Carter School News

A number of Carter School faculty and staff members are working closely with President Gregory Washington to make our university a national model for anti-racism and inclusive excellence.

A number of Carter School faculty and staff members are working closely with President Gregory Washington to make our university a national model for anti-racism and inclusive excellence.

What does social justice look like during a pandemic and a time of racial turmoil? George Mason University’s John Mitchell Jr. Program for History, Justice and Race (JMJP) has been busy answering that question.

Celine Apenteng may only have one biological sibling, but she regards nearly a dozen people from around the world as her sisters. This “extended family,” as she calls them, and Apenteng’s travels abroad, have had a profound impact on her view of education. “There’s always something for you to learn,” said Apenteng, whose family has hosted exchange students from France, Moldova and Germany since she was 10. “Even if it’s not something new, the way somebody says something could impact how you think about it.”

On July 1, 2020, George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution opened the next chapter in its evolution from a center to a school when it officially became the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Dean Alpaslan Ozerdem addresses the adoption of our new identity as the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Dilafruz Khonikboyeva and her family won the Green Card Lottery while living through Tajikistan’s civil war, but they didn’t know about it until the years-long blockade was lifted in 1995. They crossed multiple battle lines to reach the U.S. consulate in Moscow. Luckily, even though their green cards had expired by the time they arrived, the U.S. government honored them, Khonikboyeva said.

There are multiple sides to every story. But when it comes to Eritrea, a country that’s been isolated due to 20 years of war and nine years of sanctions, much of their story hasn’t been told, said Carol Pineau, a former CNN journalist who reported live on the Eritrean-Ethiopian war and is a visiting scholar at George Mason University.

School suspensions can triple the probability that a student will drop out of school or have later involvement with the criminal justice system, according to studies linked to the school-to-prison pipeline. These statistics are concerning, but Sarah Parshall has hope.

For about 25 years, Khairi Shammo said it felt like he and his family from Sinjar, Iraq, were “running from a conflict to a conflict.” They moved back and forth from Iraq to Syria multiple times trying to avoid the Iraq-Iranian war, terrorism and religious discrimination for being Yazidis, members of a religious minority.

During the war in the South Caucasus, and particularly the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, closed borders and a shortage of resources became the norm for Armenians like Margarita Tadevosyan.

George Mason University has a large student body—more than 37,000 people—but that doesn’t mean it’s hard to find community. And that’s especially true for the S-CAR Ambassadors.