Achieving Mason’s commitment to the personal and intellectual growth of our students, teaching excellence, and innovative research is only possible through a diverse population of students, faculty, and staff. Exchanging a broad range of ideas and sharing a multitude of experiences and perspectives sustains our commitment and builds a community in which everyone thrives.
Our Pledge to Diversity
Mason's goal is to build and sustain an inclusive campus community and to foster a welcoming climate that values and respects all members of the community.
True diversity is defined not only as differences in individual backgrounds, personal identities, intellectual approaches, and demographics; it is also the removal of barriers and the creation of space that allow individuals to fully engage in the life of the university.
As individuals of our own unique identities — faith, race, sexuality, gender, abilities, socioeconomic class — we each offer an irreplaceable opportunity to examine issues from new and innovate perspectives.
The commitment to providing these opportunities equally to every member of our community is the force behind creating a diverse, ideal George Mason University.
The Source of Our Strength
Mason’s student body is highly diverse. In our most recent class of transfer students, those in traditionally underrepresented groups were the majority.
Organizations such as the Princeton Review have recognized the university for the diversity of its student body, and Mason has been singled out for the high graduation rates and outstanding academic performance of students from groups that are typically underrepresented. Mason has:
- Developed a welcoming culture that values and celebrates difference.
- Become the most diverse institution in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
- Become a major part of one of the most important political, economic and intellectual hubs in the world.
- A student body that represents more than 130 nations and all 50 states.
- Leadership that includes individuals from various backgrounds and cultures, each bringing something unique and valuable to the community.
- A Center for Culture, Equity and Empowerment, which leads the university in creating and sustaining inclusive learning environments.