Currently celebrating its golden jubilee year, GMU sited in close proximity to Washington DC, is noted for its highly acclaimed faculty of Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel laureates, writes Reshma Ravishanker With enviable on-campus facilities, an awards-winning faculty and proximity to Washington DC, America’s political capital, George Mason University (GMU, estb.1972) is a nationally respected public higher education institution. Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, GMU is noted for its highly acclaimed faculty of Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel laureates. The university is ranked #67 among public varsities in the latest rankings of America’s Best Colleges 2022 of the US News and World Report. Moreover, GMU is an R1 (Research 1) institution certified by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, USA. The first university in America to establish schools focused on information technology, engineering and computational sciences, GMU provides its 39,000 students from over 130 countries 211 degree programmes. Moreover, the university has four campuses in Virginia state and an overseas campus in Songdo, South Korea. Named after George Mason, one of the authors of the American Constitution and a widely acknowledged proponent of the Bill of Rights, GMU became an independent member of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s system of colleges and universities in 1972. Since then, it has rapidly expanded to ten schools and colleges offering a wide range of undergraduate, postgrad, and doctoral programmes. Washington. The rich and varied cultural, historical and education resources of America’s capital city have long boosted the reputation of universities sited in and around its periphery, and GMU is no exception. The famous Smithsonian Institute, national museums and memorials, the Library of Congress and other education resources of Washington DC are just a 30-minute drive from the main GMU campus. Its educational and historical treasures apart, the city also offers summer and autumn recreation facilities along the Potomac River and a lively nightlife. Fairfax. Closer home, the historic city of Fairfax (pop.24,146) beyond which the main campus is located, has a museum, visitors’ centre, downtown shops and fine restaurants, all set in a charming old-fashioned environment. An hour’s drive from the campus are scenic Shenandoah mountains with the Shenandoah river meandering through. While summers are warm and humid, winters are cold and snowy. Winter temperatures range between -30C-80C and summer 170C-300C. Campus facilities. GMU has four campuses in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The university’s sprawling 677-acre main campus fringing Fairfax hosts state-of-the-art academic buildings, several student residences and an extensive parking structure. Most of the university’s academic departments and student services are located on this campus. They include the refurbished Fenwick Library (1.5 million volumes), the 320,000 sq. ft Johnson Center (students’ union building); Center for the Arts (2,000-seat concert hall); the 180,000 sq. ft Long and Kimmy Nguyen Engineering Building; Exploratory Hall for science; an astronomy observatory and telescope; and an 88,900 sq. ft Art and Design Building. Sports facilities are equally impressive. They include a Recreation and Athletics Complex (RAC) with three gymnasiums, racquetball and squash courts, a two-storey…
