During the 2021 Spring Town Hall, Campus Dean Robert Matz of George Mason University Korea announced the revival of the Advisory Board, a body of Mason Korea which had disbanded after the departure of former George Mason University Korea President Lee. This organization, Matz explained, would assist Mason Korea with its three-year plan to manage the loss of government subsidization.
“When I came, I started working on putting together a new advisory board. It took some time as I met people and made connections,” Matz told The Voice. “ I didn’t put together the board right away as I needed some time to meet people.”
The new Advisory Board consists of two branches, one in the United States and one in Korea. Each branch has two meetings annually, with both branches coming together for a video meeting once a year. The membership of each branch consists of “very talented and accomplished” individuals, chosen by Matz and his leadership team, representing a diversity of backgrounds, including government, academia, business, and even a Mason Korea alum.
“As the name suggests, they give us advice,” Matz explained. “Partly, it’s advice on academic directions we might go, where they see demand in Korea for different fields. It also might be advice on areas of consulting with businesses or research centers, connections especially we can make in the external community, community service projects… all sorts of ways that Mason Korea could have an impact in the community. As people who are very prominent in their own communities, we ask them to help get the word out about Mason Korea. They’re ambassadors for Mason Korea.”
In addition, the Advisory Board could provide students with career opportunities.
“It could be anything from giving lectures here about making a job letter, networking for a job, other kinds of strategies for your career search, but also pointing our graduates to businesses they know of that are particularly interested in the kinds of students that Mason Korea educates – multilingual, majors, critical thinkers – and also helps us make contact with areas in business, government, NGOs for internships. We really hope they will help us find more internship opportunities.”
Furthermore, Matz hoped that the members of the Advisory Board would help Mason Korea provide its students financial assistance.
“Also in terms of student support, we are looking especially for more support in terms of scholarships. To the extent that they can help us find and persuade philanthropic supporters, either individuals or corporations, to fund things like scholarships for our students, we want the advisory board to work on that.”
According to Matz, the Advisory Board is already making progress.
“They’re starting to work on it. I’ve had one conversation with one board member about some internship opportunities in the US that we’re working on. We just started this February, so I can’t remember what we’ve done with the Korea side yet. But they are starting to work on it.”
In conclusion, Matz said he was optimistic of the positive contributions the Advisory Board would bring to Mason Korea.
“I think that it’s a good development for Mason Korea and I think that, again, these are people who have accomplished a lot and I think that they’ll have a lot of good ideas for us. I’m looking forward to working with them.”
Philip Kim, Staff Writer
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