Faculty News

Dr. Roland B. Wilson, Program Coordinator and professor at Mason’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, and Co-Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Center Asia (PACSC Asia), was invited to speak at the 16th public forum for peace and prosperity held on Jeju island. The Jeju Peace Forum serves as a venue for policy discourse to seek peace and co-prosperity on the Korean Peninsula and in East Asia.

Mason Korea partnered with the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation (KSPO) to offer a special lecture program for students enrolled in Dream Together Master (DTM), a global sports development graduate program at Seoul National University. Professors Roland Wilson and Soyoung Kwon lectured on sports diplomacy to nearly 30 students from around the world.

Following the success of the 2021 CSPS-Korea Annual Symposium entitled “Human Security in the Gray Zone: North Korean Defectors and Their Children” held in May, Dr. Soyoung Kwon, Director of CSPS-Korea and a professor of Global Affairs, recently gave an interview on KBS Radio program “Hanminjok Hanaro” (One Korean People). 

Professor Lester Kurtz discusses his multi-decade research project on a four-volume Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict. He also reflects on his time at Mason Korea before returning to the Fairfax campus.

Professor Gyu Tag Lee, K-pop expert and associate professor of anthropology and culture at Mason Korea, successfully completed his 13-lecture series titled "So You Think You Know K-Pop" on the popular TV show CLASS-e that airs on EBS.

In this interview, Professor Arthur Romano from Mason's Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution addresses the question, "how has COVID changed the conversation on race?"

Dr. Soyoung Kwon, Assistant Professor of Global Affairs, was recently appointed as a member of Incheon City’s Peace City Initiative Committee by Incheon Mayor Park Nam-chun. As one of four academic experts among 30 committee members, Kwon plans to contribute her extensive experience in diplomacy and politics to a potential “peace city Incheon” to strengthen inter-Korean exchange and cooperation in creating a border peace zone.

This semester Mason professors Jihye Lim, located in Korea, and Jennifer Ashley, located in Fairfax, co-taught Mason Korea's first cross-continental synchronous course, a section of GLOA 101 Introduction to Global Affairs.

BTS is the first K-pop act ever to be nominated for a Grammy. Despite much anticipation, BTS did not win a Grammy for its megahit single “Dynamite” at the 63rd Grammy Awards. Expressing disappointment at the results, cultural studies professor Lee Gyu-tag of George Mason University Korea said, “Their Grammy debut nomination itself was too late, as it should have come a year or two ago. The belated nomination had already proved how closed the Recording Academy was.”

Mason Korea is the first university at the Incheon Global Campus to collaborate with the newly established Songdo Global Lifelong Learning Center. Alice Wrigglesworth, Assistant Professor of English, is our pioneer faculty member to teach at the Center.