First Annual SPP Alumni Signature Event Focuses on Children at Risk
Some 200 alumni, students and faculty members attended “Children at Risk,” the SPP Alumni Chapter’s first annual Signature Event. Through the event, which took place on Oct. 22 in the Johnson Center’s Dewberry Hall, the two-year-old Alumni chapter hoped to give its members an opportunity to create and maintain relationships with SPP faculty members and students.

Class Project Allows Student to Help Preserve 150-Year-Old Church
When Sharon Morales, a master’s student in SPP’s Transportation Policy, Operations and Logistics (TPOL) program, received an assignment to write about an aspect of cultural property policy, planning or protection last spring, she affectionately thought about St. John’s Lutheran Church in Nemaha County, Nebraska

Prestigious Fellowship Allows SPP Post-Doc to Continue her Research
Michelle Bragg, who received her Ph.D. from SPP in January, recently accepted a fellowship from the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW). The two-year program will allow her to continue researching social fathering, the subject of her dissertation.

Conference Helps TPOL Student See Link Between Theory and Practice
While participating in the recent meeting of the Council on Logistics and Management in Philadelphia, graduate student Osita Chidoka could visualize how his classroom experience at GMU will pay off once he begins working in the logistics field.

Master’s Student Wins Scholarship in Pursuit of Advocacy
Unlike many of his classmates, first-year MPP student Raj Buck doesn’t exactly see himself becoming a policy maker. He’d prefer to take a more grassroots approach toward affecting policy decisions. “I felt that studying public policy was a natural segue into advocacy,” he explains.

Media Seek Out SPP’s New MPP Director for Expertise About Elections
Politicians and campaign workers aren’t the only ones whose lives get busier around election time. Mark J. Rozell, SPP’s new master’s program director, can attest to that. One of the media’s favorite experts to quote about U.S. and Virginia politics, Rozell has made recent appearances on Fox-4 News, NBC and PBS’s Religion and Ethics News Weekly.

Six Doctoral Students Receive Research Grants
SPP has awarded six students with doctoral research grants, funded by money provided by the Provost for the doctoral program.

SPP Hosts Indian Business Leaders
About 30 senior managers and executives from Indian public sector energy and utility companies recently met with SPP staff and attended a series of lectures about U.S. energy policies in the global context.

POPP Director Shares Firsthand Experiences in Iraq Peace Building
Many professors will go out of their way for their students, but few would risk their lives. To teach effectively in SPP’s Peace Operations Policy Program, Director Dave Davis says that he and his staff must participate in real-life peace operations – even if that means working in volatile or life-threatening situations.

Mason Enterprise Center Opens Satellite Site in Prince William County
The Mason Enterprise Center is expanding its services to telecommuters, entrepreneurs and small businesses with the opening of the Mason Enterprise Center at Prince William County (MEC@PWC) on Nov. 1.