Special Collections Research Center

The Fairfax Campus of George Mason University officially opened 60 years ago on Sept. 14, 1964. It consisted of four small buildings, named North, South, East, and West. What amenity did these buildings offer, unlike any other college in the Washington, D.C., area at the time?

To mark the beginning of a broader academic connect between George Mason and leading universities in Viet Nam, the Costello College of Business and University Libraries officially opened a special exhibition in partnership with the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam and received their donation of rare books to the university's special collections.

Located in George Mason University’s Special Collections Research Center in Fenwick Library, this collection consists of the papers of the Nobel Prize-winning economist James M. Buchanan and documents his career and research from the mid-20th century through the early 2000s.

Audience members attending Virginia Opera’s production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s "The Pirates of Penzance" on November 12th or 13th can begin their journey with the pirates before the curtain even rises.

In 1992, after incubating for 220 days in Robinson Hall on the Fairfax Campus, the very first Komodo dragon born in captivity outside of Indonesia hatched.

The Student Apartments, Mason's first on-campus housing, opened in October 1977 and housed 498 students.

Mason’s Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), known as “The Patriot Battalion,” began in 1982 and frequently conducts training with other universities throughout the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.

As a part of George Mason University’s 50th Anniversary celebration this year, the University Libraries’ Special Collection Research Center (SCRC) is sharing some documents, artifacts, and photography from the archives in its new exhibition “We Are Mason: A Student History.”