innovative classes

The new College of Visual and Performing Arts special topics course AVT 496 focuses on furniture design and is offered through the university’s School of Art. As a part of the course, the students will tour the National Gallery of Art and put what they’ve learned to practice by identifying and recommending ways to create a more welcoming environment for people to experience the art.

Assistant Professor Tanvir Arafin's course on transportation security led George Mason students to excel in the National Transportation Cybersecurity Competition, showcasing the effectiveness of integrating real-world challenges into academic curricula.

For the past few weeks, these George Mason students developed policy memos based on various socioeconomic and environmental issues facing Northern Virginia and together worked in groups to develop recommendations for addressing them. But now their audience is far more formidable: Virginia State Senator Stella Pekarsky.

In February, George Mason students in a publication design course had the opportunity to design book covers for a novel that is being published by the university’s Stillhouse Press, an independent small publisher affiliated with the English Department.

George Mason University Professor Younsung Kim has received a 4-VA grant to conduct collaborative multidisciplinary research with colleagues at partner schools in Virginia. The results will be implemented as learning modules into undergraduate courses.

George Mason recently welcomed Martin Binks as professor and chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies. He brought a new special topics course with him to the College of Public Health: NUTR 594 or “Motivation: Learning to Coach.”

Lab for Immersive Technologies and Simulation awarded Society for Simulation in Healthcare accreditation - the first public health college in the world to achieve this ground-breaking milestone.

During the fall 2024 semester, George Mason University students had the opportunity to apply their classroom curriculum to a real-world museum environment. The students, led by art history professor Robert DeCaroli, worked directly with objects in the holdings of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Asian Art as part of the ARTH 495/595 Curating an Exhibit course.

Cindy Smith, a professor in George Mason University's Department of Environmental Science and Policy, took her EVPP 302 Biomes and Human Dimensions students to a composting facility last fall to give them a front-row seat for food and yard waste recycling.

A new course combines expertise from several George Mason units. The purpose? To teach the ethics of artificial intelligence. See who is teaching and when the course starts.