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Course Drop Dates

Reminder: The last day to drop classes with a 100% tuition refund is Monday, February 7th. The last day to drop classes with a 50% tuition refund is Tuesday, February 14th. For more information, and to view other important dates, visit the Office of the Registrar’s Spring ’22 Academic Calendar.

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Fall 2021 Election Results

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Events

Anti-Asian Hate Crime Awareness

Saddened by recent news, Student Government wanted to provide the Mason community a safe space to talk about the recent violence and racism towards Asian-Americans. 💚 This student panel is hosted by our Vice Chair of University Life and Government & Community Relations Committees, Sophia Nguyen, and will feature members from the Taiwanese & Hong Konger American Student Association (THKSA), Asian Pacific American Coalition (APAC), Roosevelt @ Mason as well as Student Government. Please join us in spreading awareness and we hope to see you there, April 8 at 7pm!💛

If you are interested in attending the event, please click this link to learn more and register linktr.ee/masonstudentgov or check us out on Instagram Mason Student Government (@masonstudentgov) • Instagram photos and videos.

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RSO Leadership Conference Spring 2021

Come meet your student body representatives at the RSO Leadership Conference. Student Government will be hosting an information session and Q&A with RSOs. The event will be held on March 15th @ 2-3PM, March 16th @ 3-4pm, March 17th @ 5-6pm, and March 18th @ 12:30-1:30pm. Come join us!

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Initiative Report: Veteran Career Panel

Senator Peter Roberto, who serves as the Senate Military Liaison, has been working hard on a brand new initiative: the Veteran Career Panel event. The event will take place on Wednesday, November 11 at 1 PM. You can learn more and RSVP by click here.

Here is what Senator Roberto had to say about his role and the initiative:

The Veterans Career Panel initiative involves my role as Military Liaison for Student Senate. I am organizing a career panel for our Veteran Mason students, Mason students who are currently serving (either active duty, with their National Guard, or in the Reserves) or are members of our ROTC program. The event will be held over Zoom at 1pm on November 11th, Veterans Day. We are also planning to have the event streamed on university TVs!

Most of my time working on the event has been focused on getting panelists for it since I wanted our panelists to represent our Military community on campus. Currently we have one former member of our ROTC program, a Mason professor and combat veteran, a Navy Reservist and Graduate program coordinator at Mason, and hopefully we’ll have a recent Mason graduate and veteran as well!

Getting this together has taken a lot of work not only from myself but from our wonderful Student Government Advisors, Student Government Leadership, and our partners in the Office of Military Services, Career Services, the Alumni Association, and Event Services.

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Initiative Report: The Patriot Protection Program

On October 8, the Student Senate voted to fund the first phase of the Patriot Protection Program. This program, which is a comprehensive project across several departments, aims to improve safety for George Mason Students. The first phase includes plans to improve lighting on campus.

Here is what Vice Chair Ransom Fox had to say about the initiative:

Hey everyone! As you all know, lack of lighting on campus has been an issue for quite a while now and unfortunately no action has taken place to remedy this concern. However, thankfully, George Mason’s administration, members of Student Government, and I have been working non-stop for the last four months to add more lighting on campus.

The goal of this project is to increase campus safety and alleviate worrisome safety concerns in an appropriate and efficient manner. Last Thursday, our project got a giant leap forward when the Student Senate passed – unanimously – a bill that will buy 160 lights! The lights have been ordered and will be arriving sometime next week. Once they arrive, my colleagues and I will be meeting with the Mason administration to plan a pilot installation of the lights and to create a fully fleshed out game plan for the entire project.

Speaking of installing the light – it’s very easy! All we have to do is stick them into the ground! We will be needing volunteers to help us build the lights and Protect Our Patriots, so if you and your friends are interested in doing some easy, fun community service to brighten up our campus and foster a safer community, stay on the lookout for updates regarding such opportunities. I am so proud of the work we have been doing as a Mason community as a whole. We are showing that by working together we can get the job done and improve our community in a way that could never have even been dreamed of before.

Stay tuned and if you want to keep up to date about what is happening with this project, follow our Instagram @patriotprotectionprogram

To learn more about the Patriot Protection Program or any other Senate initiative, visit our legislation log.

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University Updates

University Announces Big Changes for Spring 2021

Earlier this week President Gregory Washington and Provost Mark Ginsberg announced several major changes to Spring 2021. Please check your student emails for full details. Here is a summary of those changes:

  • Spring break has been eliminated from the academic calendar.
  • The spring semester will begin one week later on January 25, 2021.
  • Increasing in-person classes by at least 10 percent for the spring, including a significant increase in introductory level classes. 
  • Expanding occupancy of residence halls and on-campus dining options, while maintaining safety requirements. 
  • Expanding on-campus activities in support of students, consistent with public health guidelines. 
  • Carefully bringing more employees back to campus and setting a goal to have employees on campus up to 50 percent of the time. 
  • Increasing capacity and frequency of testing for students, faculty and staff to identify asymptomatic cases sooner.
  •  Continuing to work with our partners in the school systems on solutions.
  •  Requiring flu shots for all residential students by close of business on Dec. 11, and strongly encouraging flu shots for faculty, staff and commuter students.

Provost Ginsberg also reminded student in his email that Tuesday, November 3 is a university holiday. In addition, beginning Monday, November 30, all courses will be conducted virtually.

Several days before the announcement, Student Government released a poll on social media and through our monthly newsletter in which we asked students for their preference on the elimination of spring break. Over 1,000 students submitted a response and the overwhelming preference was the total elimination and delayed start. Student Government is thankful to the administration for including student voices in the decision making process.

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Meet Your New Student Senators!

Congratulations to the brand new student senators elected this week. For full results, please visit our elections page.

In the coming weeks we’ll be talking with the new freshman/transfer senators to learn more about their big plans for the upcoming semester. Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Dominic Pino, Chairman of the Election of Disputes Commission (EDC), to learn more about the commission and its role in Student Government.

  • So, Dominic, what is the role of the EDC?
    • The EDC is the third branch of Student Government, and we serve a similar function to the judicial branch in the United States government. We rule on cases that are brought to us and settle disputes between the other two branches. Unlike the judicial branch, however, we also hold the elections for the other two branches of Student Government. We write the Election Code and oversee all the relevant forms and procedures for running for office.
  • What is your role as the chief commissioner?
    • I was elected by the other members of the Commission to be the chair.  It’s mostly a “first among equals” situation as I don’t have any extra say in the decisions we make.  However, I run our meetings and officially announce any rulings we make.
  • What was the turnout for this year’s online interest meetings?
    • We’re only halfway through our schedule of candidacy meetings, but so far have had great turnout. There are a ton if interested candidates.
  • How did COVID-19 changed the election and campaigning process?
    • We’ve moved it all online.  Voting is always online anyway, so no changes there, and that’s the most important part.  All candidacy forms are online, but again, that’s normal.  Our candidacy meetings have all been online, which is a change from normal, but that probably helped accessibility more than it hurt it.  Campaigning is the biggest change, since we are having no in-person campaigning.  We made that decision out of fairness for the more students than normal who are living off campus, many of whom are living in different states and can’t even get to campus.  There’s still plenty of campaigning to be done online, so focusing on social media should still generate excitement for candidates to get out the vote.
  • What improvements does the EDC hope to make this year?
    • We hope to improve our coordination with the rest of Student Government to advertise elections and get the word out about candidacy meetings.  I’ve been happy with our progress so far in that respect, although we could always improve.
  • What is the expected voter turnout, and how is that affected by COVID-19?
    • It’s really hard to anticipate what the turnout will be since COVID-19 means that so many students are distant from campus. We’re in uncharted territory just like everyone else. (Since this interview, though, the top candidate had received almost 300 votes, which is not bad considering the circumstances.)
  • What is the importance of voting in Student Government elections?
    • This is how students get a say in how things are done at Mason.  Pay attention during campaign season and keep an eye out for candidates who support things you agree with.  The fall elections are especially important since the seats are reserved for freshmen and transfer students.  Freshman could serve for years in Student Senate if they get elected now, and more time in office means more time to change things.
  • Where and when can students find out about the election results?
    • Election results will be posted on the GMUSG website on Thursday, October 1st by 12:00 PM.  They will also be emailed directly to all candidates.  The first Student Senate meeting with the newly elected senators will be at 4:30 PM that same day.
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University Updates

Introducing the Citation Diversion Program

Earlier this month Parking & Transportation released the brand-new Citation Diversion Program (CDP). This program allows students who were cited for parking violations to take a quiz to remove a monetary fine.

The level of care and communication that went into developing the CDP to educate students shows the level of care that Mason Parking Services takes in their everyday role at George Mason University. If it was not clear before, it should be clear now – Parking and Transportation wants to educate students before issuing a fine. Student Government’s role in the CDP began when Parking Services reached out to the Undersecretary of Parking and Transportation, Ethan Brown.

From here, Brown communicated with the Student Parking Board and held round-table discussions with the student-run board on how to ensure that a citation diversion quiz would be fair to students. This involved each board member taking the quiz, reviewing the verbiage in each summary page and the proceeding questions that correspond with the summary page. Through this review process, feedback was collected and submitted to Evan Cypher, Data Analyst at Parking Services.

With the feedback from Student Government leaders, Cypher was able to adjust verbiage, topics, length of questions, and answer choices to be fair for the student population. The end result was a well formed quiz, formulated for students to take the quiz in six sections: Parking Misconceptions, Permit Options, Citations, Appeals, Common Violations, and Promoting Transportation Resources. Each section begins with helpful information that provides clues to the questions that directly follow. Questions 24 and 25 of the 25 question quiz are multiple choice feedback questions, followed by an optional comment section.

According to Cypher, “From the CDP launch date on August 24, 2020 to current date (09/15/2020), 32 students have requested to take the Citation Diversion Program. The current percentage of students that have passed is 87.5% (28/32). The average score is a mean of 22.5 and median of 23. The average time spent completing the Citation Diversion Program is a mean of 37.47 minutes”

For more information, please visit https://transportation.gmu.edu/policies/citation-diversion-program/

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Welcome to The Grove!

Last month Student Government and Facilities Management unveiled a brand-new outdoor study space affectionately called “The Grove”. The Grove is located in the wooded area between Enterprise Hall, the Arts and Design Building, and Research Hall. The space features several tables and seating areas in a well-cleared, mulched area below the canopy of some of Mason’s beautiful trees. Here is what Hunter Young, Clerk of the Student Senate and the project’s student leader, has to say about the development of The Grove:

It Starts With an Idea…

The Grove started as an idea from former University Life and current Student Body Vice President David O’Connell in late fall 2019. A discussion between us brought the issue of the lack of outdoor seating present on campus, particularly in the shade, to my attention. During nice weather in the spring and the fall, it can be difficult to find seating outside to eat lunch, socialize, or study between classes. I believed this issue to be especially important because of Mason’s large commuter population. Some of these commuters have long breaks between classes and it was difficult to find adequate outdoor seating. Vice President O’Connell had also highlighted a lack of hammock-friendly locations on campus. After Vice President O’Connell introduced this idea, it became my primary initiative my role as Undersecretary for Facilities and I quickly looped in Undersecretary for Sustainability Sara Babcock. I introduced the idea to Facilities Administration at our monthly post-Mason Stewards meeting and they supported the idea full heartedly. The main people who were involved in this project were Director of Facilities Management Tad Drerenberger, Associate Director of Operations for Facilities Management Steve Vollmer, and Erich Miller the Grounds Program Manager; in addition, Vice President of Facilities Frank Strike supported the project but was not involved directly in the project.

From Support to Action

One of the first steps was to choose a location for the project, which at the time was known simply as “the outdoor study space initiative”. I met with then-University Life Chair O’Connell and then-Undersecretary for Sustainability Sara Babcock. In addition, received input from the Chair of the Services Committee, Julian Bennett, and then-Services Secretary Taylor Moore on the best potential locations. As a team we decided that the area between the aforementioned wooded area was to be the ideal location. Then-Chair O’Connell and I met on site with Steve Volmer and Erich Miller to discuss the location. Erich Miller said that he would prepare to add the clearing of the underbrush and the mulching of the area to his list. The area was picked for a couple to reason: the large trees provided excellent shade and plenty of hammock spots, it is surrounded by commonly visited buildings, there is minimal road noise, and it is a short walk from the Johnson Center.

One of the pleasant surprises we encountered during the course of this initiative was the ease at which we secured funding for the project. Facilities dministration was supportive of the project from the beginning and was quickly able to secure $10,000 for the purchase of tables. Student Government was able to pick the tables and selected six picnic tables made from recycled materials.

The final step of the project was selecting the name of the new study space and deigning the signs which now label the area. Our team wanted to come up with a catchy name for the area to make it more appealing to students and for it to be identified easier rather than simply saying, “the tables in the shade between Engineering, Enterprise, Research, and the Art and Design Building.” I worked closely with Chair Bennet, then-Secretary Moore, then-Chair O’Connell, and then-Undersecretary Babcock on the name and worked on the design of the sign and with Steve Vollmer from Facilities.

Unfortunately progress was just starting on this project when COVID-19 began in March 2020. After students left campus the landscaping was completed for the area but shipping delays pushed back the arrival of the tables by a couple of months. Luckily, over the summer the tables arrived and installed along with the signs.

The Grove is a great example of Student Government’s success and advocacy for the student-body. Our team worked across branches and closely with administration to tackle a project that we believe will benefit the student body. Seating outside has never been more important on campus than it is right now due to COVID-19, and the area will be a beautiful place for students to relax, hammock, eat, study, and socialize this semester and for years to come.

Questions, Suggestions, Concerns?

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