South Korea

  Multimedia, News1 October 23, 2012 at 10:04 am Comments are Disabled

  The Board of Visitors authorized the establishment of a branch campus in Incheon, South Korea at a recent board meeting on Oct. 3. Mason was approached by a Songdo Project representative in 2008 and was asked to consider the possibility of establishing a branch of the proposed “Songdo Global University” in Korea. The Songdo Global University Campus is designed to be a global hub for education, economics, politics, research and culture. Many groups participated in the evaluation process in order to authorize the campus. These participants include members of Mason’s senior leadership, the faculty senate and focus groups with students at Mason and in Korea. Interviews were also held with key international leaders. Anne Schiller, Vice President for Global Strategies and Professor of Anthropology at Mason, was involved in the decision-making process. She is one of many who believe this opportunity has the potential to be very beneficial to Mason. “Mason’s 2014 strategic plan described East Asia as a geographic region of particular interest to Mason,” Schiller said. It is projected that U.S. undergraduate students will be able to begin studying at this campus in 2014. The initial Mason-affiliated majors offered will be in management and economics, and in the […]

   
• 

  Chalk It Up As Another Win For Mason

  Editorials, Multimedia October 23, 2012 at 9:59 am Comments are Disabled

  Just when you think Mason cannot get any better, it pulls a fast one on us and raises the bar all over again. While this week’s announcement that the university will be expanding its territory and opening a beautiful campus in South Korea brings outstanding notoriety among East Asian countries, it is a campus that very few students will ever get the opportunity to experience first-hand. Perhaps more relevant to the Fairfax community, though, Mason celebrated the completion of its newest academic residential and dining facilities on Thursday just down the road in Front Royal. A $5 million gift from real estate developer Gerald T. Halpin, namesake of the G.T. Halpin Family Living & Learning Community, helped bring life to a vision imagined by Mason and the Smithsonian that will allow the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation to foster and nurture future generations of conservationists. His generous donation will provide funds to establish an endowment that will provide scholarship opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. The campus, where students spend a semester living on campus and engaging in the study of endangered species, includes research halls, dormitories and an animal hospital. Highly qualified world experts – including Smithsonian scientists, Mason faculty […]

   
• 

  Security Report Finds Increase in Drug Arrests

  Multimedia, News1 October 23, 2012 at 9:56 am Comments are Disabled

  Recently released statistics from Mason’s Annual Security Report surprised many when the amount of reported drug arrests spiked dramatically. Although the numbers for Student Residencies dropped from 41 to 40 from 2010 to 2011, the reported drug arrests for the On-Campus category increased from 77 to 151 and Public Property drug arrests have increased from 34 to 120. However, the numbers alone do not tell a complete story of drug use on Mason’s Fairfax campus. “Due to a change in the definition of on-campus, we now have to include all parking lots and the patriot center, and other areas that previously had been in the public property category, into the category of on campus,” said Mike Lynch, Chief of Mason Police. This definitional distinction means that arrests that occur in residential buildings, which are inaccessible to the public, are counted in the same category as parking lots, which are. This means that drug arrests made from arresting the public are counted in the same category as the student body, which can make the numbers seem worse than they are. This year, drug arrests from parking lots and the patriot center, which totaled 120, “were tallied in both public property and […]

   

• Ricky Gervais and Ideological Bias

  Editorials October 16, 2012 at 2:43 pm Comments are Disabled

  One big shortcoming of Twitter is its limited space to express views. Ultimately, 140 characters will never be enough to truly convey great ideas; after all, items like the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Gettysburg Address, “I Have a Dream” speech, and others sure couldn’t fit in Twitter-imposed barriers. Maybe that is why certain statements seem so off. Comedian Ricky Gervais is a good example. As religiously-engendered violence continued in Muslim countries, Gervais remarked “I see Atheists are fighting and killing each other again, over who doesn’t believe in any God the most. Oh, no..wait..that never happens.” While Gervais’ comment may require further explanation, it seemed sufficient a statement for many as it got posted on Facebook, receiving over 20,000 likes and over 6,000 shares. Yet his remarks are bizarre in light of history. Gervais was born in 1961, meaning the first 30 years of his life there existed the Soviet Union. This was a regime that had its share of large-scale killing to stamp out religion and whose leadership violently punished those who did not adhere to their atheism-based worldview sufficiently enough. In early twentieth century Mexico, here was plenty of secularist-driven violence against the Catholic Church. The extent of […]

   

• Center for the Arts: Students Should Take Advantage of Access

  Editorials October 16, 2012 at 2:41 pm 1 comment

  In the months leading into my Mason career, my mother and father often reminded me to attempt to get all of the perks from my out of state tuition. I found a perfect venue for that at the GMU Center for the Arts. Any holder of a Mason ID is able to get at least one free ticket for most performances featured at the venue. The Center of the arts, apart from featuring Mason’s very own theatrical and musical ensembles, pulls in the likes of the American Symphony Orchestra and even the Royal Drummers and Dancers of Burundi. Indeed, the College of Visual and Performing Arts has a selection that’s just as diverse as Mason itself. Continuing on that point, the College of Visual and Performing Arts selects the program for the year, and strives to create “an academic environment in which the arts are explored as individual disciplines and interdisciplinary forms that enhance and strengthen each other.” Certainly a very admirable goal, I would say. The College of Visual and Performing Arts has aptly named the program of artists who pass through Mason “Great Performances at Mason” and great they are. Mind you, however, this is not like attending […]

   

• Repetition is Not Always the Answer

  Editorials October 16, 2012 at 2:40 pm Comments are Disabled

  This world continues to have the same conflicts with a different name and leader. This has always been something that baffled me because as members of the human race, we cannot learn from our mistakes. Wars, attacks, and persecution have been going on since the beginning of time and will not end until we come together to avoid our past mistakes. Let’s start this look back in 1490 when Ferdinand and Isabella felt the only way to resolve the problems of Spain was to create a land with a single people. This resolution involved the expulsion of the Jewish and Muslim population in the country to create their perfect Spain. A similar situation happened in the United States as expansion across the vast countryside began. This conquest did not just involve inspecting unvisited sites. The conquest that celebrated expansion actually involved killing, raping, and displacing the Native American population. The U.S.’s goal was to expand and create an America that would make this country the best one on earth. The Native Americans were not a part of this picture similar to the Jews and Muslims in Spain. This ethnic cleansing continued with Adolf Hitler’s systematic killing of 12 million people. […]

   

• Honesty: Always the Best Policy

  Editorials October 16, 2012 at 2:38 pm Comments are Disabled

  Take a moment to picture a chaotic world. It is easy actually; all it takes is for you to imagine living in a society where honesty is non-existent. We hear it over and over again: “You can’t have a good relationship without trust.” Though it is a cliché, it is inevitable to imagine that without honesty, the last bit of sanity that remains within society would vanish. What would you do if you were being lied to constantly? If honesty and truth were erased from the values of society, how would the human race function? To say the least, it wouldn’t. Honesty is one of the most important policies because without it, humans would be helpless. Asking someone you have never met before for something as simple as directions requires honesty. Taking classes requires honesty from the professors – if the material being taught is a lie, what is the point of going to school? Then of course, there are relationships. Without honesty, it is impossible to build any sort of relationship – or a successful one at least. Without a speck of honesty, the human race would most likely collapse. Being able to trust others reduces stress tremendously. It […]