Cabrera’s First Year Brings Excitement and Collaboration

by Rashad Mulla

Cabrera’s First Year Brings Excitement and Collaboration

“I’m a very lucky guy, and this is an amazing job.”

Ángel Cabrera, president of George Mason University, calmly and sincerely shared this assessment, as if his day did not include an hour-long magazine interview, sandwiched between attending a four-hour research presentation at Mason’s Arlington Campus and an employee of the month ceremony in his office.

Cabrera, whose tenure at Mason started on July 1, 2012, has been hard at work during his first year on the job. His days feature nonstop meetings with current students, potential students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, community members, Board of Visitors members, business leaders, CEOs, government officials in both Richmond and Washington, D.C., and even more people internationally. Some of the early numbers depicting his sheer workload are staggering (see sidebar, below).

Within his first year, there was also the not-so-small matter of hosting three presidential campaign visits.

So go his days. As a result, he is extremely busy and pressed for time. A schedule such as his is enough to leave anyone exhausted, but Cabrera remains excited. His passion for the university shines through, and as he says, it dwarfs any lingering effects of fatigue.

“If we make the right decisions here, we are positively affecting the lives of thousands of people,” he explains. “The best part of my job is the sense of purpose, of impact, and the moments I’m exposed to those, such as when I am blown away by a student conversation or when I meet a faculty member such as Cynthia Lum and find out about her work in translational criminology. Those are the best moments.”

One of the first tasks as president is getting to know as much about the university as possible, an endeavor he has immersed himself in through various speaking engagements; student, faculty, and staff events; listening tours; and other means. Equally important, of course, is the work of building relationships with the various constituencies affected by Mason. This effort means meeting with people both within and outside the university to discuss issues such as learning, teaching, scholarship, research, and funding.

Perhaps Cabrera’s most ambitious endeavor is the new Mason Vision process (details available at vision.gmu.edu), which aims to formulate and concisely articulate the Mason idea, along with the university’s mission, values, ideal characteristics of Mason graduates, and commitments. Cabrera has gathered information for this process through town hall meetings, working groups, and a MasonLeads appreciative inquiry event. The Board of Visitors approved the Mason Vision on March 21, 2013.

“I am a big believer in the power of a well-articulated mission and vision, and we need an inspirational and aspirational vision that shows what we want to do together,” Cabrera says. “We are a complex community. We embrace diversity and embody different interests and views, and we need a narrative that binds us together.”

The entire university has been involved in shaping this process.

“As we move forward, we want to embed our growth with strategy and find out what our goals are,” says Alex Williams, student body president. “By collaborating with the university community, we can all better understand for ourselves where we are heading. And once that vision is offcial, it will help us as students better understand how we can work together and play a role in achieving all our goals.”

Williams, a graduating senior double majoring in history and government and international politics, thought that Cabrera’s open vision process allowed him to remain directly involved in shaping matters crucial to the university’s future.

“The students are the center of what we do,” Cabrera says. “They are not at the bottom of the totem pole, they are at the top, and it is absolutely essential that we all remember that. We exist for the students.”

From her vantage point as chair of the Faculty Senate at Mason, June Tangney, professor in the Department of Psychology, is mindful of this critical period in the university’s history. Along with a new president, Mason has seen some turnover in senior leadership, and she is pleased that the transition is going so smoothly.

“This is a really exciting time for the university, and it is important for the faculty to be at the table for a lot of the decisions that will affect the university, now and into the future,” Tangney says. “Ordinarily, with the pace of change, there would be a lot more anxiety in other organizations, but my sense is that the overarching feeling is one of excitement.”

Cabrera brings with him freshness and intellectual curiosity. In his formidable academic background, he has written papers on psychology, engineering, business, management, and other subjects. He has broad interests and enjoys learning more—embodied by his visit to the four-hour research presentation on Internet censorship.

And regardless of his packed schedule, Cabrera approaches each meeting with an impressive sense of interest.

Hamza Hawkins, a home-schooled high school student who will attend Mason in the fall, recently visited the university for a tour, which included what he assumed would be a quick in-and-out meeting with the man in charge. Instead, Hawkins, who is interested in business, technology, and entrepreneurship, experienced much more.

“He was friendly and approachable; and he was active, responsive; and he was smiling when he was talking to me,” Hawkins says. “We talked about our interests in technology, social media, and entrepreneurship. When I told him about my new business, Snikwah Interactive (an app development company), he stood up, ran out of the room, and introduced me to his staff.”

If such tales of interaction seem unexpected, they shouldn’t be.

With President Ángel Cabrera at the helm, all constituencies are at the top of the totem pole.