CULTURE CULTURE FACES OF MASON delves into the lives of Mason students, faculty or alumni, and organizations every week. This week we take a close look at student Saba Giorgis, faculty Eric McGlinchey, and organizations Circle K International and Asian Pacific American Coalition (APAC) INTERVIEWS BY YIJIE ZHU, RUTH MEKONNEN, AND HAILEY BULLIS
S T U D E N T, S A B A G I O R G I S What are you studying at Mason?
What are you most memorable moments at Mason?
I'm majoring in communication with a concentration in public relations (PR). It’s an exciting time to get into this field seeing as the ways and methods corporations, organizations and people are interacting is changing so rapidly thanks to social media. I was drawn to that aspect of PR, and my goal is to hopefully work with NGOs [non-governmental organizations] in D.C.
I remember I knew next to no one my first year, and before I knew it I had so many friends and professors who made the long days fun and exciting. Every coffee-fueled study session where literally no work was done and lunches in the JC [Johnson Center] have been memorable including the late nights, but my mom will read this so I'm staying quiet.
What is your special connection to/with Mason?
PHOTO COURTESY OF NUHAMI ALEMU
You spend enough time in a campus and it really grows on you, and I love Mason. I had all my best experiences here, first job opportunities, and it's the place that has helped me figure out my goals. My sister has decided to apply to Mason as well. Who are your biggest influencers? My biggest influence and role model is my aunt Nardos Giorgis. She was responsible for campaigning for morphine production in my native country, Ethiopia, where there wasn't enough being produced. Pain relief is a human right, and so through her tireless advocacy and work there is now enough morphine production in the country and a little less pain being felt. I admire her greatly.
How do you respond–emotionally, practically, etc.– when you’re challenged? Conflict has always been a tough one to navigate for me. I’m very hesitant to lay out my arguments when facing a challenge because I value peace above comfort. But that’s changing, and I’ve learned to be more assertive and handle it calmly—unless it’s about Netflix show choices, then all bets are off. What is an important career goal for you to reach? I would really like to learn all I can and work with NGOs here, especially in global health or in women's health issues, like raising awareness about NCDs [noncommunicable diseases] and NTDs [neglected tropical diseases]. I also want to go back to Ethiopia and use my experience towards the improvement of my country in these areas. That would be fantastic. I'd also like to be obscenely rich.
FA C U LT Y, E R I C M C G L I N C H E Y What do you teach? Right now, I am teaching Introduction to Comparative Politics. I have also taught Central Asian politics at the undergraduate level. What made you concentrate in Central Asia?
PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIC MCGLINCHEY
I did my junior year in college in Russia in a town called Yaroslavl, and … I’ve been studying Russian since I was in 6th grade. I also spent my junior year of college in Russia, and then I had a fellowship where I spent the year after college in Russia. That year after college I became very interested in rock climbing and mountaineering and Russia is really flat for the most part … but I took out a map of the former Soviet Union, and I looked at where the biggest mountains were, and they were in Central Asia. So I got on a train having never been to Central Asia before with just my backpack, and three days, maybe four days later, I was in Kyrgyzstan looking at the massive mountains. Why do you think students should take your class? What I hope is that after taking my class and putting in the considerable effort it demands, students can then take the knowledge from that class and ... apply it to any other class here in the Schar School. But then you can also equally apply it to economics… just about any social sciences, but also it is the basic model of scientific inquiry that you can use for any class. So you and your colleagues I hope will
leave the class with the tools to study science broadly. You can use the scientific method to answer any question, and that’s powerful. It will save people an infinite amount of time when it comes to reading, because you don’t have to actually sit down and read an entire article. You will know that every article that uses the scientific method [has] a particular structure and you can decode that structure, which will be much more efficient in your reading … Those papers that you are asked to write, often we are asking you to use the scientific method. If you know those approaches, you won’t be chasing … you’ll know exactly what to do and the steps to proceed around to write a paper that is cohesive and logically sound. What are some of your hobbies? Definitely rock climbing. I love rock climbing. Unfortunately, I don’t get outside rock climbing as much. I have two kids and it’s a big time commitment, but I’ll get out maybe five times a year so that’s probably my first love. The thing that I do the most though is trail running. On Saturday, I ran [a] 31-mile trail on Massanutten Mountain from Front Royal down to Lauray essentially… and that’s something that works better for the time constraints. Climbing trips tend to be long, but running is something that you can do on the weekends … so running is the thing that I do more frequently. I am preparing for a 100-mile run for May called the Massanutten Mountain Train 100 Mile Run.