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The Spring 2024 cohort of Next System Fellows is now open for applications, offering a unique path to realizing your ambitions. Creating a new world system is our ultimate goal and the focus of our research.

Sociology and Anthropology Professor Rashmi Sadana’s 2022 book The Moving City: Scenes from the Delhi Metro and the Social Life of Infrastructure was chosen as one of two finalists for the Pattis Family Foundation Global Cities Book Award, given by the Chicago Council for Global Affairs.

Fall for the Book preview events are underway now through Oct. 10, with the festival happening Oct. 11–14. Events for all ages are hosted at the Fairfax Campus and at off-campus locations around Fairfax. Get the full schedule here.

Released earlier this week, U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges 2024 ranks Mason at #51 among all public universities and #105 among all universities nationwide. Several degree programs in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences earned high-profile rankings as well. U.S. News & World Report ranked Mason’s graduate program in Criminology as the best in Virginia (#10 nationally), while the Industrial-Organization Psychology graduate program came in at #4 among public universities and #5 nationally.

The Next System Studies program at Fuse stems in part from the Next System Project, a grassroots initiative by The Democracy Collaborative. The project takes a deep and bold look at addressing challenges the U.S. faces now, and will face in the future, as a result of the intersection of systems formed around race, economy, technology, climate, and ecology.

The 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom provides an opportunity for us to reflect on the hopes and promises advanced at the March, and the actions and accomplishments that followed.

Laurie Schintler, Associate Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government, is set to receive funding from the National Science Foundation for the project: "Perceptions of Efficiency and Bias in Peer Review: Algorithmic versus Human Decision Making." This project is a collaboration between the Schar School of Policy and Government (GMU) and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology (CHSS-GMU). The investigators on the team include: PI Laurie A. Schintler; Co-PI Connie L. McNeely, Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government; and Co-PI James Witte, Professor, Sociology, Sociology and Anthropology; Director, Institute for Immigration Research.

James C. Witte, Professor, Sociology, Director, Institute for Immigration Research (IIR), and Michelle S. Dromgold-Sermen, Assistant Director, IIR, received funding for: "Refugee Resettlement and STEM Education." This conference will focus on how STEM-oriented educational opportunities through high schools, registered apprenticeships, community college, and four-year institutions can all play a significant role in addressing urgent humanitarian needs, while also expanding the nation’s STEM workforce.

The year 2023 marks 50 years of mass incarceration in the United States. This timely volume highlights and addresses pressing social problems associated with the US’s heavy reliance on mass imprisonment. In an atmosphere of charged political debate, including "tough on crime" rhetoric, the editors bring together scholars and experts in the criminal justice field to provide the most up-to-date science on mass incarceration and its ramifications on justice-impacted people and our communities.