Masonat50

On Sept. 3, 2010, during Welcome Week, more than 1,200 George Mason University students showed up to break the Guinness World Record for the world's largest dodgeball game.

After 18 months of renovations, Mason's Harris Theatre is once again open for performances.

Robinson Professor of Physics James Trefil is a huge proponent of science literacy and has written extensively about science for a lay audience. With his colleague, Robinson Professor of Earth Science Robert Hazen, he created and taught Great Ideas in Science, a popular course for nonscience majors.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Homecoming at George Mason University centered around soccer and was held in the fall. Here you see Homecoming King Archie Kao, BA Speech Communication '92, with Homecoming Queen Christina Bartlow and President George Johnson.

Roger Wilkins, a Robinson Professor from 1986 to 2007, and for whom Wilkins Plaza on Mason’s Fairfax Campus is named, died in 2017 at age 85, but his legacy at the university remains strong.

Many notable African American students, faculty and staff have made indelible marks at George Mason University. As we acknowledge Black History Month, and celebrate Mason’s 50th anniversary, here are just a few:

As part of an effort to research and record local history, Mason graduate and undergraduate students, along with faculty, have begun documenting Black students who attended Mason and the Black communities that once existed in Fairfax County.

On Friday, April 7, 1972, Virginia Governor A. Linwood Holton Jr. signed into law Virginia General Assembly Bill H 210, which separated George Mason College from the University of Virginia.

Mason is celebrating its first half-century as an independent institution and setting the tone for the next 50 years with a yearlong celebration that includes a week of festivities in April.

In celebration of the university's 50th anniversary, Mason was recognized by the Virginia General Assembly for "extraordinary efforts to promote educational access and excellence in the Commonwealth."