Mason Celebrates Three Decades as an Independent Institution -- Mason Gazette

January 2002

Mason Celebrates Three Decades as an Independent Institution

From 4,166 students to 24,900
From 14 buildings to 67 on three separate campuses
From fewer than 3,000 graduates to more than 85,000
From an “up and coming” to an innovative leader

These hallmarks are among those experienced by George Mason University since 1972, the year when the institution was officially designated an independent member of the commonwealth’s system of colleges and universities.

This year represents a milestone in the university’s evolution; a celebration of its past achievements as well as a recognition of the challenges that lie ahead in what President Alan G. Merten calls “our second chapter.” No longer, he notes, is the university “beginning.”

The university’s beginning occurred on April 7, 1972, when Gov. Linwood Holton signed legislation that formally completed George Mason’s separation from the University of Virginia. This independence followed 15 years of serving as a two-year branch campus of the University of Virginia. It was during those years that George Mason opened its campus in Fairfax, was given the name George Mason College, and began conferring undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Despite these milestones, George Mason University’s road to independence was much like the one its namesake witnessed nearly two centuries before: bumpy and uncertain and not without its share of roadblocks.

George W. Johnson, who served as the university’s president from 1978 until his retirement in 1996, recalls some members of the General Assembly being quite blunt in their opposition to the establishment of any kind of quality institution of higher learning in Northern Virginia. “Much of the establishment did not want a top-tier institution or even a second-tier institution in Northern Virginia,” Johnson says. “In fact, the chairman of the House’s Capital Outlay Committee even told me that if he had had his way, we would have remained strictly an undergraduate school.”

Yet, Northern Virginia, he adds, was a “very sophisticated frontier”—one that possessed all the elements for an explosion of change. Between 1972 and 1982, Northern Virginia witnessed a great deal of growth, both on the part of the region and on the part of this new university. This connection, which was due in large measure to the efforts of Johnson and former Board of Visitors rector John “Til” Hazel, captured the attention of educators throughout the country.

By 1979, George Mason had received the authority to grant doctoral degrees and began offering programs at this level. That same year, it also enhanced its scope and size even more by acquiring a law school, which formed the beginning of the Arlington Campus. Other highlights of the university’s first 10 years include the presidential tenures of Vergil Dykstra (1973–1977) and Robert Krug (1977–1978); the opening of Student Union Building I (1974); the dedication of Robinson Hall, named after Clarence Robinson (1975); being elevated to doctoral status (1979); and the beginning of construction of what later became the Patriot Center (1982).

In a September 1981 speech, Johnson said, “George Mason, we like to think, is different, different because it needn’t worry about survival because it is growing, because people here are enthusiastic, and because its character is not yet really formed.”

As the university’s first decade came to an end, change remained very much in the air. Looming on the horizon was the arrival of a certain professor of economics who would change the university’s landscape forever.