Campus News

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam praised George Mason University for keeping its coronavirus numbers low during a visit to the Fairfax Campus on Tuesday where he announced a refinancing plan for colleges and universities.

U.S. colleges and universities in the coming years will lead the reeducation of a workforce displaced by COVID-19, George Mason University President Gregory Washington said recently in a Chronicle of Higher Education webinar.

We are fewer than two weeks from the start of the Fall semester and soon will be welcoming many of our faculty, staff and students back to George Mason University’s campuses. We do so with a mix of excitement that accompanies every fall return to campus – and trepidation, because this is 2020 and the pandemic has changed just about everything.

At his first planning conference with the Board of Visitors, George Mason University President Gregory Washington outlined his ambitious framework for the university, including a mission to “reposition, restore and reinvent” Mason to achieve success in the post-COVID era.

President Washington is creating the President’s Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence, and giving its members some big assignments. This task force will have a broad focus, with particular areas of emphasis including short-term and long-term improvements.

Preparation is underway for what may be the greatest campus-wide challenge the George Mason University community has ever taken on – our safe return to campus.

Gregory Washington spent his first day as George Mason University’s eighth president meeting virtually with students, faculty, staff, and alumni live on GMU-TV, sharing with each group his ambitious vision for the university, at one point saying, “If you want to be a big institution, you’ve gotta be big in the big things.”

Newly selected George Mason University President Gregory Washington told a group of journalists Thursday that he’s “ecstatic” to be the school’s eighth president. He will join the university on July 1, 2020.

The George Mason University Board of Visitors today unanimously voted to appoint former Virginia Secretary of Education Anne Holton as the university’s interim president. The appointment will take effect August 1.