President

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.

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.

This week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that it would discontinue visa exceptions for international students on F-1 visas who take all of their courses for the semester online. This decision could force hundreds of thousands of international students to leave the United States and threatens to interrupt the academic work of more than 3,000 students here at George Mason University.

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.

Mason’s future has never been brighter. More students are attracted
to Mason each year, with enrollment now topping 38,000, including
about one-third of students who report they are striving to become
the first in their families to earn a four-year degree.

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.