is George Mason University conservative?

[pstokely]

an economics professor from there was guest hosting for OxyRush today?

[CO Liberal]

1. That Must Have Been Walter Williams

One of the most worthless scumbags on the planet. Along with his friends Thomas Sowell and Clarence "The Dodo" Thomas.

[pstokely]

2. yep

nt

[Frodo]

3. Not in the late 80's early 90's it wasn't.

But the school of business there (one of the best) has a couple quite conservative voices. But what do you expect from a business school?

[msanger]

4. The Deaniacs are hosting a blood drive

at GMU in early November. I'm not sure about the details, but the students for dean seem to be one of the hosting clubs.

So maybe the students are more progessive than the profs.

[Romulus]

5. sort of

I went there for my BA.

Walter Williams, and the econ dept (as are most econ depts.), is the conservative "core" at Mason.

Mason is located in the Virginia suburbs of DC. The school is "weird" in that it is 90% commuters that attend; the dorms hold about 2000 max, out of a population of 12K+ students. Campus politics (when I was there '96-98) was pretty dead, as most students were more interested in getting back to their work/families than hanging around campus arguing. The student population is extremely diverse, with so many countries represented that you can name one and I bet a student somwhere on the Mason campus is from that country. Same with the age spread - a lot of veterans, second-career types, parents, etc.

There were the usual handfuls of Rush-wannabees in class, but most people rolled their eyes whenever these few would spew some nonsense and take up class time. Hardly anyone at Mason could be considered a "campus radical," as I have seen at other schools like U Va.

The campus paper once wrote that if the campus was any more conservative, it would be flying a confederate flag. I'm not sure what that was about, as 99% of the people I encountered were either from other countries, very much on the left of center, or both.

[DoNotRefill]

6. GMU faculty...

runs the gamut from extremely conservative to extremely liberal.

Their law school has both Ken Starr and Chuck Robb on faculty. Go figure.

[leanings]

7. I'm from VA

and I never understood GMU to have a rep as such. Big commuter school, lots of foriegn nationals too, but not conservative. UVA is usually considered a pretty conservative school, but I haven't really seen it yet in the faculty.

[Scott Lee]

8. It wasn't when I attended (1978-1981)

...which is odd because the area of Northern VA and DC is very conservative.

Granted, I wasn't in the Business School (I was Political Science/Russian Studies and Language), but the GMU I attended was very diverse - lots of foreign students going there for diplomatic studies. Most of them from India or Arab nations. I met my first lasting Arab friends there, and got an education on the Palestinian issue from something besides the Jerusalem Compost.

Now it may have changed a lot after that time, but I do recall recently hearing of a few marxist profs still at the business college.

Any other GMU alums here?

[The_Gopher]

9. if it's conservative, it's rushbo conservative w/ all the drugs there

[blm]

10. YES!

;

[VaLabor]

11. i'm from virginia

and i'm a uva alum.

i've been under the impression for a long time that GMU is especially conservative on economics at least. It has a very strong bent towards neoliberalism, which seems to bleed into other disciplines - like its law school (so you get a law-and-economics, i.e., neoliberal, approach to the law).