Honors College

The Honors College invites guest speakers to share their expertise with students. One such speaker was Andrew White, a Mason alum and author of "Hell Followed with Us," a Young Adult novel that addresses issues of transgender legislation. Students had the opportunity to ask questions and learn from his experiences. This is just one example of the many opportunities for students to connect with experts in their fields.

The Honors College welcomes Julie Coons to the Dean’s Advisory Board.

Dr. Cattaneo earned her doctorate in Clinical/Community Psychology from the University of Maryland in 2001 and joined George Mason University in 2003. She applies a community psychology orientation to her work and focuses on the wellbeing of marginalized populations. Dr. Cattaneo will be taking a new PhD student for the Fall 2023 application cycle.

Rosemarie Zagarri is a historian specializing in Early American history. She has published four books and numerous articles in leading scholarly journals. Professor Zagarri has received many research fellowships and awards, including the Outstanding Article Prize from the Southeastern Eighteenth-Century Studies Association. She has served on several editorial boards and was a member of the Advisory Board for the Museum for Statue of Liberty in NYC. In 2010, she was elected President of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR) and in 2013 was named a University Professor by GMU Board of Visitors.

Mark Rudnicki is a teacher who is the recipient of two Kosciuszko Foundation Research Fellowships. He has spoken at conferences on the intersection of philosophy and literature in the works of Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz. Mark is also the advisor for Mason’s Music Productions Club and is currently working on a research project called Witkacy: Archaeology of Influence. He has several publications related to Witkiewicz.

Mason is launching a six-part YouTube series titled “Our Future, Transformed: Mason Spotlights the World’s Grand Challenges” and hosted by President Washington

Dr. Forbes teaches Honors 122, Reading the Arts. She trained as a Romanticist and scholar of poetry and is currently a fiction writer.

HNRS 130: The Politics of Language is an Honors College course at Mason that explores the relationship between language and power structures in society. Taught by Anna Habib, the course covers topics such as linguistic discrimination, inclusive and antiracist language, and linguistic erasure. Students lead discussions and have a range of choices for their final projects. The goal of the class is to increase awareness of implicit biases related to linguistic identity and practices.

Gwendolyne Fields’ life has been defined by a connection to natural landscapes across the world. Growing up outside of the U.S., Fields developed an awareness of how global issues like climate change impacted environmental degradation and species decline in multiple countries.

For Honors College student Rakibul Alam, creative writing was his gateway to advocacy. In 2021, when he was a senior at Westfield High School, he wrote a spur-of-the-moment poem titled “Utopia” about the struggles of Muslim Americans.