In The Media

Professional male athletes, particularly in the National Football League, have often been held up as the epitome of toxic male masculinity. This is not without good reason. In the past decade, NFL players have been arrested and convicted in cases of domestic violence, driving under the influence, illegal drug charges, involuntary manslaughter and, in the case of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, even murder.

IIR Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Marissa Kiss, was interviewed by the Associated Press to discuss nepotism in the NFL. In recent decades immigrants have been underrepresented in the NFL. This is changing and hopefully immigrants along with African Americans will be able to bring their talent to the ranks of NFL coaches.

James Condo is graduating from George Mason University this month with a BA in sociology. Originally from Massillon, Ohio, Condo is a student in the Honors College and has trained in the emerging field of Next System Studies, which involves research into questions of systemic design, change, and movements.

Sociology PhD candidate Sevil Suleymani was interviewed for Forbes about the protests in Iran. She will also appear on a panel for the National Women's Studies Association, "Womanhood and Resistance in Iran: From Ongoing Women-Led Protests to the Possibility of a Feminist Revolution."

LeNaya Hezel, a student in the Sociology PhD program and higher education specialist at Evocati, a veteran-owned consulting firm, and Barrett Bogue co-author, "The Call to Serve", which is featured in a Washington Post article on February 3, 2022. This report provides data-driven recommendations and peer analysis for Fayetteville State University becoming the leading HBCU to attract, support, and graduate military-connected students. Fayetteville State University used the report in tandem with North Carolina legislation support to offer free tuition to military-connected students. The most significant impact of the report is that its first of its kind. Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have often be left out of the higher education discussion on who is serving military-connected students.

Carol Petty, a Sociology PhD Candidate and representative on the AAUP-Mason's Graduate Committee, recently published in the Fourth-Estate opinion pages where she wrote about back-to-back tuition increases on graduate students during COVID. Her work with the AAUP Graduate Committee centers around organizing and advocating on behalf of all graduate students at Mason.