May, 2012 // Posts published in May, 2012
Study Time
Many will have seen the recent Washington Post article about declining study time at universities, using Mason as a poster child. You can imagine I was not best pleased with our role. It turns out that lots of places feature study time not much different from ours (including Maryland and UVA — both a bit ...
Morale
On a conference panel last week, chatting with colleagues from other institutions — one to the north of Mason, one to the south — I asked, of course, about how things were going. The intensity of the responses surprised me: morale was plummeting amid budget cuts, lack of ability to replace departing colleagues, and larger ...
Undergrad Research
I’ve written before about Mason’s major initiative, the Students as Scholars project, focused on undergraduate research and creativity. This was the year that the project shifted from planning to implementation. It’s still soon to judge, of course, but initial results are very encouraging. We had the first celebration of achievement this past week, with a ...
Will the Real George Mason…
The past decade plus has been a dynamic period for George Mason. We’ve grown, added programs, added facilities, etc. There is every reason to take pride in the varied achievements and the basis they provide for the future. It’s also important to note that in many ways we’ve been trying, in this same period, to ...
Recent Posts
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Changing the World
This is an adaptation of some brief graduation remarks I recently offered,...
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Good Things
Ends of semester are always a bit tense, particularly in the spring....
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When It's Time to Leave Academic Administration
What follows involves a delicate topic, probably insufficiently discussed because of its...
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