Are you and your students ready for the 2026 CHSS Undergraduate Research Symposium? It will be held on April 23, 1–4 p.m. We need faculty judges for posters and videos; find more information here.

The 2026 Faculty and Staff Experience Survey is open for participation. We want to hear from you as you are a crucial part of the Mason community. Please share your voice by completing the survey by April 21.

Join your colleagues for an end of the semester CHSS coffee hour on April 27 from 9—10 a.m. in the 6th floor kitchen area of Horizon Hall. RSVP by April 20.

A virtual CHSS Town Hall will be held on April 28. Submit any questions by noon on April 21.

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences will host the CHSS Degree Celebration on May 16 at 2 p.m. in the EagleBank Arena to honor our bachelor's and master's graduates.

George Mason's Creative Services Photography will be holding a free open photo session for new faculty, staff, and administrators on April 27. This photo session is your opportunity to obtain a professional George Mason head shot for use on George Mason-affiliated websites and publications. Please sign up to reserve your slot.

The National Humanities Alliance is offering a virtual professional development course from July 27—August 6 to help higher ed-based humanities scholars and practitioners develop humanities curricula, document the impact of humanities programs, and advocate for our field. Registration open through July 24.

Please let your students know that George Mason University Foundation scholarships are available and are open to all continuing undergraduates, admitted transfers, and graduate students.

Hosted by Institute for Immigration Research, a CHSS Chartered Research Center, the symposium focuses on immigration, displacement, and belonging, with a particular emphasis on how arts, culture, and storytelling can be effectively used to build community, shift public attitudes, and inform immigration-related policy in the United States. The symposium is free and open to the public. Please register.

The White House has released the President’s FY2027 Budget Request (PBR) to Congress. The request includes a $2.2 trillion base request in defense discretionary spending, a 28 percent increase from FY2026 and $660.1 billion in nondefense discretionary request, a 10 percent reduction from FY2026.

Two faculty from the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) have recently received awards for their digital projects. Jessica Otis has been awarded the Renaissance Society of America’s Digital Innovation Award for 2026 for her project, Death by Numbers, and Stephen Robertson won the Angel David Nieves Book Award from the American Studies Association and received an honorable mention for the Mary L. Dudziak Digital Legal History Prize from the American Society for Legal History for his project, Harlem in Disorder.

The American Council on Education (ACE) Virginia Network will be holding their 2026 Annual Conference on June 5 at Fuse at Mason Square in Arlington, Virginia. This year’s conference, “Navigating Rough Waters,” will explore how leaders at all stages of their academic and administrative careers chart their way through complexity with clarity, compassion, and strength. Registration is required.

The new Data Management and Sharing Plans (DMSP) templates will go into effect in April and May. Help is available from the University Libraries, which have updated their research guides to reflect these changes.

The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media has been working on a first-of-its-kind initiative with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and a number of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) across the country to archive collections of century-old letters, photographs, and other artifacts that document the Black experience.

The Department of Modern and Classical Languages partnered with the German Embassy to highlight the long-term benefits of studying a foreign language, hosting more than 150 high school students from Fairfax County and Loudoun County public schools.

CHSS professors Justin Ramsdell (psychology), Alex Tabarrok (economics), and LaNitra Berger (African and African American studies) will be honored at a reception on May 12.

College of Humanities and Social Sciences professors Lisa Gring-Pemble, Susan Howard, Steph Liberatore, and Andrew Novak, along with adjunct faculty Hilah Kaufman, have been honored with the 2026 George Mason University Teaching Excellence Awards from the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning.

AJ Thurston, Department of Psychology, was recognized on April 14 at George Mason's annual Outstanding Achievement Awards ceremony.

Assistant Professor Danielle Dufresne, the associate center director at George Mason University's Center for Community Mental Health, has been named the university's Employee of the Month.

Mason Korea students Seongjun Park, Jaehee Yang, Hyunseo Lee, Damin Jeong, and Taeyeong Kim served as Sustainable Development Goals Builders. They developed a board game to make climate-smart agriculture education more accessible, earning them an invitation to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization World Food Forum 2025.

Welcome to our monthly compilation of good news, gathered from the college's faculty and staff!

Kiss discusses how Dodgers have embraced signing non-White players throughout the franchise's history.

Tabarrok's thought experiment on his Marginal Revolution blog looks at how society chooses to distribute the gains from AI abundance.

Kashdan, the director of the Well-Being Lab at George Mason, delves into curiosity and the art of asking questions with podcast host Meredith Goldstein.

Khanzadeh says Strait of Hormuz represents one of Iran's last remaining sources of leverage.

Hanson discusses how prediction markets are advantageous because of the information they provide.