Contemporary Student Services

Graduation spotlight series: Doing it all at once

tdonnel — Tue, 12 May 2026 19:55:20 +0000

Graduation spotlight series: Doing it all at once tdonnel Tue, 05/12/2026 - 15:55

When Duong Thuy Nguyen first emailed her graduate teaching assistant (GTA) for IT104 Introduction to Computing, she wasn’t sure what to call him—GTA Reddy or Professor Reddy? She was, as she puts it, “that naive.” She had just returned to college after years away, caring for her family, working full time, while carrying the weight of a culture that had pointed her toward a different life entirely. She wasn’t sure she could do any of it.

Duong Thuy Nguyen represents the College of Engineering and Computing as a Peer Mentor during a 91�� Visit Day. Photo provided.

This May, she’s graduating from 91�� with a 4.0 GPA, an Academic Excellence Award from her department, a Capstone team leadership under her belt, and two published feature articles about her work—and in the fall, she’ll be back as a graduate student in George Mason’s accelerated bachelor’s-to-master’s program.

Nguyen immigrated to the United States from Vietnam in 2015. College, especially after a long pause, wasn’t the expected path for her. But her family pushed her toward it. “You have so much potential… just try,” she recalled being told.

Nguyen came to George Mason as a contemporary student. An immigrant adult learner who also works, she navigates the tension between family responsibilities and schoolwork in every classroom, every late night studying after work, and she often wondered whether someone like her belonged in a place like this. “I can feel both the excitement of going back to college and the worry of what if I couldn’t do this,” she said.

The people who showed up

From left, Alayna M. Brooker, Duong Thuy Nguyen, and Mansi Puthenveettil serve as Peer Mentor panelists during a College of Engineering and Computing Spotlight Day event at Dewberry Hall. Photo provided.

She took an academic leave in the spring of 2023 after family duties became too overwhelming. When she returned, she felt the distance from her peers acutely—older, quieter, uncertain of her place. What pulled her forward was a support system at George Mason that refused to let her disappear.

Professor Irina Hashmi gave her credit for quiz answers lost to a frozen screen, taking her word for it when she didn’t have to. Professor Scott Lewis listened to her story in his office hours when exhaustion broke through, and gave her career advice instead of sending her away. Professor Gene Shuman stayed after every class to work through concepts she was still wrestling with. Professor Massimiliano Albanese chose her for a cybersecurity internship that eventually opened the door to her current position at the Fairfax County Office of Elections.

“The whole Mason Nation, like every single one that I work with or study with…they are so supportive,” said Nguyen.

Nguyen and Associate Dean Jill Nelson of the College of Engineering and Computing. Nguyen calls Nelson “the most supportive and amazing supervisor.” Photo provided.

That support gave her enough ground to start taking risks. As a Peer Mentor for the Office of Undergraduate Studies at the College of Engineering and Computing, she showed up to her first event expecting to greet prospective students at a table. Instead, she found herself on stage as a panelist, fielding interview questions alongside an associate dean, sweating through her nerves in front of a room full of people. She made it through. After that, she became one of the program’s recurring panelists—the woman who’d been too shy to speak up in class, now telling prospective students to join organizations early and reach out before they think they need to.

From the audience to the stage

The biggest test came in her capstone project, a two-semester sequence she entered convinced she wasn’t cut out to lead. Her accent, she assumed, meant people wouldn’t listen. It was easier, she had always believed, to do everything herself than to ask for help and risk depending on someone.

Capstone—and Professor Gail Therrien, who designed the program—changed that by making her team lead. She learned to divide responsibilities, to speak up, to give her teammates room to show their own strengths. When her team’s work began to accumulate across two semesters, she arrived at something she hadn’t expected: that she is, indeed, “good enough.”

Nguyen and her Capstone teammates following their presentation. Photo provided.

Beyond the classroom, she built a life on campus — joining Contemporary Student Services, Women in Cybersecurity, the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers, and Girls Who Code, an international nonprofit working to close the gender gap in tech.

“I realized that the first person who needs to believe in me is me,” she said. “If I don’t trust myself, I can’t earn the trust of others, and I certainly can’t lead a team to success.”

Today, she works full-time and cares for her family. She still sleeps two or three hours during the hard weeks. Somewhere in between, she is running on coffee and the same determination that got her here in the first place. She is still, in many ways, doing everything at once.

“I never in a million years thought that I could get this far,” she said.

Note: This story was written by Tiffany Boggs, Student Media, and edited by Chelsea Xu, UL Marketing and Communications. It was originally published on 91��'s University Life website.

In This Story

Massimiliano Albanese

Explore the College of Engineering and Computing

2026 Spring Commencement Information

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information technology

University Life

Contemporary Student Services

Patriot Profile: Valeria Fernandez

Rebecca Kobayashi — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 18:21:51 +0000

Patriot Profile: Valeria Fernandez Rebecca Kobayashi Tue, 04/09/2024 - 14:21

Valeria Fernandez

Year: Senior

Major: Psychology

Hometown: Woodbridge, Virginia

Valeria Fernandez’s journey as a fellow with Generation Hope’s FamilyU* began even before she arrived on campus. The mother of a three-year-old, Fernandez realized when applying to Mason that the housing application did not account for the needs of student-parents, so she raised the issue and potential solutions in a FamilyU interview. Fernandez, who had just finished an associate’s degree in psychology at Northern Virginia Community College, was selected as Mason’s FamilyU fellow for the 2022–23 cohort.

Valeria Fernandez and her daughter in the child-friendly Contemporary Student Lounge on the Fairfax Campus. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

Growing into Leadership: Each FamilyU fellow develops an advocacy project during the year. To help address the gap in student-parent mental health care at Mason, Fernandez created a child-friendly support group that focused on mindfulness activities. “Even when I encountered people who would admit to having zero concept of what it’s like to be a student-parent, [Mason] was still a safe, welcoming environment.” She now has greater pride and confidence as a student-parent because of the peers and others she met at Mason who were willing to listen. For Fernandez, it was also encouraging to meet other parents who were pursuing personal dreams alongside raising children.

Advocating for a New Normal: Fernandez says some problems, like how difficult it is for student-parents to meet each other, have simple remedies, like highlighting child-friendly campus activities; but others require long-term solutions, such as changing assumptions about the typical college student. For example, inflexible online tests or assignments present challenges to student-parents with limited child care who may need to schedule an alternate time. Faculty members should recognize that students, whether parenting or working, “have lives outside of being students,” explains Fernandez. “And that doesn't mean that they have less respect for your course.”

Building Momentum: Fernandez currently works as a student-parent ambassador with Mason’s Contemporary Student Services. The mindfulness group she created grew into Student Parent Community Spaces, where student-parents can connect with each other and learn about university services. She is also working to increase student-parent visibility at Mason for potential transfer students. Sometimes her daughter even accompanies her to campus, which Fernandez says she feels comfortable doing because of relationships she is building with colleagues. She has applied to graduate programs at Mason and elsewhere with the goal of someday working in forensic psychology or perhaps pursuing teaching.

* Mason alum Nicole Lynn Lewis, MPP ’06, founded the nonprofit Generation Hope to support young parents and their children as parents pursue further education. Read more about her.

Mason honored for an innovative approach to serving contemporary students

lclarkg — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 20:50:17 +0000

Mason honored for an innovative approach to serving contemporary students lclarkg Wed, 01/31/2024 - 15:50

More about Contemporary Student Services

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Contemporary Student Services

91��’s Contemporary Student Services has been recognized by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), a leading voice for student affairs, for its innovative approach to serving post-traditional and off-campus students.

Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

Contemporary Student Services (CSS), part of University Life, earned the Bronze Excellence Award for supporting success in "Commuter, Off Campus, Military-Affiliated, Non-Traditional, and Other" student populations. Mason’s approach to serving these students sets it apart from other institutions of higher education. The CSS office launched in 2019 as a first-of-its-kind unit dedicated to serving the multifaceted identities of contemporary students at Mason.

The choice to include a variety of post-traditional student populations under one umbrella was intentional. At Mason, “contemporary students” include those who are adult learners (25 and older), living off-campus, transfer students, married/widowed/divorced, veteran or military-affiliated, returning to college after taking three or more years off, pregnant or parenting, or previously in the foster-care system. The definition is flexible and may continue to grow.

“Contemporary Student Services provides the latitude to evolve alongside our student population and remain flexible and inclusive,” said Joisanne Rodgers, director of Contemporary Student Services. “Mason didn't take the path of creating individual units to serve specific contemporary populations, because most contemporary students hold more than one of those identities—for example, they're a military-affiliated student parent living off-campus. The Venn diagram of contemporary student identities has a lot of intersections.”

Kids Zone in the Contemporary Student Lounge. Photo by Joisanne Rodgers/Contemporary Student Services

The Contemporary Student Lounge, in The Hub on the Fairfax Campus, is a place of refuge and support for these students. The space includes a well-equipped Kid’s Zone with age-appropriate furnishings, books, and activities. The lounge is staffed with contemporary student employees and peer mentors who help serve these students and connect them to the broader Mason community. The space has proven to be a vital resource. Last year, the lounge relocated to a larger space to accommodate the growing number of students using it.

"It's a great privilege to work with a team of innovators who not only put our students first, but also work incredibly hard to ensure we're seeing and recognizing the unique students in front of us,” Rodgers said. “The contemporary student population at Mason keeps growing, and we're honored to be part of the support network and village that advocates, celebrates, educates, and serves our contemporary students.”

Mason will be formally recognized for its work in Contemporary Student Services at the NASPA annual conference in March. View the complete list of awardees.

A graduation walk in the clouds for this first-gen student

ckearney — Mon, 01 May 2023 14:17:03 +0000

A graduation walk in the clouds for this first-gen student ckearney Mon, 05/01/2023 - 10:17

Angelo Collington has been waiting to walk across a graduation stage for about 12 years.

Angelo Collington with his wife, Shinikal Dean, and with daughters Mya, 5, and Kennedy, 2. Photo provided

First, a paperwork snafu, in which he said his high school erroneously claimed he never earned a diploma, kept him home during the graduation ceremony. Then, COVID shut down Northern Virginia Community College’s 2021 ceremony.

So when Collington, a senior psychology major at 91��, walks across the graduation stage in May, it will be something special.

“Finally,” he said. “Being able to walk across the stage will be a very happy experience.”

Collington, 31, of Ashburn, Virginia, already had a graduation celebration at Mason’s event for “contemporary students,” those in nontraditional categories such as adult learners, transfer students, parenting students, students who are married, students with military affiliations, and students who were previously in foster care.

Collington, married to Mason alum Shinikal Dean, BA Sociology ’13, and with daughters Mya, 5, and Kennedy, 2, checks many of those boxes.

He is also a first-generation student and was part of the first cohort of students in the ADVANCE Program, the groundbreaking partnership between Mason and Northern Virginia Community College that provides a streamlined path toward a bachelor’s degree.

Between juggling his studies and his job as an IT specialist for CACI, it took Collington nearly five years to complete his degree. But his impact was clear, even becoming a peer leader in ADVANCE, a member of the Contemporary Student Services Advisory Board, and contributing to a panel with Mason President Gregory Washington about helping students who are parents.

“Being a student-parent, the dedication he’s had and the commitment to balance both, he does embody the spirit of ADVANCE,” said Rita Snyder-Furr, associate director in Mason’s Office of Community College Partnerships. “Anytime there was an opportunity to collaborate and improve the program, he was always there to support it.”

“He was reliable, and I knew he was someone I could count on,” said Caroline Simpson, coordinator for contemporary students in the office of Contemporary Student Services. “For many students, graduation highlights the next step in their life. But for contemporary students, they were already balancing life with being a student. Finishing their degree shows a lot of perseverance.”

Collington made an impression in the classroom, too, especially in PSYCH 461, a thoughtful special topics class that looks at the rehabilitation of children who commit serious crimes.

“It’s a very serious forensics area,” said Sybil Smith-Gray, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology who taught the class. “He was very focused and asked great questions. You could tell he’s not just dialing it in.”

“George Mason is a great university,” Collington said. “It’s so diverse, you never know who you’re going to run into. The professors truly care about you and, then, just an overall great environment.”

Collington, whose concentration is in developmental psychology, said he wants to earn his master’s degree and do community work in the areas of mental health and health disparities.

For now, though, he will turn his attention to his family—in particular watching the kids to allow Dean, his wife, to pursue her master’s in either business administration or public administration, perhaps even back at Mason.

“The fact that she has been the backbone to let me pursue my education while she watched the children is very supportive,” Collington said. “It’s not an individual effort. We’re a team.”

“We’re both equally involved with our children,” Dean said. “We don’t look at it like this is a ‘mom’ role and a ‘dad’ role. This is a parent role.”

Collington’s family was with him when he celebrated with Mason’s other contemporary students. They will be with him at a big family cookout to celebrate his graduation. And they certainly will be there when he finally walks across the graduation stage.

Just thinking about it, Collington said, “I’m on cloud nine.”