Schar School Featured Stories

It is no surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) continues to redefine the workplace, becoming a pervasive force reshaping how we, as a society, live, work, and interact with one another. Much of today’s discourse on AI centers on the productivity and efficiency component of automation. Yet, in the journey to understand just how much AI can do, there is minimal attention given to what AI reveals about the society that is using it. So what happens when a group of five ODKMers takes on the challenge to shift the narrative of AI away from a technology lens towards a relational one?

When ODKM graduates walk across the stage, they don't stop being students of organization development and knowledge management — they simply change classrooms. That's the idea behind our ODKM Continuing Education Program, designed to keep our alumni community learning, growing, and connected long after graduation.

This past academic year (August 2025 to May 2026), the faculty began a push to expand alumni participation throughout the ODKM program by recruiting graduates into our classrooms to support students, and alumni enthusiastically responded to our call.

On May 12, 2026, ODKM lost one of the program’s guiding minds: Dr. Ann Crooks Baker passed away peacefully at her home in Woodstock, Georgia, at age 81, closing out a life that spanned from the classrooms of South Carolina to the halls of George Mason University, touching so many in between.

Beginning in fall 2026, students in the International Relations Policy Task Force Learning Community will tackle four priority policy area projects for the U.S. State Department.

Irma Garcia always had a goal of earning a college degree. Now, at age 72, she will graduate with a bachelor's degree in public administration degree from the Schar School.

Saddam Salim came from Bangladesh as an 8-year-old. After bouts of homelessness and reliance on public support, the 2012 and 2015 Schar School graduate is now a Virginia state senator. But his public service journey is hardly over: He is now running for Congress. Read what the keynote speaker at the Degree Celebration will tell the audience on May 16.

Meet the Schar School graduate students who are stepping up as adjunct instructors, bringing fresh perspective and real-time insight to Encore Learning’s vibrant community of lifelong learners over 50. Read how they discovered teaching is an extension of learning.

A mistranslation in a medical setting can be dangerous. Two Schar School scholars developed an AI-generated platform to overcome language barriers—and have already won an award for it.

George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government earned strong marks in the latest U.S. News & World Report graduate rankings, with five MPA specialty areas in the top 30 nationally and all seven in the top 50. The rankings also highlight the school’s leadership in Virginia and the broader DMV region.