Student Media was proud to host two interactive #Welcome2Mason events during fall 2025 that welcomed 100+ attendees each!
The first event was our annual Press Pass Open House on Thursday, September 4th, where students, faculty, and staff were invited to visit the Student Media office in The Hub 1201 to learn more about what we do. Attendees enjoyed free pizza and drinks as they toured our newsroom, met student leaders and staff from each media group, picked up branded swag items, and learned how to get involved. Watch a quick video recap above!
The second event was Constitution Day on Wednesday, September 17th in The Hub’s Side Pocket. Student Media helps the Mason community observe Constitution Day each year by hosting a celebration featuring refreshments, a prize wheel, trivia questions, free pocket Constitutions, a chance to “Sign the Constitution,” and the “Preamble Scramble” where students solve a giant puzzle by re-constructing our founding document’s Preamble that begins with three important words: “We the People…” Watch a quick video recap below!
Check out our Constitution Day resource page: studentmedia.gmu.edu/constitutionday
Press Pass Videos/Photos by: Mitchell Richtmyre / Video Editing by: D’Shaun Wells
Constitution Day Videos/Photos by: Joylin Ting / Video Editing by: Joylin Ting
Student Media would like to thank and congratulate each of our 45 involved students graduating in 2025!
Your hard work, creativity, and leadership helped our groups continue to inform, enrich, and entertain the Mason community.
Click here to meet our outstanding 2025 graduates! >
While we are sad to see our grads move on, we know that each of them has a bright future ahead. Our work is inherently collaborative, but the individual contributions made over the years by the Class of 2025 have made a tremendous impact on the Mason community. Your shared commitment to excellence will not be forgotten.
Congratulations to everyone graduating in 2025 and best of luck with your new careers in media and beyond!
Student Media is proud to announce that Hispanic Culture Review (HCR) has been awarded a 2024 National Magazine Pacemaker Award by The Associated Collegiate Press (ACP), the preeminent award in student journalism!
Volition, Mason’s undergraduate literary and arts journal, was named a finalist in the same category!
Congratulations to both journals for earning this tremendous honor!
Click here to download the full press release >
Unofficially known as the “Student Pulitzer,” the Associated Collegiate Press has awarded the Pacemaker to spotlight excellence in college media since 1927. According to the ACP website, this “prestigious award recognizes overall excellence and distinguishes the top student media produced during a particular school year.”
First published in fall 1990, Hispanic Culture Review is a bilingual literary journal at George Mason University that features poetry, essays, narratives, photography, and visual art in both Spanish and English. Celebrating more than 30 years of excellence, HCR’s mission is to bridge communication gaps and strengthen cultural bonds between English- and Spanish-speaking peoples by publishing original works from diverse creators around the world.
Since the first issue of Volition in fall of 2006 (formerly known as Apathy), the publication’s mission has been to unite Mason’s artistic community and serve as a showcase for undergraduate creativity. Publishing original poetry, prose, and visual art, Volition seeks to elevate emerging artists and writers while fostering free expression
on campus.
“Well-deserved but not surprising; both editorial teams consistently create publications that are the best of the best in college media journals,” said Mason Student Media Director Kathryn Mangus.
“I am extremely proud of Mason’s student publications and thrilled to see these two journals recognized nationally by the Pacemaker committee,” said Volition and HCR faculty advisor Jason Hartsel. “Each individual issue is the culmination of many hours of hard work, creativity, and hands-on learning by our talented students, and this award will no doubt inspire future teams to leave behind their own legacy of distinction.”
“It is a profound honor to support this amazing group of students as they share narratives that celebrate Hispanic culture and foster cross-cultural understanding—especially through Mason’s only bilingual literary journal,” said HCR faculty advisor Carla Burns. “I’m continually impressed by their dedication and so proud of this important accomplishment.”
Gary Lundgren, ACP associate director and coordinator of the Pacemaker competition, noted the quality of the winning student magazines rivals those produced by professionals: “The verbal and visual storytelling in the winning magazines is incredible and robust long-form stories combined with shorter quick-reads to pace the reader through the pages of the feature magazines,” Lundgren said. “And the creativity displayed in the literary arts magazines is incredible — the unique formats and creative designs make the magazines themselves a work of art.”