A podcast All Together Different
Join George Mason University President Gregory Washington as he invites experts, change-makers, innovators, and thought leaders to engage in meaningful conversations about the greatest challenges of our time.
Listen and learn from audacious people from George Mason and beyond who represent the diversity of insight, the agility of collaboration, and the tenacity required in the struggle for a better future that is at the essence of the Mason Nation.

President Gregory Washington hosts each episode of the Access to Excellence podcast, recorded on the campus of George Mason University.

On this episode of Access to Excellence, President Gregory Washington is joined by Marc Gopin, the James H. Laue Professor of World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution in George Mason’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, to discuss the challenges of building peace and how to bridge the growing divides between groups.

Marc Gopin is the James H. Laue Professor of World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution and the Director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.
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All Episodes
- January 29, 2021On Jan. 22, Mason President Gregory Washington spoke with Mason scientists Lance Liotta and Virginia Espina, who head the university’s effort to push the boundaries of technologies that are keeping its three university campuses safe from COVID-19. That includes a rapid-result saliva test, and development of an antibody test that can track a body’s response to the virus and vaccine.
- January 29, 2021Fighting climate change is a global imperative, and the consequences of inaction could be dire. But Mason's Andrew Light, who helped negotiate the Paris Agreement on climate, tells Mason President Gregory Washington that for the go-getters, opportunity awaits.
- January 29, 2021What's it like to interview a mass murderer? Professor Mary Ellen O'Toole, a former FBI profiler, fills us in on that and Mason's new Forensic Science Research and Training Laboratory, which will be one of only eight in the U.S. to use donor remains for forensic research.
- January 29, 2021How did the election play into our national identity? How did Donald Trump mold the Republican Party in his image? How can we reform the Electoral College? Mason President Gregory Washington speaks with Schar School Dean Mark J. Rozell on where our politics goes from here.
- January 29, 2021Professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Martin J. Sherwin discusses his new book about the Cuban Missile Crisis and tells a terrifying, and not well-known, story of how close we came to nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
- January 29, 2021Tehama Lopez Bunyasi, assistant professor in the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, explains how using our democratic freedoms will help overcome racism in America.
- January 29, 2021Schar School Dean Mark J. Rozell provides an unbiased analysis of the stakes heading into the presidential debates -- with some debate history thrown in as well.
- October 16, 2020Mason's Justin Gest, an expert on immigration and the politics of demographic change, explains why the U.S., from the outside looking in, appears to be a "closed angry giant."
- October 15, 2020In a conversation with John Hollis, Mason's Charles Chavis, a historian of the early civil right movement, puts the current protests for racial justice in historical context.
- July 27, 2020Did you know the torch relay began at the 1936 Berlin Games?
- July 17, 2020Mason professor Laurie Robinson, who during the Obama administration was co-chair of the White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing, explains a complicated legacy.
- June 16, 2020Jeannette Chapman, director of Mason's Stephen S.