HAIL GMU?

GMU what?

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Hi. Before we get into the main blog post itself, let me tell you a little bit about myself. I am sophomore at George Mason University, and I am majoring in COMM. On campus I am work in the office of Student Media, I am involved in Catholic Campus Ministry, I am a member of the Knights of Columbus, and I am an Eagle Scout.  I bring these because the following blog posts may be biased and I wanted to acknowledge that fact starting out, so let’s begin:

With 33,917 students George Mason University is the largest University in the State of Virginia by enrollment.  Formed in 1957 as a sub campus from the University of Virginia, GMU has grown a lot since its formation almost 54 years ago. However, unlike UVA which as a tight nit community, Mason’ community of mostly off-campus students not form a well balanced community, but rather an unfocused group of students wanting to be part of something greater.

I am going to focus on five aspects as to why Mason lacks in terms of school involvement, and how the Mason Community can improve.

 

1. Traditions – how Mason is getting rid of tradition
2.  Sprit- How the average Mason student lacks school spirit
3. The university that can’t grow up- How the University is focusing too much on the past, and is not concerned about the future
4. Cheering- How the cheers at sporting events in disorganized
5. Sports- how attendance at sports games is lacking

 

The purpose of the blog is to spread awareness of the weakness in the Mason Community, and hopefully get the conversation going to fix them.

Part 1

 

“Innovation is Tradition” this has been GMU mottos since 2010 however this motto is is actuality hurting he Mason’s community. Because there is so much innovation the there is a lack of tradition.  With a campus that is constantly under construction, there is no room to breathe in the sights of our beautiful campus. Students like graduating senior Rebecca Howell, have been woken up every morning this semester the loud jack hammers and machines at 7am. “ It is difficult for me because I am a nursing student” says Howell “ after working a long shift at the hospital, the last thing I want is to be woken up by a jackhammer!

 

 

Moving on, there is several other ways the Mason has no sense of tradition. One example is the renaming of buildings on campus. In late 2010 SUB II was renamed the HUB. This change did not many any sense however because if there is a building on campus named SUB 1, there needs to be a building named SUB II. Strange other name changes include the changing of the parking structure names to better fit with names of Virginia landmarks.

 

 

Finally Mason tries to establish traditions, only to change them or not enforce them years later.  A prime example of this is our schools alma mater.

 

“The alma mater is the generic title given to the official song or anthem of a school, college, or university.The official song may be referred to as the alma mater of the school, college or university, and it may be understood by those who know, which song is referred to. It is not to be confused with a college’s fight song, which is usually much more upbeat and used for a college’s athletics programs. An alma mater is typically slow, light in instrumentation and with lyrics that wax nostalgic about the college’s setting and affirm the singer’s devotion to, and fondness for, the school.” -Wikipedia

 

While the fight song  is said at basketball games at Mason, this is not our official school song. But then what is it?

 

That question is sadly one of the reasons why I started this blog in the first place. There is so much confusion about which song is our alma mater that I have spent hours trying to find official documents to no avail.

I was able to find two audio tracks that claim to be Mason school song.

 

1.  Patriot Pride  –  Written in 2009

2.  Patriot Dreams – Written in 2002

 

The question is which one is our alma mater. Like said earlier there is no official document that says what our alma mater is. However according to the Atlantic 10 webpage Patriot dreams is our alma mater.

 

However, this is where the University’s failure at keeping traditions comes into play. Searching for a school song should not require hours of goggling to find an answer.   So, in a survey of random college students I had clips of both the songs an I asked if they had heard the song before today.

Here are the results (still on going):

Patriot Pride                                                               Patriot Dreams

 

 

Interestingly, more people had a recollection of Patriot Pride than Patriot Dreams, which is our alma mater.  This shows that if Patriot Dreams is our alma mater, nobody knows about it. From my recollection these two songs are played at new student convocation and graduation, nowhere else.   It is a shame because at some schools, like my high school for example, the alma mater is a major part of school spirit, which is the next part in my blog, stay tuned.

Edit: Earlier this week, I received an email from the Managing editor of GMU Spirit which said the following:

“The alma mater was written by one of our professors Rick Davis and a music student now alumna Vincent Oppido.”

This means, that I can conclude that “Patriot Pride” is our alma mater, but it is still a problem that not many people recognize it as such.

2. Spirit

 

“Wear Green and Gold every Friday!” is a saying said by the G-Men . However, how many people actually wear Green and Gold on Fridays (normal Fridays that are not Mason Day). Truth is not many people follow this.  Nor do  people follow the rules of plague in front of the Mason statue. Yes, I know it is a silly tradition to not step on the plague or else you not graduate in four years, but it is still part of Mason Spirit. Again, in my high school we had a school seal (two in fact) that you were not supposed to stand on. If you did step on it, or someone caught you, you had to kiss it.

 

One aspect of school spirit that I like seeing on campus are the students wearing shirts or sweatshirts from their fraternities or sororities. I see so may Greek letters on campus that it makes me feel like I am part of a large IVY league university. But Mason is not, no should it be , known for its Greek life.   With 10 percent of the student population involved in Greek Life, it is not the majority of the student population.

 

Lets talk about one student org on campus that is none for its spirit on campus, Catholic Campus Ministry. Having over 200 people attend events regularly, CCM is the largest student org on campus. I’m not trying to brag, but have you heard one major event that CCM did not win, not really. A student from CCM has won Mason Majesty four years in a row, and they have also won several intramural games. If thee is a group of people that is showing what it means to have Patriot Pride, CM is it. Heck, even their own Pastor, Father Peter Nasseta Y.A., is alumnus from Mason. CCM does have a major presence at the mason basketball games. When asked about Mason Spirit, Father Peter says that “loves the atmosphere of the games.” Father Peter was even on campus in 2006 when Mason made the Final Four. Speaking of which, tune in next time for my third post, the university that can’t grow up.

2006. I was a sixth grader and my entire grade school was excited when George Mason, our local college, made the final four.  I was excited to see the players that I saw earlier in the year, make it to a national level, and the adults in my family were impressed by Jim Larrañaga’s amazing coaching. But that was EIGHT years ago! It is time to move on, but the University has not.

Students still mention the fact that we made the final l four frequently at Mason. Whether its talking to potential students, or writing sports columns, the University cannot seem to forget about the past, but it is not concerned about the future.  Let’s face it, our basketball team sucks. According to Ryan Kish of GMU Hoops , a sports blog about Mason basketball that is quasi supported by the University, “this years team is the worst since 1994.”

 

Since Mason is so concerned about the team back then, people may not attend the basketball games because the team now can’t live up to the hype. Because of theis the ratio of students to other people is huge, with other fans making up the majority of the seats.  Most of the fans in the seats now where old enough to attend the games eight years ago, while the students are much younger. Honestly there is not much else to say about the subject, basically it comes down to the fact that Mason needs to stop talking about 2006 and embrace 2014. If not, the University can not gain the respect of its current student athletes and coaches. Heck, sometimes I hear the crowd yelling “Larrañaga, Larrañaga” and that brings me to my next point, cheering.

At a typical men’s basketball game there are three groups who lead cheers. First there are the cheerleaders. They dance, shake their pom poms and try to get the crowd to cheer for their team. The there is the Green Machine led by Doc Nix. The Green Machine plays music during timeouts, and key plays and tries again to pump of the audience. Finally there is the group of people that organize cheers in the stands, they to try their best to get fans involved. However, with three “cheering” groups this leads to an all out mess.

 

First of all you have the repetitiveness of the cheerleaders: Some of the cheers in include yelling “Mason take it to the hoop” “All the way down the court Let’s go” and “ Mason shoot for 2 or 3” and the they repeat the same cheers five minutes later. The there is the green machine, which is the best pep band in the nation by the way, is constantly playing during the game. Some times the music is so loud that it drowns out the cheerleaders, which may not be a bad thing, but it still leads to the overall disorganization. Finally there are the groups of students who try to get their own cheers, and jeers started. Take graduating senior Bryan Dombrioski, who was one of the candidate for this years Mason Majesty. Dombro, as his friends call him leads cheers like

“ gimme a B-O-N-E-R, what’s that spell BONER, what does that mean? Hard –d” and others that I probably should not post online and are definitely NSFW.

  Some may find his cheers offensive but he and his groups of friends are doing their best to get the audience involved. When asking students at games what they though about Dombro cheering, many said that they thought it was offensive. However I think they are quite clever.  It is bettering than standing there on your cellphones and not cheering at all, which I see most students doing. However the disorganization of cheers may be bad at basketball games, but the fact the there are games were no one is cheering makes me sad.

“We have more sports at Mason than just basketball you know.” I said once to a student in my class, but he just shrugged and said that the others teams are nowhere near as good.  This conversation with a student in my English is actually the sad reality of our campus, no one attends the other sports games or club games. Again back to my survey of random mason students. The majority attend Basketball, but only a few have attded other sports.  It is a shame because, no offense o the basketball players, the other teams have done better overall in the Atlantic 10. This year alone Men’s Soccer, Women’s Indoor and outdoor tack won first in the A10, an amazing feat since this id the ir first year.  Volleyball did not do so well but, they did gain popularity among the volleyball community with this one play however.

Taking a look at a survey of random Mason students we can see that the percentage of students who go to basketball games is high, while the others are low.

In conclusion, being a community means that your and your friends know what is going on around campus. Seeing trend like not knowing the schools alma mater, o r not knowing about awesome plays in sports id disheartening to a university that is searching for a sense of community. The whole reason behind this blog is to back up an op-ed written by Fourth Estate Executive editor Frank Muraca in which he explains some of the reason why mason does not have a community. I would have to agree with him. If mason wants build a sense of community, they have to know what it is that they are dealing with.