Welcome from
President Alan G. Merten

 

The University

Founded in 1972, George Mason University now has locations in Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William, and Loudoun counties.

As one of the largest universities in Virginia, Mason has become a major educational force and earned a reputation as an innovative, entrepreneurial institution that has gained national distinction in a range of academic fields.

Our Namesake

George Mason, for whom our university is named, was one of the greatest of the founding fathers of the United States, yet he is among the least known.

Find out more about George Mason or visit the patriot's home, Gunston Hall, which is a short distance from the Fairfax Campus, and is near Mount Vernon, home of George Washington.

Mason Traditions

Learn more about the events, history, and folklore that makes us Patriots.

 

 

Make A Gift!

Private funding is critical to George Mason's continuing quest for excellence.

 

America's Greenest Campus

 

Spotlight on Mason's Greening

 

 

• The university has partnered with the Smithsonian Institution to create the Smithsonian Semester, which allows students to live on-site at the Conservation and Research Center of the Smithsonian's National Zoo and study global-scale conservation issues and civic concerns.
• A growing institution, Mason is in the midst of a building boom, investing more than $500 million between 2002 and 2013. Multiple new academic buildings, an on-campus hotel and conference center, and what will soon be one of the largest academic, residential communities in Virginia are under construction.
• Mason has advanced degrees in bioinformatics, climate dynamics, information security, and neuroscience; as well as undergraduate degrees in conflict analysis and resolution and global affairs.
• Mason's School of Law is the youngest to enter the select group of top 40 law schools in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report. It has achieved this status by focusing on recruiting better students and superior faculty.
• Mason Worldwide: Mason has a number of reciprocal relationships with universities in Korea, China, and Germany that bring faculty and students to Mason and send our students abroad.
• New centers – such as the Center for Real Estate Entrepreneurship – respond to the needs of companies and organizations in the region.
• According to the American Society for Engineering Education, Mason was in the top 50 in both the total number of engineering degrees awarded and in the number awarded to women.
• GMU-TV has won 18 Telly Awards and numerous other awards of distinction.

• Jagadish Shukla, chair of the Climate Dynamics Program at Mason, is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the organization that was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore. Shukla was one of the lead authors on the IPCC report, “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.”
• Scientists at the Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine are continuously developing new diagnostic tools and groundbreaking techniques for treating patients diagnosed with cancer and other diseases.
• In a 2008 survey conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education, the premier publication for academic news and issues, Mason was named as one of the “Great Colleges to Work For” in 10 different categories.
• Abul Hussam, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, received the 2007 Grainger Challenge Prize for Sustainability Gold Award of $1 million from the National Academy of Engineering. The award recognized his innovative solution for removing arsenic from drinking water in developing countries. Time magazine named him a Global Hero of the Environment for 2007.
• The Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study now has a MRI brain scanner, becoming one of two non-medical schools with a cognitive neuroscience research institute to own functional imaging technology.
• It is estimated that one out of every three health-care patients in Northern Virginia is treated by a graduate of Mason's nursing program.
• The Center for History and New Media is changing how researchers and students work online with tools like Zotero, which stores references and notes right in the web browser, allowing it to sense, record and share scholarly information on the web.