The entire student group of Mason and Syrian students poses with the Grand Mufti of Damascus (in white hat at left), Professor Marc Gopin, the Grand Mufti of Syria and the Head of the Sharia (religious) Courts in Syria. Photo courtesy of Omar Alkhiami, Damascus

Fifteen George Mason University students have just returned from a diplomatic mission to Syria as part of a class learning how to engage in citizen diplomacy. The master’s and doctoral students spent seven days in Syria, attending lectures, cultural events and meetings with religious leaders and Syrian presidential advisers.

The 3-credit graduate class, Citizen Diplomacy as Conflict Resolution (CONF 695), is administered in partnership with Mason’s Center for Field Studies.

Marc Gopin, professor in Mason’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) and director of the Center on Religion, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC), led the student group and taught the class in citizen diplomacy. The course espouses the concept that an average citizen can engage diplomatically as a representative of a country or point of view. The trip took about six months to plan.

The Mason students were joined by a group of Syrian conflict resolution students from the Syrian International Academy, led by Hind Kabawat, Gopin’s CRDC colleague in Damascus. A few students from Tufts, American, Georgetown and George Washington universities also participated.

Specific meetings during the trip included an emotional reunion between Gopin, an ordained Orthodox rabbi, and Grand Mufti of Syria Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun, the highest official of religious law in the country.

Gopin and Sheikh Hassoun have met several times over the last five years and have developed a lasting friendship. In previous meetings the two have discussed ways to promote dialogue and understanding between religions, as well as between the United States and Syria.

The most publicized of these meetings occurred in 2006 when Gopin apologized, as an American citizen, to a former Abu Ghraib prisoner for the acts of torture that took place there — an encounter that Gopin details in his book, “To Make the Earth Whole: Citizen Diplomacy in an Age of Religious Militancy.”

This trip’s meeting with Sheikh Hassoun, which was covered by Syrian and Middle Eastern press, also included the grand mufti of Damascus and the chief of the religious legal courts. The group discussed war’s effects on the region, especially the displacement of Iraqi refugees.

During the meeting, according to Gopin, Sheikh Hassoun offered some words about the conflict between the two societies.

“When we are born with the title of human, we are brothers,” he said. “A handful of American dust mixed with a handful of Syrian dust, when mixed together cannot be separated again in order to distinguish between what was American and what was Syrian.”

“The meeting with the grand mufti was the most profound experience in 27 years of work I have ever had,” says Gopin. “I’ve never seen such a powerful relationship develop so quickly between officials, Muslim leaders and me and my students.”

Professor Marc Gopin, left, accepts a plaque from the Grand Mufti of Syria Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun. Also with them is the head of the religious courts in Syria. Photo courtesy of Omar Alkhiami, Damascus

“I felt a deep sense of pride that we were a part of something that passed a positive message between people and got past the negative rhetoric,” says Scott Cooper, a master’s candidate at ICAR and managing director of CRDC. “We know there are people working for positive change in every society, and we were part of the process of facilitating those messages back and forth.”

The group also engaged in a more formal meeting with Bouthaina Shaban and Michel Smacha, advisors to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The advisors made statements and took questions and listened to comments from Gopin and the students. The meeting covered topics such as the future of American-Syrian relations and challenges, difficulties with the relationship with Israel and prospect of peace.

In addition, the group met with Wael Mua’lla, president of Damascus University, who discussed his institution and the ways in which his school could cooperate with Mason and other universities in the United States.

Finally, Gopin briefed U.S. State Department officials in Syria on the details of their visit and citizen diplomacy efforts.

“As citizen diplomats we had a unique opportunity to interact with Syrian students, professionals, government officials, religious leaders and regular citizens and construct a different reality from what we had heard or read in the United States,” says Seth Cohen, PhD candidate at ICAR.

A primary goal of citizen diplomacy is to engage in constructive dialogue with officials and non-officials in order to understand different perspectives on an issue, which can lead to conflict resolution or confidence-building. But Gopin warns that such activities are not for the faint of heart.

“Any time you do diplomacy in conflict situations, it is very nerve-racking because you have to watch every word that comes out of your mouth,” Gopin says. “It is a delicate balance, pushing the envelope to create change, without wrecking everything.”

He adds, “Considering those challenges, I was very proud of the level of sophistication on the part of my students. Having to watch all their words as citizen diplomats in a difficult place where they were at the cutting edge of a relationship between two countries that did not have a good history with each other [was difficult].”

The United States’ diplomatic relationship with Syria has been rocky since at least 1967, when the two countries first severed diplomatic ties. The relationship was restored in 1974, but Syria’s placement on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and the countries’ relationships with Israel are among the issues that continue to strain diplomatic ties.

Most recently, former President George W. Bush recalled the most recent ambassador to Syria in 2005 in the wake of the assassination of Rafic Hariri, former prime minister of Lebanon. And in 2006, the U.S. Embassy in Damascus was attacked by four assailants who were thwarted by Syrian security forces. However, there are signs that the countries are heading toward warmer relations.

The United States still maintains an embassy in Damascus, and recent news reports suggest President Barack Obama will soon name Robert Stephen Ford, current deputy ambassador to Iraq, as the new ambassador to Syria.

According to Gopin, Ford appears to be a good choice. Gopin has some advice for him on how to improve the relationship between the two countries.

“I would like to see more engagement with religious leaders in addressing the problems that the Iraq War has caused in terms of refugees,” Gopin says. “And I would suggest that the ambassador find ways to address the issue of the current sanctions and work with Congress in such a way that the United States can be a more constructive influence in Syria.”

Future plans for the citizen diplomacy class include developing a social network of Syrian and American students committed to conflict resolution and citizen diplomacy and placing op-eds detailing students’ perspectives on the Syrian-American relationship.

Monty Marshall, research professor of public policy. Photo courtesy of Monty Marshall

Despite gloomy reports on the global war on terrorism, international recession and global warming that dominate the news, the world as a whole has become more open, stable and resilient since the end of the Cold War, according to a new report prepared by researchers at Mason and the University of New Hampshire.

“Global Report 2009,” the third annual report on globalization and the global system, says the global magnitude of warfare is now at its lowest level since 1960.

In addition, it states that democracy has become the predominant form of governance for the first time in history, and the problem of state fragility has decreased by nearly 20 percent since 1995.

Published jointly by Mason’s Center for Global Policy and the independent Center for Systemic Peace, the report was written by Monty G. Marshall, research professor of public policy at Mason, and Benjamin R. Cole, Hood House Lecturer of international affairs at the University of New Hampshire.

The 2009 report was produced with the support of the One Earth Future Foundation.

“The ‘downside’ of the dramatic decrease in armed conflict since the early 1990s is an equally dramatic expansion in the number of postwar ‘recovery states,’” says Marshall.

He suggests that it is this complex postwar environment that compels the more fortunate states like the United States to become more engaged.

Marshall also states that this “political will to help” in so many locations can overwhelm the leading and donor states’ capacity to act successfully in any particular location.

“The results of our analysis suggest that the global system as a whole is recovering, not through micro-management or military intervention, but through the concerted efforts of its citizens, as well as multilateral assistance,” Marshall continued.

Although the report is generally positive about recent trends in state fragility, it also notes that the across-the-board improvement has not contributed to a lessening of the “fragility gap.”
Net improvements in the highly fragile regions encompassing Africa and the Middle East have further divided those regions between improving areas and stagnating, or even worsening, areas.

“Truly alarming,” says co-author Cole,” is that despite tremendous efforts by NGOs and foreign aid agencies to improve quality of life in fragile countries, we see virtually no net improvement in economic indicators and only modest improvement in social indicators in the most fragile regions.”

The report also identifies some major global concerns:

• Militancy across the oil producing region spanning western Africa through the Middle East has the potential to trigger a conventional, regional war.

• Marauding militias plague many countries in central Africa, feeding the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis.

• Drug, sex and arms trafficking give global organized crime networks incredible economic leverage and the political clout to subvert good governance.

The report concludes on a sobering note.

“We caution that the observed global progress since the end of the Cold War has largely been purchased with a ‘peace dividend’ that may now be largely spent.”

Full color, electronic copies of the 40-page Global Report 2009 and an eight-page executive summary are now accessible from the Center for Systemic Peace and Center for Global Policy web sites at www.systemicpeace.org and globalpolicy.gmu.edu.

David Weisburd. Creative Services photo

In a Visions Series lecture on Monday, Feb. 15, David L. Weisburd, Distinguished Professor in the Administration of Justice Department and director of Mason’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, will detail his position that place-based crime prevention is a good investment and that it is likely to lead to more crime control with fewer people being processed by the criminal justice system.

Weisburd’s talk, “Location, Location, Location: Hot Spots of Crime and Crime Prevention,” will be presented at 7 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Concert Hall on the Fairfax Campus.

Consider these facts:

• Each year in a typical city, only 4 percent of the street segments are home to 50 percent of the crimes.

• About a third of all officially recorded juvenile crimes in a city occur within 86 street segments.

• Crime at place is relatively stable across time.

• Good neighborhoods have crime hot spots, and problematic areas have many streets mostly free of crime.

• Focusing crime prevention on specific places does not cause crime to simply “move around the corner.”

These are some of the empirical findings that led  Weisburd to focus on the concept of hot spots of crime.  In his lecture, Weisburd will discuss the implications of his research about decreasing crime in American communities.

Weisburd’s research on crime hot spots won him the 2010 Stockholm Prize in Criminology, widely considered the most prestigious in the field of criminology. This year’s award marks the first time the international committee has bestowed the award on a single individual.

The award will be presented to Weisburd on June 15, 2010, during the annual international Stockholm Criminology Symposium.

Weisburd is also active in his profession outside the university, sitting on a number of national steering committees and participating in working groups. He is a member of the Committee on Crime, Law and Justice of the National Research Council and served on the NRC working group on evaluating anti-crime programs and its panel on police practices and policies.

High-profile police chiefs, including Washington, D.C.’s Cathy Lanier and Los Angeles’ Bill Bratton, are familiar with and supportive of Weisburd’s strategies. Weisburd has worked with police departments, nationally and internationally, to alter and discontinue ineffective practices and implement new strategies that are proven to work.

The distinguished criminologist has received more than $12 million in private and public research funds during his career.

He is also the founding editor of the Journal of Experimental Criminology and serves on many journal editorial boards in criminology. Weisburd is the author or editor of 15 books and more than 80 scientific articles.

Weisburd holds a joint appointment as the Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

This lecture is free, but tickets are required. See the Center for the Arts web site for more information.

Gregory Koblentz. Photo by Nicolas Tan

With terrorism being one of the major security concerns of the 21st century, governments are developing sophisticated systems to defend against the use of biological weapons, such as anthrax or smallpox. However, the general public understands little about these weaponized pathogens, leading to fear about our vulnerability to such an attack.

Gregory Koblentz, assistant professor and deputy director of Mason’s master’s and doctoral biodefense programs, has written a new book on biological weapon defense that helps to clear up some of the mystery. Titled “Living Weapons: Biological Warfare and International Security,” the book is part of the Cornell University Press Studies in Security Affairs Series.

Critically acclaimed by biodefense scholars around the world, “Living Weapons” was heralded as an “up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of biological weapons as a strategic problem that should become the standard text in the field” in a Foreign Affairs review.

Koblentz discussed the book and his thoughts on the threat of biological weapons.

What are some of the challenges in security related to biological weapons?

Unlike nuclear and chemical weapons, biological weapons are composed of, or derived from, living organisms. This unique characteristic is at the heart of many of the security challenges that they pose. The diversity of pathogenic microorganisms and toxins that can be used as weapons provides an attacker with flexibility in planning and conducting an attack and greatly complicates the task of the defender. The ability of pathogens to replicate themselves inside a host enables an attacker to use only a small amount of a biological weapon to inflict mass casualties. The overlap between the equipment, knowledge and materials required to develop biological weapons and to conduct civilian biomedical research or develop biological defenses — what I call the multi-use dilemma — limits the effectiveness of arms control measures, hinders civilian oversight and complicates intelligence collection and analysis. As a result, it is difficult to verify that biotechnology is not being misused for hostile purposes, to exercise effective oversight over biological weapons programs and to obtain accurate assessments of a state’s capabilities and intentions. This is a dangerous and destabilizing combination of characteristics for a technology that is becoming increasingly available throughout the world.

What kinds of defense strategies does the United States have against a biological attack?

Since 2001, the United States has spent over $50 billion to prevent, prepare for and respond to a biological attack. The largest investment has been in the research, development and acquisition of new vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and detection systems. The United States now has a system in place to detect an attack with an aerosolized biological agent on major cities, a biosurveillance system to detect unusual clusters of symptoms or syndromes, and a laboratory network to identify biological threat agents. The United States also has large stockpiles of anthrax and smallpox vaccines, as well as antibiotics and other medical supplies needed to respond to a large biological attack. The ability of medical and public health systems to respond to both natural and man-made disasters has also been improved through training, exercising, planning and capacity building. Preventing bioterrorism has perennially received the least amount of resources and attention. That is set to change under the Obama Administration, which just released a biosecurity strategy that places a strong emphasis on preventive measures.

Terrorist activity in the last few years has not included biological weapons. Why is this? Is this likely to change?

As we see every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, guns and bombs remain the preferred weapons of terrorists and insurgents. These weapons are cheap, easy to use and widely available. There are two trends, however, that increase the risk of bioterrorism in the future. The first is the emergence of increasingly lethal terrorist groups that are interested in causing mass casualties. The focus of groups such as Al-Qaeda and its affiliates on causing mass casualties and conducting “spectacular” attacks is worrisome since it creates an incentive for such groups to explore new ways of causing death and destruction. The second trend is the globalization of the biotechnology revolution, which makes the equipment, material and knowledge necessary to develop these weapons more widely available. Based on past experience, we are unlikely to receive sufficient warning of a terrorist group that combines the motivation to cause mass casualties with the capability to employ disease as a weapon.

As you mentioned in your book, the general public is quite fearful of these weapons. In the Washington, D.C., area, we saw the panic that arose with the anthrax letter attack of 2001. What information in your book would be useful for citizens to know about the threat of these weapons and how to protect themselves? What sort of information could the media provide to reduce panic?

Biological weapons are the least well understood of the so-called weapons of mass destruction, which include nuclear and chemical weapons. Government officials and academics frequently lump biological weapons together with nuclear and chemical weapons under the category of “weapon of mass destruction” or discuss the “chem-bio” threat. The use of these terms has obscured important differences between these different types of weapons. Learning about the history of these weapons, how they work, and what their limitations are should help people put the threat of biological weapons into the proper context.

The media is fascinated with our society’s vulnerability to attack and to the potential consequences of an attack, but they tend to downplay or ignore the technical obstacles to actually conducting a successful biological terrorist attack. For example, despite its impressive resources, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo failed to cause any casualties with biological weapons, despite numerous attempts to do so. The media also tends to report more on problems with our biodefense programs and less on their successes, which skews the public’s perception of how well prepared the nation is for an attack.

Margo Mastropieri. Creative Services photo

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) and Dominion Resources announced that University Professor Margo Mastropieri will receive the 2010 Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award, the commonwealth’s highest honor for faculty at Virginia’s colleges and universities.

Mastropieri will be recognized for her excellence in teaching, research, knowledge integration and public service at a Feb. 18 ceremony in Richmond.

A professor of education in Mason’s College of Education and Human Development since 1998, Mastropieri is interested in how students with disabilities learn in school, and much of her research has focused on cognitive strategies designed to promote learning and retaining school-related information.

She has also studied what happens during inclusive instruction involving students with disabilities and suggested instructional strategies to facilitate inclusive efforts.

“I am humbled and honored to have received an Outstanding Faculty Award from SCHEV,” says Mastropieri.

“I could not have achieved this award had it not been for the supportive environment here at Mason and the support of many colleagues and students with whom I have had the privilege of working throughout my career. I am especially indebted to my colleague and partner, Tom Scruggs. My scholarship truly represents a collaborative record of which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and I owe tremendous thanks to all of those individuals with whom I have been able to work.”

She has collaborated with her students as co-author on more than 75 of her 180 peer-reviewed journal articles, 23 of her 48 book chapters, and 70 presentations at local, state and national professional meetings. Mastropieri has produced 28 co-written and co-edited books and received more than $5 million in external funding to support her teaching and discovery activities.

Mastropieri has received national honors for her research and service, including the 2006 Service Award from the Division for Learning Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children.

One of Mastropieri’s articles written with Tom Scruggs received the Samuel Kirk Award for an outstanding article published in April 2003 in Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, a journal of the Division for Learning Disabilities. In 2006, Mastropieri and Scruggs were awarded the special education field’s most prestigious research award from the Council for Exceptional Children.

George Mason University has also recognized Mastropieri for her work. In 2007, she was awarded the distinguished University Professor title, and in 2008 she received a university Teaching Excellence Award.

One of 12 educators from around the state to be honored with the Outstanding Faculty Award, Mastropieri will receive an engraved award and a $5,000 check underwritten by the Dominion Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Dominion Resources.

Professor Dan Cox, right, discusses Krasnow's new confocal microscope with doctoral student Eswar Iyer. Photo by Nicolas Tan

Mason’s Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study has just opened a new wing of its Fairfax Campus building, but the expansion of the 13-year old building isn’t the only news about the innovative research institute. The addition will be home to new lab space, new equipment and new researchers.

“To get up and go to work each day at a place where scientists from every discipline are collaborating and moving forward our knowledge of how mind emerges from brain — that is my idea of the best job in the world,” says Jim Olds, Krasnow director and professor of neuroscience.

New Researchers Expand Institute’s Range

Dan Cox, graduate program director for the biosciences doctoral and biology master’s degree programs, has moved his lab from the Prince William Campus to the new space at the Krasnow Institute. He now also directs the institute’s new Confocal Imaging Core and will oversee use of the institute’s new confocal microscope by Mason faculty members and affiliated researchers.

This microscope will allow researchers and students across several disciplines to view high-quality specimen images and reconstruct the images in three dimensions. Cox will use the microscope for his research on how nervous systems are “wired” and how they are controlled from a molecular biology perspective.

Nadine Kabbani, assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Neuroscience, has also recently joined the institute’s faculty. Her research focuses on how the brain reacts to substance addiction, specifically looking at molecular signal transduction and nicotinic receptors in the brain. Scientists such as Kabbani believe that research in this area could lead to more effective treatments for addiction and schizophrenia.

Another new addition to the Krasnow faculty is Robert Lipsky, director of neuroscience research at Inova Fairfax Hospital. Lipsky, who has a lab in the new wing, will be working with Olds specifically on research related to the role of genetics in the development and function of the nervous system and translating this research in a clinical setting, especially as it relates to post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

Doctoral students Srividya Chandramouli Iyer, Mikolaj Sulkowski and others work at a lab bench in the new Functional Geonomics Lab in Krasnow's new wing. Photo by Evan Cantwell

Lipsky’s arrival continues an ongoing partnership between the university and Inova Health System. The relationship includes research collaborations across several disciplines, cooperation on sponsored research, as well as lab space at the university for Inova researchers and lab space at Inova Fairfax Hospital for Mason researchers.

“This is a new phase in our partnership with Inova,” says Olds. “They have the clinical material; we have the wet labs. We have experience working with the NIH in terms of sponsored research, but we haven’t had access to clinical material. This partnership is a natural fit for both the university and Inova, and we look forward to conducting mutually beneficial research for many years to come.”

Another phase of the building construction is expected to be completed in early 2011, and the institute is fund raising for a third phase, which would allow all affiliated researchers — now spread out in other buildings on campus — to operate under one roof.

“The way things work optimally is when faculty members from different disciplines drop the jargon and collaborate on research,” Olds says. “That’s one of many reasons why it is ideal to have everyone working in the same building.”

Using Computer Modeling to Predict the Economy

The institute is also undertaking new research, using computer models to understand some of the trickiest problems facing society. The onset of the current economic downturn caught many by surprise, but was there a better way to see the crisis coming?

Understanding and forecasting social phenomena, such as the inner workings of the economy, has been the elusive goal of social scientists for quite some time. Researchers in the institute’s Center for Social Complexity are developing computational and mathematical models of social phenomena using software “agents” — small chunks of computer code that behave purposively in their environment and competitively toward one another.

“From these micro-interactions, there emerges a larger structure and possibly novel behaviors,” says Robert Axtell, chair of the Department of Computational Social Science.

Axtell has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to build models that  engage in processes of innovation in order to create new products and services that are valuable to the agent population overall.

“Such models may shed light on actual innovation processes at work in real economies,” he says.

Adds Olds, “The Center for Social Complexity is taking complexity science and applying it in a variety of practical domains, such as understanding the economy and the actions of insurgents during war.”

Decade of the Mind

The institute is also continuing plans for the “Decade of the Mind.” The “decade” is a project that crosses the many disciplines of mind research over the decade from 2010 to 2020.

The project seeks to involve scientists around the world in an effort to improve public health, but also to create new jobs from the new technologies developed under the effort.

Since the official kick-off at Mason in 2007, Decade of the Mind has grown from a grassroots project to an international effort to secure $4 billion in funding across multiple agencies. Several scientific conferences have been held over the last three years to detail the type of research the project would cover and the benefits to society as a whole.

Olds co-founded this effort and has continued to meet with scientific leaders from a variety of educational institutes and research organizations around the world, such as the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, and the University of Ulm in Germany, to advance research to detail the inner workings of the mind.

“The Decade of the Mind project will be every bit as important as the Human Genome Project was in fulfilling our understanding of what it is to be a human being,” Olds says.

“The technology has matured, the science has reached critical mass and the time is now — both here in the United States and internationally with colleagues around the world.”

Professor Tom Ashcraft, left, helps Daniel Dean and other students lay down a floor in the shipping container that was made from a recycled pallet. Photo by Evan Cantwell

It’s hard to believe that a dark, windowless steel box can be transformed into a comfortable living environment or a stylish artistic space.

Yet, all across the world, from Auckland, New Zealand, to Barcelona, Spain, to Austin, Texas, architectural companies and designers are using shipping containers to create innovative homes, office buildings, restaurants and other structures.

And close to home, students in Mason’s School of Art have been working on a similar innovative project for the past year; they have converted a used shipping container into a prototype for a zero-carbon mobile exhibition gallery and community space. The shipping container formally opened in December 2009 and sits in the courtyard behind the Art and Design Building on Mason’s Fairfax Campus.

Keeping Sustainability in Mind

The idea for the ContainerSpace project began last year when Tom Ashcraft, associate director and associate professor of sculpture in the School of Art, sought out a shipping container for his own artistic purposes.

Interested in projects that focus on sustainability, Ashcraft felt that a shipping container would provide his students with a unique opportunity to think about art in a nontraditional manner.

In addition, Mason was beginning to take a more active role in this growing issue with the newly formed Office of Sustainability and President Alan Merten’s signing of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment.

“The ContainerSpace project forces students to think about what the presence of the shipping container represents and how its use has dramatically changed global economics throughout the years,” says Ashcraft.

“When the project is complete, the shipping container will challenge norms of the traditional gallery space with elements of sustainability, mobility and access.”

Ashcraft extended the challenge to students in the School of Art. Daniel Dean, Thomas Nutt, Ellyce Morgan and Blake Turner took up the challenge and brainstormed how to transform the abandoned shipping container into a versatile space that would ultimately serve other Mason students and expand the reach of the School of Art in the Washington, D.C., area. Most important, they wanted to maintain the integrity of the object and not disguise it as anything other than a shipping container.

Understanding the Importance of the Shipping Container

ContainerSpace's skylights were placed at angles corresponding to the degrees of the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn. A solar panel to supply electricity to the container sits on the roof. Creative Services photo

“One of our main goals was to transform the shipping container into a modular and adaptable space that would function outside the expected norms of art gallery spaces,” says Dean, who led the planning process with Nutt.

“By working within the constraints of its architecture, we hope to highlight for students the possibilities for creative exhibition opportunities. What we have created is a stand-alone, student-managed exhibition space.”

Another advantage of the project was the opportunity for students to create one of the first spaces on campus that aligns with Mason’s commitment to zero emissions. By using recycled materials to reduce costs and eliminate waste, students investigated and utilized several innovative, small-scale sustainable building practices.

In addition, the project allowed partnerships and collaborations to form, both on and off campus. Some of the Mason offices and departments that donated their time, expertise and resources were the Office of Sustainability, Office of Facilities Management, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. Several contracting and construction companies also assisted.

Finally, the ContainerSpace project allowed the students to delve into the history of the container as a global and cultural object. The students uncovered several interesting facts about the object based on a metal plate found on the container.

The 31-year-old container was manufactured in China, covered in primers from a company in Korea and inspected and approved for its international standards by a company in France.

According to Ashcraft, considering the history of the shipping container is important because of its links to the rise of globalization.

“In the 1950s and ‘60s when the shipping container was first introduced, its presence radically changed the future of global economics,” says Ashcraft.

“The shipping container changed everything about the movement of goods, including how boats were made and the use of shipping lanes and harbors. Having this object on a college campus tells a lot about its point of entry and the role it has played in economic globalization.”

Restoring the Container Responsibly

The finished ContainerSpace glows with energy-efficient LED lighting during an evening opening reception. Photo courtesy of Yassine el Mansouri

After conducting thorough research and learning about the rich history of the shipping container, the students got to work on its restoration, while keeping recycling and sustainability in mind.

Because most of these types of containers were made in North Korea or China where there historically have been few regulations on what kinds of chemicals can be used inside containers, the students first ripped out all of the original wood and rusty bolts inside. Then the students repurposed used shipping pallets to replace the deteriorated floor.

For the container’s interior walls, the students chose a paint containing zero volatile organic compounds (VOC), which may harm the environment. The blue-hued, bright white paint with a satin finish maximizes the spread of light throughout the interior.

In addition, the students installed custom skylights made from several pieces of recycled frosted glass, which were placed at angles corresponding to the degrees of the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn.

The students also applied for and received a $2,500 grant from the Office of Sustainability for a solar-based electrical system. The students developed a plan for both human-powered electrical turbines and solar panels to power low-voltage, homemade LED gallery-style lighting.

“As we complete the ContainerSpace project, we hope students use this as an opportunity to create new and innovative ways of utilizing a nontraditional object,” says Dean.

“In addition, we hope this project will serve as a model for the development and implementation of renewable energy technology for the larger community and expand the dialogue surrounding contemporary art.”

Mason has developed a web site, Earthquake in Haiti: Mason’s Response, which will serve as a clearinghouse for efforts and events to support relief in Haiti.

Fortunately, no Mason students or faculty or staff members in Haiti at the time of the earthquake were injured. Ten Mason students affiliated with a local church group visiting Haiti were not harmed and have returned to the United States.

Mason President Alan Merten urged the Mason community to support efforts to help the people of Haiti.

“Any help you can provide will be of enormous benefit to the Haitian people,” he said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have been affected by this tragedy.”

Many students, student organizations, staff and faculty members are already assisting in the relief effort by holding fund-raising activities.

For a complete list of activities, which is being updated as events are organized, see the web site.

By Marjorie Musick

Emanuel Petricoin III and Lance Liotta have a discussion with researcher Virginia Espina in their lab. Photo by Evan Cantwell

Imagine if treatments for disease could be based not on patients’ diagnoses, but instead on the characteristics of their tissue. By identifying and decoding the cryptic messages hidden deep inside the human proteome, scientists and physicians who study personalized medicine are seeking more effective treatments and disease management for patients.

Lance Liotta and Emanuel Petricoin III, professors of life sciences and co-directors of Mason’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM), are pioneers in the field of patient-tailored research and personalized medicine. The two study biomarkers (indicators of disease in tissue and bodily fluids) related to cancer, heart disease, liver disease and obesity.

They recently launched a unique clinical trial in partnership with oncologists and co-principal investigators Kirstin Edmiston, medical director of cancer services at Inova Health System, and Alexander I. Spira, director of Fairfax Northern Virginia Hematology Oncology Research Program, to treat patients with late-stage colorectal cancer, a fatal cancer that starts in either the colon or the rectum.

Striking more than 150,000 American men and women each year, colorectal cancer is the nation’s third most commonly diagnosed cancer and third leading cause of cancer death, according to the American Cancer Society.

The three-year trial will accommodate up to 50 men and women who have late-stage colorectal cancer that has spread to the liver.

“Traditionally, all colon cancers have been lumped together and given similar treatments. The novelty about this is that we can, in a very minimally invasive way, start to treat the metastatic tumor based on its unique protein makeup,” says Edmiston.

“If we’re going to be successful in treating the metastatic disease, which is what kills people, then we need to focus on using therapies targeted toward the individuality of a patient’s disease state. This clinical trial is the first step toward doing that.”

Trial participants will be treated with standard metastatic colon cancer therapy and will test the addition of Gleevec, a medicine that is typically prescribed for certain forms of leukemia and gastrointestinal tumors. Gleevec targets disease pathways in tumor cells that previous CAPMM research revealed were among those found in typically fatal liver metastasis in colorectal cancer patients.

Because the primary tumors in the colon are removed in most colorectal cancer patients as soon as they are diagnosed, this study will focus on treating the often fatal secondary tumors or metastatic lesions that appear when the disease spreads to the liver, causing death through destruction of that organ.

To sample these lesions, CAPMM’s scientists developed a new drug target mapping technology called “reverse phase protein microarray.” This allows the researchers to create a unique molecular profile or “fingerprint” that shows which protein pathways or drug targets are activated in the lesion. This process will allow the researchers to determine whether specific drugs such as Gleevec might be an effective treatment for a particular patient before it is even administered.

By monitoring the drug target activity in trial participants’ tumors and basing their treatment on those characteristics, the researchers are hopeful that the clinical trial will lead to more effective and individualized treatment for patients suffering from this devastating disease.

“The exciting aspect of this trial is that an established drug is being considered for a new indication, and that’s one of the promises of personalized therapy — that a patient’s molecular portrait would be considered as the rationale for choice of therapy rather than based on the site or the kind of cancer alone,” says Petricoin.

“Until now, the most cutting-edge clinical trials utilize genomic profiling of the tumor to select patients. This is the first trial that uses a direct proteomic approach that maps the drug target activation networks that are in use in each patients’ tumor — just technologically being able to do this in a real clinical trial is a first.”

Patients interested in participating in the clinical trial should contact Stacey Banks, Inova’s clinical research coordinator, at 703-776-3565.

Financial support for the study is being provided by Novartis, which developed and manufactures Gleevec.

Mark Ginsberg. Photo courtesy of Mark Ginsberg

Mark R. Ginsberg, executive director and CEO of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), has been appointed dean of Mason’s College of Education and Human Development, effective Aug. 1.

“Mark Ginsberg brings an exciting background in educational research and management that will clearly benefit not only the college but the university as a whole,” says Mason Provost Peter Stearns.

“This is a challenging time for education, and Mark will help reshape our work in teacher training in ways that take advantage of new opportunities and new visions.”

Prior to joining NAEYC in January 1999, Ginsberg served as the chair of the Department of Counseling and Human Services in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University, and as a faculty member in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he has maintained an affiliation.

Before working at Johns Hopkins, he was the executive director of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and a senior member of the professional and management staff of the American Psychological Association in Washington, D.C.

“I am excited to be joining such an innovative institution, and I am honored to become the next dean of the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University,” says Ginsberg.

“This is a very exciting time for the fields of education and human services, as well as the programs of the School of Recreation, Health and Tourism. I look forward to working with the faculty, staff and students, as well as university administrators, partners and friends, to further support the college as a national leader in the programs it offers.”

Ginsberg holds a PhD and a master of science in human development and family studies from the Pennsylvania State University. He also completed a fellowship in clinical psychology at the Yale University School of Medicine. Ginsberg earned his bachelor of science in psychology from the State University of New York at Cortland. He was also awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree of Human Letters by the Board of Regents for the State University of New York in 2006.

Senior Associate Dean Martin E. Ford is currently serving as acting dean of the College of Education and Human Development.

Martin Luther King Jr. greeting friends and well-wishers during the March on Washington, August 1963. Photo courtesy of Ollie Atkins Photograph Collection, Special Collections & Archives, George Mason University Libraries

As a university that integrates community service into the academic experience, Mason encourages students, faculty and staff across all disciplines to volunteer their time to make a difference locally and globally.

These efforts are often coordinated by Mason’s Center for Leadership and Community Engagement (CLCE), which is collaborating with Volunteer Fairfax this year to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. The two entities have organized Give Together: A Family Volunteer Day for Monday, Jan. 18. The event will take place on the Fairfax Campus in the Johnson Center’s Dewberry Hall from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

On this day, Mason families and members of the wider community are invited to participate in multiple service projects that will benefit local nonprofit organizations. Projects are geared toward elementary school-aged children and their parents, but may be suitable for younger children with parental supervision.

In the past, CLCE has worked with Volunteer Fairfax on several other projects, but this is the first time they have collaborated on the Family Volunteer Day event. Both CLCE and Volunteer Fairfax are dedicated to finding meaningful ways for citizens to give back to their local communities and hope the event encourages young people to become lifelong volunteers.

“The goal of Family Volunteer Day is to concentrate on encouraging families to engage in a service activity together,” says Heather Hare, associate director of CLCE. “At the same time, it demonstrates Mason’s commitment to community partnerships.”

She adds, “Because there is not a strong emphasis on service for elementary school-aged children, we hope to instill in them the value of meaningful community service at a young age.”

Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service

Early on in the planning process, Volunteer Fairfax requested proposals from local organizations that were interested in participating in the day of service and had a service project that lent itself to child-parent interaction.

The organizations that will participate in Family Volunteer Day are

• Fairfax County 4-H, which offers fun programs to help young people learn the skills they need to prepare for their futures. 4-H will provide families with a station to make chew toys for dogs in local animal shelters.

• Fairfax Area Christian Emergency and Transitional Services Inc. (FACETS), which provides support to homeless individuals in Fairfax County. FACETS will provide materials for snack and activity bags for families to decorate and assemble. The bags will be distributed to children whose parents visit the FACETS office for assistance.

• Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, which offers day camp and sports and fitness programs for all ages. The JCC will have a station for families to make beaded bracelets that will be given to hospital patients.

• Orphan Foundation of America, a national foundation that provides support for foster teens through scholarships, internships, mentors and care packages. The foundation will have a table for families to make Valentine’s Day cards to be included in care packages for foster youths.

At the end of the day, families can visit a reflection station where children can stop and think about the work they have done during the day, who they have helped and how they have made a difference. The children can write about their experiences on a display board as well.

“We hope this event serves as a reminder to families that there are simple things they can do that make a big impact on people’s lives,” says Samantha Watson, special events manager at Volunteer Fairfax.

“Mason’s commitment to community service makes the university the ideal partner, and I hope this becomes a regular event on which we can collaborate.”

Year-Round Commitment to the Community

In addition to collaborating with Volunteer Fairfax, CLCE helps match hundreds of Mason students with volunteer opportunities in the local community and helps integrate the importance of service into the classroom setting.

One of Mason’s most recent partnerships is with the National Energy Education Development Project on the “Go Green with Gunston” program. The program combines education and entertainment into a distinctive curriculum specifically aimed at teaching young children the benefits of sustainability and renewable energy sources.

Another community service project is Student Government’s “Witch Watch” program. During this annual event, students, faculty and staff members patrol Fairfax neighborhoods to protect trick-or-treaters and promote safety on Halloween night.

Patriot Pack Out, an annual recycling and community outreach initiative at Mason, collects clothing, electronics, working appliances and nonperishable food to donate to local nonprofit organizations.

To learn more about what Mason students, alumni, faculty and staff members are doing to make the world a better place, visit the Mason Makes a Difference web site.

In Susan Tichy's class, "Bookish Beasts," MFA students create art projects about and from books. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Stone

In a classroom tucked away in Robinson Hall on Mason’s Fairfax Campus, you can find Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio’s book commentator, teaching a class on modernism or travel essays.

At the campus Starbucks, you might see students workshopping their writing with Nigerian novelist and poet Helon Habila. At the nearby home of poets Eric Pankey and Jennifer Atkinson, you might find a small dinner party and poetry reading.

Across the street from the campus, you can find the headquarters for The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), an organization that holds a national conference each year for writers and editors and offers free membership to Mason writing students.

And just a few miles’ drive will take you into Washington, D.C., where award-winning writers gather nearly every night for readings and workshops, and members of the Mason faculty serve as board members for the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

All these reasons and more are why George Mason University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program is one of the best graduate writing programs in the country.

Recently, it was ranked number 37 in the top 50 writing programs in the country by Poets and Writers magazine. The last time U.S. News and World Report did a ranking of MFA programs, in the 1990s, Mason was tied for 20th place.

“A Diverse Group of Voices” in the Writing Program

One of the benefits of the program is the small-knit community. Here students gather in professor Stephen Goodwin's home for a fiction workshop dinner. Photo courtesy of KVC photography

The program, started in 1980, offers three concentrations. Each concentration — fiction, nonfiction and poetry — requires 48 semester hours and takes at least three years to complete.

Course work blends writing workshops with craft seminars and the study of literature. Each concentration also requires completion of a thesis (a book-length manuscript).

Besides Cheuse, Habila, Atkinson and Pankey, the faculty includes poets Sally Keith and Susan Tichy; novelists Susan Shreve, Courtney Brkic and Stephen Goodwin; and non-fiction writers Beverly Lowry and Kyoko Mori. Faculty publications total more than 65 books.

The program has grown in the last few years, bringing in many new faculty members. Poet Ben Doller will join Mason in the fall. Doller has published two volumes of poetry already and his third is due out later this year. He is a winner of the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets and, with Mark Levine, he co-edits the Kuhl House Contemporary Poets series published by the University of Iowa Press.

The university has emphasized bringing a diverse group of voices to the writing program, and course offerings include global literature and poetries in translation.

“We are very good at taking the resources we have here and doing good things with them,” says program director William Miller, MFA ‘87.

“Our faculty tries to work with students while they are here, but they also encourage forming a community that becomes a support network for after they leave.”

The support network begins while students are in the writing program, with 34 teaching assistants receiving a tuition waiver and a stipend. In addition, four full fellowships provide money to students without having to teach, and donors have given money for five partial fellowships to further support students in the program.

Accomplished Alumni

Novelist Mary Doria Russell answers questions during a reading at the annual Fall for the Book festival at Mason. Students in the creative writing program have many opportunities to meet and interact with well known authors. Photo courtesy of Peter Flint

Mason’s creative writing students serve as editors for two literary journals, Phoebe and So to Speak. Mason graduates have also gone on to create their own publications, such as Scott Garson, MFA ‘96, who edits the online journal Wigleaf, and Alexis Santi, MFA ‘07, who is editor of the journal Our Stories.

Alumni and students also publish with both small and major presses.

Brandon Wicks, MFA ‘05, served as the fiction editor for Phoebe when he was a student at Mason.

“Working as the fiction editor for Phoebe not only put me in contact with the larger writing community but helped me understand the process of publishing in journals and small presses,” he says. “In many ways, it helped me gain confidence in my own work.”

Mason also hosts the annual Fall for the Book festival, the largest and oldest literary celebration in Northern Virginia. Throughout the years, the festival has brought internationally known writers such as Tobias Wolff, Joyce Carol Oates, Mitch Albom, Pat Conroy and Doris Kearns Goodwin to Northern Virginia. The festival provides students exciting opportunities to meet and interact with these authors; for example, students can volunteer to drive authors to and from the festival venues, an experience that offers time for a one-on-one chat with a writer.

The benefits of Mason’s creative writing program can stand on their own merits, but it’s the continued success of the alumni that really speaks to the quality of the program.

Alumnus Mark Winegardner, MFA ‘87, has published several books, and, after an international competition, Random House chose him to write two sequels to Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather”: “The Godfather Returns” and “The Godfather’s Revenge.”

Jessica Anthony, MFA ‘04, just had her first novel, “The Convalescent,” published by McSweeney’s, and it was chosen by Barnes & Noble as a recommended summer reading pick, part of their “Discover Great New Writers” series.

Poet J. Michael Martinez, MFA ‘06, won the 2009 Walt Whitman Award for his collection of poems, “Heredities,” and a book by Brian Brodeur, MFA ‘05, “Other Latitudes,” was the winner of the 2007 Akron Poetry Prize and published by University of Akron Press in 2008.

“During my time as an MFA candidate at Mason I learned much more about the craft of writing and the writing life than I would have just reading and writing on my own,” says Brodeur.

“The poets and teachers at Mason were indelible mentors and friends who taught me, through their classes and through their examples, about the dedication and personal sacrifice necessary to write.”

Edward Gero

Mason associate professor of theater Edward Gero — also known to audiences as Gloucester, Richard Nixon and Scrooge — will share his approach to interpreting and creating characters in the next Vision Series lecture on Monday, Jan. 25.

Gero’s talk, “Myths, Archetypes, Campbell and Jung: An Actor’s Tools in Creating the Arc of Character,” will be presented at 7 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Concert Hall on the Fairfax Campus.

The processes and approaches to “becoming a character” for performance are myriad and can be even mysterious, Gero says. In this lecture, he will explore an approach inspired by Jungian archetypes and mythical storytelling patterns identified by Joseph Campbell in his seminal work, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.”

Tracing his process in his performances in Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and “King John,” as well as his current preparations for the title role of Sweeney Todd, Gero will discuss his personal approach to mining, identifying and incorporating mythical and archetypal patterns from the text that speak to audiences in both conscious and unconscious ways.

A well-known Washington, D.C.-based actor, Gero has been a member of the Shakespeare Theatre Company since 1983. He was recently profiled in The Washington Post Magazine cover story, “The Other Guy.” His recent performance as Scrooge in the Ford’s Theatre production of “A Christmas Carol” (“Giving Dickens His Due”) was also covered in The Post .

This lecture is free, but tickets are required. See the Center for the Arts web site for more information.