By Mikhailina Karina

In addition to their full-time jobs at Mason, a number of faculty and staff devote their free time to teaching. Several remain on campus a few nights each week and take their expertise out of the office and into the classroom; others pursue interests that have very little to do with their day jobs. Below is just a small sample of Mason people who share their knowledge and talents in a variety of ways.

Gomez-Moran Reaches Out to Diverse Groups
Dolores Gomez-Moran recently experienced her 15 minutes of fame when she introduced the great tenor Placido Domingo to nearly 1,700 people at the Center for the Arts Concert Hall. Domingo's appearance on Nov. 26 was the closing event for the month-long Hispanic Heritage Month, which Gomez-Moran organized for the fourth year in a row. However, the accolades have not gone to her hea d; she's firmly grounded in her full-time position as an assistant director in the Office of Minority Student Affairs and as a part-time Spanish instructor in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages.

"Placido Domingo, and all that went with our bringing him to campus, was icing on the cake," says Michael Tapscott, director of Minority Student Affairs. "As a result of a small restructure in our office, Dolores was asked to take on a great deal more responsibility in programming for other minority students. Dolores is our most experienced programming staff member and has provided me with good communication, creative ideas, and excellent execution of projects."

A native of Oviedo, Spain, Gomez-Moran jumped at the opportunity to teach Spanish 202, which needed a teacher with a strong background in the Hispanic culture. "If you don't know the culture, you can't understand the language," she says. Of the final class required for the foreign language requirement, she says, "It's a tough, dry class with a lot of grammar." To make it more interesting, Gomez-Moran shows videos of Spanish-language soap operas and movies, as well as takes her students on field trips, to excite them about the language and the diversity of the culture.

To motivate students, many of whom are struggling and can't wait for the class to be over, Gomez-Moran uses her extensive psychology training to create a positive, nonintimidating atmosphere. She begins by telling them that after years of studying French and Italian, she began learning English when she was 24 years old. "I know how terrifying it is to be in class and feel my tongue not cooperating with my voice," she says.

Teaching Spanish was not Gomez-Moran's first foray into teaching. Since 1995, she has participated in the Virginia Student Recruitment and Retention Program, a seven-week summer program for college-bound minority students. Participants take intensive courses in English, communication, and math--after which their progress is evaluated and admission to Mas on is granted to those who successfully complete the program. Gomez-Moran teaches a workshop on personal career goals, which has proved to be a powerful learning experience for her, as well.

With 85 percent of the students being African American, she had to overcome the color barrier and get them accustomed to her accented English. Soon, through role-playing and sharing exercises, students became more comfortable with each other and with Gomez-Moran. They realized that they were in a noncompetitive situation in which all opinions were accepted, and they learned to listen to people from other cultures.

For more than 10 years, Gomez-Moran has been doing career development and training in multicultural settings. Before coming to Mason in 1993, she worked at the World Bank in the staff development division; as a career advisor at the University of London; at the Higher Education and Information Center, the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, and Boston College--all in Boston; and at the State Department of Public Services and Urban Planning in Oviedo, Spain. She holds a master's degree in counseling psychology from Boston College and a bachelor's in psychology from the University of Oviedo.

"I'd like to be more connected to the international community," Gomez-Moran says of her efforts to introduce people to her culture, with Domingo's visit to Mason being a good example of many people benefiting from such interaction. "I hope to continue doing international communication by bringing more people and scholars to George Mason so we can be well known around the world," she says.

Brandwine Is a Lawyer and a Teacher
Jeffrey Brandwine says he has the best job at the university--providing legal counsel to administration and teaching. By day, he is assistant vice president for Legal Affairs, guiding George Mason through complicated contracts, personnel issues, and transactions; by night, he brings his work experience into the classroom, where he discusses First Amendment rights, collective bargaining, public administration ethics, and personnel administration.

As a part-time instructor in the Department of Public and International Affairs, he has taught one course each semester since coming to Mason in 1989. In addition to having a law degree, Brandwine has a master's in labor relations--he puts both to use in a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses.

Brandwine works with three full-time staff, and with three School of Law upperclass students, who gain practical experience under his supervision. "We try not to be legal technocrats, but counselors who assist with policies and help the university accomplish what it needs," he says.

"Teaching keeps me on top of my profession. It helps me make sure I stay abreast of current legal issues and can discuss them in plain English with the university staff," Brandwine says. "I think that interacting with and listening to students make me a better administrator.

"There is no question that those of us who have dedicated our lives to higher education go about tackling our day-to-day activities with a renewed spirit and refocused direction when we regularly avail ourselves of teaching opportunities," says Maurice Scherrens, senior vice president. "Jeff has much to offer his classes in the field of higher education law and related legal matters."

Brandwine spends at least four hours each week preparing for each two-and-a-half hour class. Besides going over the assigned reading material, he regularly browses through a lot of political and judicial journals. "I teach rather informally," he says. "Students read the textbook, as well as novels and magazine articles." Instead of emphasizing memorization of facts, Brandwine stresses a broader learning experience that incorporates a wide variety of issues and sources.

Teaching invigorate s Brandwine each week; even the 7:30 p.m. class is not a strain. "I really enjoy interacting with students and believe that staff have a responsibility to make contributions to the university that go beyond their daily jobs," he says.

Guillory Plays Medieval Music
John Guillory openly leads a double life: he is a physicist who studies astrophysical plasma and beam dynamics, and he is founder/director/performer/teacher with Musica Antiqua, a local group that performs music written before 1650.

As a professor at the Institute for Computational Sciences and Informatics (CSI), Guillory teaches courses on plasma science and guides doctoral students with their dissertations. But he's also passionate about what he has devoted the past 30 years of his life to--researching, studying, arranging, performing, and loving music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque periods.

What's so special about this music? "It's very beautiful and deserves to be better known," Guillory responds. "This music also can be very lively, much more playful and accessible both melodically and harmonically to people who don't like the opera or classical music."

Furthermore, Musica Antiqua is interesting to watch in action. The 12-member group performs on reproductions of original instruments, such as harps, hammered dulcimers, and viols. The musicians also play lesser-known instruments, such as shawms, which are loud predecessors to the oboe; the chitarra sarazenica, a long-necked lute-like instrument; and sacqueboutes, which are Renaissance trombones. In the program notes for each performance, Guillory writes a detailed explanation of the music, as well as a description of the instruments.

At each performance, whether it is in a church hall, the Kennedy Center, the Folger Shakespeare Library, or the Nati onal Gallery of Art, Guillory never misses an opportunity to educate the public about the music and the instruments. "The educational component is sugar-coated," he says. "You can't come to one of our concerts without learning something." He also conducts show-and-tell sessions at local schools and colleges, where he demonstrates instrument families.

Guillory fell in love with Renaissance music while a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, but his studies prevented him from devoting too much time to it. He then moved to the Washington, D.C., area in the early 1970s to teach at the University of Maryland­College Park, and for the next four years he spent his free time at regional libraries researching this music. He painstakingly transcribed sheet music from original notation and studied the composers. As a side benefit, he picked up a lot of obscure linguistic skills in 16th-century Flemish, 13th-century Provencal, and other early languages when he attempted to translate texts of songs.

In 1974, Guillory formed Musica Antiqua. Because the market was rather small for centuries-old music, members of the group did not quit their day jobs, he says. But they have developed a regular following at music festivals, the annual concerts at the City of Fairfax's Old Town Hall, and holiday pageants. Keeping with the spirit of the genre, Musica Antiqua has a repertoire so varied that serious religious pieces and rowdy pub songs are occasionally performed during the same concert, Guillory says.

Giunta (pronounced djoonta), fearlessly embraces life's challenges and joys. His uniform of loose cotton pants and Eastern-style flowing shirts is a far cry from the fatigues he wore during his service with the U.S. Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division, where he was an infantry sergeant and survival instructor.

Giunta speaks in a slow, soothing manner that occasionally betrays his Brooklyn roots. "I was the first classical guitarist to earn a master's degree in performance at George Mason," he says. He did it while working full time, attending birthing classes with his wife, learning how to buy a house, and trying to practice for his recital program. "When I look back at what I did, I don't know if I could have done it without yoga," he adds.

In addition to his daytime job as gift program coordinator for University Libraries, his other commitments are teaching Hatha yoga in the Community Health and Fitness program (he is certified by the Himalayan Institute of Science and Philosophy in Honesdale, Pa.), frequently appearing around town as part of the Faculty Speakers Bureau, and teaching Yoga for Musicians at the Levine School of Music in Georgetown.

The Yoga for Musicians workshop that Giunta developed teaches musicians, as well as actors and public speakers, to approach performance noncompetitively. "I make clear at the outset that competition is really anathema to accomplishment," Giunta says. "When we have feelings of envy in our competitiveness, we are wasting our own precious energy with negative feelings. Instead, it is healthier to admire the people who are better than we are at playing an instrument so that we can use them as good examples rather than as threats. Not everyone can become a musician who can earn a living at performing, but everyone can learn to have fun with music on a level appropriate for their understanding."

With this "attitude adjustment" in place, G iunta instructs on the basics of yoga and meditation, two effective ways to release stress and unblock pathways to creativity. Yoga and meditation are inseparable practices, with the physical aspect of yoga (breathing and postures) preparing both the body and the mind to settle down into a peaceful state. "Yoga was devised to help people meditate better," he says. "During meditation, we let extraneous thoughts pass through our mind without dwelling on them." Thus, Giunta teaches musicians to spend a few moments before performance to create feelings of inner peace by calming their breathing and focusing on performance.

Giunta has offered this workshop at George Mason for Patricia Miller's voice classes, and has appeared as a guest lecturer at New Century College and the Department of Health, Fitness, and Recreation Resources, as well as at the Washington Opera, Shenandoah University, and the Washington Guitar Society. He says that his daily yoga and meditation sessions enable him to feel every moment of his life and give him energy to accomplish whatever he sets out to do.

A thrill-seeker wi th a strong desire to save lives, King has been riding fire trucks for the past eight years. "Someone told me about his work as a firefighter and it sounded really fantastic," he says. "It's pure adrenaline rushing into a burning building, seeing all the rats and cockroaches running out, and you wonder why you are running in the opposite direction." On the scene of a fire, when half the work must be accomplished in the first two minutes, timing and teamwork are everything. King humbly says that he has brought four people out of a fire.

Although only 26 years old, King has enough practical experience to teach firefighters at the Stonewall Jackson Volunteer Fire Department, Company 11, in Prince William County some basic ambulance skills: backboarding patients, delivering babies, and using protocol. As a Virginia state firefighting instructor, he also teaches firefighting tactics and behavior, ropes and knots, and equipment. Each Tuesday, he works from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., plus from 8 a.m. on Saturday to 6 p.m. on Sunday every fifth weekend.

It is no surprise that becoming a paramedic was the natural next stop for King. After completing a year-and-a-half emergency medical services program at George Washington University, he became a nationally certified paramedic with a doctor's license to administer 33 drugs, set up IV lines, defibrillate the heart into its natural rhythm, and surgically insert a needle to reinflate a collapsed lung.

"I am idealistic about saving lives," he says of his ambulance work. "It's not that unusual to go on a heart attack call and bring someone back to life." King admits that his line of work is not for the squeamish, and when he began training as a paramedic, he worried about fainting at the sight of blood. "But when you are in a situation and have something to do, something you know must get done, you don't notice all the gore. The reward [of helping someone] is greater than the disgust."

When King walks into the Prince William Hospital to teach the advanced cardiac life sup port course, his youthful appearance initially throws off cardiologists, nurses, and other paramedics. "It's a tough crowd," he says of the times doctors test him by shooting out specialized questions to which only they have answers. Very quickly, he wins their respect through his demonstrated knowledge and experience dealing with dozens of emergency cardiac cases.

"I like to teach because it's like taking the class again for free," he says. "The best way to really know the material is to teach it to others." As soon as he completes his Bachelor of Individualized Study degree in emergency services administration at Mason, he plans to launch into a graduate degree program in public administration. With the increased privatization of ambulance services, King sees a strong professional future in operating such a service or in managing a fire department.

Taking advantage of an opportunity to reach the university community, King says the following tips are most crucial to remember in an emergency situation: "Stop, drop, and roll if your clothes catch fire; stay low and crawl to get out of a burning room; in a fire, touch doors with the back of your hand--if it's hot, don't open it; families must have a plan for escaping a burning house and a designated meeting place; nearly everyone [who is not a firefighter] who returns to a burning building to save a pet or another person ends up dead." And finally, "Smoke detectors really do save lives! Be sure to test your smoke detectors regularly."

Schopf, Institute for Computational Sciences and Informatics (CSI), teaches graduate courses in geophysical fluid dynamics. He and his wife also own and operate a 40-acre farm with 64 horses in Ashton, Md., where he gives private lessons in dressage. Dressage, according to Webster's Dictionary, is "the art or method of training a horse in obedience and in precision of movement."

"Everyone loves horses," Schopf says. "Horses are the kindest, most forgiving, most undemanding creatures that man has contact with. They are so incredibly powerful, big, and strong, yet you can put a six-year-old on their back."

Though not immediately apparent, a connection between his scientific and equestrian pursuits exists, says Schopf. "It's my artistic side," he says. Instead of choosing purely physical jumping or cross-country events, he chose dressage, the most challenging activity with a horse. "It's a very theoretical and intellectual activity," he says. "It requires a rigorous study of movement, how the horse responds and moves most efficiently, and how all the exercises contribute to building the horse into a strong athlete."

In dressage, the relationship between human and horse is profoundly psychological. "The horse has to think that everything he does is his idea. Very subtly, I suggest that he perform the movements," he says. Half-jokingly, he compares it to his relationship with his wife, with him being the horse.

By the way, several years ago his wife gave up a successful law practice with a downtown firm to run the farm full time. Schopf says he wanted to follow suit after nearly two decades at NASA, but when he came to Mason last year, he found he enjoyed the academic setting and working with students.

Not wanting to draw any negative parallels between working with horses and with Mason students, Schopf says his teaching methods with humans derive from his equestrian pupils. Patienc e is probably one of Schopf's most significant virtues as a teacher and a scientist. In addition, he has come to value a long-term commitment to learning. Through his work with horses, he has learned how to evaluate a student's progress over a course of several years, rather than focus on immediate feedback. "With graduate students, I consider not only whether they have learned the last equation, but try to measure their true depth of understanding of the field and how they can apply this knowledge in all circumstances."