The Mason Impact program prepares students to tackle significant global questions and challenges by investigating meaningful questions, engaging multiple perspectives, and creating new knowledge.
Mason Impact (MI) courses and Mason Impact Plus (MI+) courses are offered through every college and school. MI courses provide the skills and knowledge for you to tackle global questions. MI+ courses engage you in a project—specializing in one focus area—that makes an impact.
MI has three areas of focus:
- Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities (RS): For students who want to create new knowledge through research, ingenuity, and imagination.
- Community Engagement and Civic Learning (CECL): For students who are passionate about working to generate social change, whether in a small community, the nation, or the world.
- Career, Industry, and Entrepreneurship (ENTR): For students who see a problem as an opportunity to discover a solution, start a business, or create a prototype.
By completing a MI project, you will tackle a global question with the support of faculty and staff. When you graduate, you'll get a special notation on your transcript that tells the world about your accomplishments.
MI Learning Outcomes
- Understand knowledge creation: Students will understand how knowledge is generated and communicated, and how it can be used to address questions or problems in disciplines and in society.
- Engage multiple perspectives: Students will be able to identify and negotiate multiple perspectives, work collaboratively within and across multiple social and environmental contexts, and engage ethically with their subject and with others.
- Investigate a meaningful question: Students will use inquiry skills to articulate a question; engage in an inquiry process; and situate the concepts, practices, or results within a broader context. Students will be able to:
- Ask increasingly complex questions about significant problems, debates, or challenges
- Evaluate and choose inquiry methods that are appropriate to a project
- Explain how a project has value to local, civic, professional, scholarly, or global contexts
MI + (RS, CECL, ENTR)/Co-Curricular Learning Outcomes
- Understand knowledge creation: Students will understand how knowledge is generated and communicated, and how it can be used to address questions or problems in disciplines and in society.
- Engage multiple perspectives: Students will be able to identify and negotiate multiple perspectives, work collaboratively within and across multiple social and environmental contexts, and engage ethically with their subject and with others.
- Investigate a meaningful question: Students will use inquiry skills to articulate a question; engage in an inquiry process; and situate the concepts, practices, or results within a broader context.
- Complete a project: Students will design and carry out an individual or collaborative project that explores an original question, seeks a creative solution to a problem, applies knowledge to a professional challenge, or offers a unique perspective. Students engage deeply in this original work.
- Communicate and share outcomes: Students will communicate knowledge from their project through presentation, publication, or performance to an audience beyond the classroom.
Contact Us
The Mason Impact team is part of the Office of Undergraduate Education. We are located on the Fairfax Campus in the Johnson Center, Room 228.
For more information about Mason Impact, contact us by e-mail or call us at 703-993-3794.