Yard games. Yoga classes. Story times for children. Live musical performances. A reading cart stocked with daily newspapers.
These were among the unorthodox solutions the University Life team at Mason Square (formerly known as Mason’s Arlington campus) implemented when students returned to campus for in-class instruction following the global COVID-19 pandemic. The urban campus located just outside of D.C. is a magnet for graduate-degree seekers or professionals furthering their education in some of the region’s leading and most challenging careers.
The goal was to create a campus environment for students that was more than simply a spot for coming to class only for them to turn around and go right back home. And on top of that, university leaders tasked this typically student-focused engagement team with another challenge: How to get community members throughout the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor to buy-in and be a part of Mason Square even if they had no other natural tie to the campus?
“We knew we had to build a sense of belonging and have a profound switch to how the campus operated and what it provided for students,” said Melissa Theirry, Director of Regional Campuses for University Life.
“We wanted to enhance the user experience for students as well as for our neighbors, and that led us to be intentional about place-making. We opened the campus to everyone.”
University Life, along with a team of collaborators based at Mason Square worked to establish standing, weekly and special events to build a culture of inviting people to campus for recreation, entertainment, and cultural experiences.
Sophie Gorshenin, Assistant Director of Regional Campuses for University Life, said the programming had to be structured such that people could drop in and out as necessary. Catering to people’s availability gives them the leeway to invest in activities without committing to an entire prescribed or scheduled event. Many students have families or careers and are pressed for time.
“Every program on the plaza is come at your convenience, and people have responded favorably,” Gorshenin said.
Gorshenin recalls initial yoga classes having only a handful of people. Subsequent classes captured more and more people, and afterward people would engage in conversations or have a coffee together.”
“It was exciting to see,” she said.
Fuse at Mason Square announced; what is it?
The exchange of ideas and interactions of a professional and personal nature on the plaza will soon get a massive boost with the expected 2025 opening of Fuse at Mason Square, a 345,000-square-foot cutting-edge tech, research and entrepreneurial center.
The campus, which is already home to the Antonin Scalia Law School, the Schar School of Policy and Government, the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution among other programs, will house a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership.
The new Fuse space will house Mason learning labs, private business developers, and commercial researchers, who will be rubbing elbows with each other across the building’s footprint. The collaboration is ready-made for natural collisions, where students and faculty will be surrounded by industry experts, and those expert leaders will have direct exposure to new ideas, up-and-coming research, and future talent. It will be an ecosystem that fosters innovation.
“You’re going to have people in the same hallways and classrooms and labs learning from each other and taking everything to the next level,” Thierry said. “We are so excited to see the possibilities and impact that can have.