Join your colleagues for a coffee hour in the Horizon Hall 6th floor kitchen for refreshments and socializing to welcome in the new academic year.

Mohammad Salama, George Mason University professor of Arabic, was recently appointed Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Professor Salama, who is a core faculty member of the AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies steering committee, previously served as department chair for Modern and Classical Languages.

With the opening of the 2023-24 academic year, Dean Ardis announced several new department chairs throughout the college, while expressing gratitude to chairs completing their term of service.

George Mason University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences Department of Psychology is excited to announce the renaming of the Center for Psychological Services as Mason’s Center for Community Mental Health (CCMH).

Fall for the Book is almost here! Running from October 11-14, headliners for the 25th festival include award-winning authors Nick Hornby and Marlon James, atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe, and book club favorite W. Bruce Cameron. Find out more about what's planned.

The Marketing and Communications team is excited to announce we’re launching an updated design of the CHSS website. The refresh includes a modern design, a restructured navigation menu, dynamic tools, and increased functionality that will provide a more engaging and interactive experience for our audiences and users.

Join us virtually on Wednesday, September 6 from 12-1 p.m. to learn about the latest Marketing resources. Register now!

We’re looking for images to showcase the valuable research and scholarly endeavors that make CHSS shine.

The National Humanities Center is seeking outstanding undergraduate students in the humanities to serve on the 2023-24 National Humanities Leadership Council, which offers professional development and mentorship opportunities. Please share this announcement with your students and encourage them to apply!

The transdisciplinary team examines how cultural values and institutional polices shape AI infrastructures in national and global contexts.

A cohort of select students interested in careers in social science research participated in George Mason University’s Revolutionizing Research for Social Change summer institute, a week-long workshop focusing on anti-racist and decolonizing research methods.

The five-day Modern Language Association workshop was designed to strengthen the teaching of reading and writing at community colleges and other schools that prioritize access over selectivity in admissions.

The lecture series, part of Mason’s Summer Early Identification Program (EIP), was designed to encourage student-faculty interaction and cultivate student understanding of the real-world importance, impact, and applications of the humanities and social sciences.

More than $600,000 has been awarded to four CHSS faculty for research projects being conducted in Mason’s Higher Education Program, the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, and the Department of History and Art History.

Mason professor Andrew Peterson and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania have received a $3.1 million grant funded by the National Institute on Aging to investigate how supportive decision making can improve health outcomes for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

In her new book, Governing Death, Making Persons: The New Chinese Way of Death (Cornell University Press, January 2023), Mason anthropology professor Huwy-min Lucia Liu writes about how economic reforms and changes in the management of death in China have affected the governance of persons.

Jacquelyn Williamson, who teaches ancient art and archaeology, is an expert on women and power in ancient Egypt. She is one of several scholars — or talking heads, as she put it — featured in the series "Queen Cleopatra."

Lowder's study seeks to understand criminal-legal decision points that may be contributing to racially disparate outcomes and to further data collection efforts at the state and local levels that can facilitate improved tracking of decisions and outcomes in the criminal-legal system.

Check out upcoming funding opportunities from the National Humanities Center, American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities this fall.

Do you want to submit a proposal for sponsored funding? Just a friendly reminder to use the CHSS Pre-Award Request for Assistance with Proposal Submission Form and do not start a proposal in RAMP.

The CHSS Digest includes Shout-Outs to faculty and staff who have submitted their exciting news and accomplishments throughout the month. Have news to share? Send it our way so we can spread the word!

The article looks back on the making of ‘American Prometheus,’ the “exhilarating” book co-authored by late George Mason University history professor Martin Sherwin, and the book on which the new film ‘Oppenheimer’ is based.

On the latest episode of “Our Future, Transformed,” Laurie Robinson, the two-time assistant U.S. attorney general and a Robinson Professor Emerita at George Mason University, speaks with Mason President Gregory Washington about building greater trust between law enforcement and citizens, and applying science to policing.

Robin Hanson, Department of Economics, offers an economic take on the future of artificial intelligence.

Associate professor of climate change Mark A. Mitchell, Department of Communication, says his research has led him to believe that asthma rates are heavily tied to traffic-related air pollution, as well as other air pollutants.

In Psychology Today, Todd Kashdan, Department of Psychology, writes op-ed addressing misconceptions about loneliness.

Tyler Cowen, Department of Economics and Mercatus Center, pens op-ed stating AI has the potential to expose more people to different cultures, which tends to make us more tolerant and trusting.

Distinguished University Professor and Director of Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication Ed Maibach speaks about how to expand the number of people who acknowledge climate change.

Timothy Denevi, Department of English, writes that Joan Didion's reflections on the 1960s are still appropriate today as we are at a continual deficit of unity or cohesion.

On WVTF, Virginia’s Public Radio, Mahmut Cengiz, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, weighs in on whether sending Virginia National Guard troops to the southern border will help the situation.