Summary
Make the most of your first year at George Mason University with the Schar School of Policy and Government’s living-learning community, “the Democracy Lab.” This academic community is an immersive environment that will broaden your perspective and hone your ability to engage on difficult topics.
In partnership with Mason’s Housing & Residence Life, the Schar School’s “Democracy Lab,” is a learning experience open to all first-year Mason undergraduate students living on campus. Through the learning community, you will engage with the issues that define the journey of democracy in the United States and around the world. Plus, you’ll build a strong network of students, professors, mentors, and advisors that will stay with you throughout your time at Mason and long after you graduate.
OnAir Post: Democracy Lab
About
Democracy Lab students build relationships with Schar School faculty and peers, engage with policy practitioners, and develop essential skills of citizenship. Opportunities for participating students include:
- Networking opportunities with influential guest speakers. Former and future speakers include Fairfax City Election Administrator Ike Beretz, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D, VA-11), former CIA Director General Hayden, and Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and Schar School professor Steven Pearlstein
- Study abroad trips and field trips, including a 3-week credit-bearing course in Jordan in May 2023, and customized trips to prominent institutions in and around the DMV area including the U.S. Institute of Peace and Smithsonian Museums.
- Enrolling in a designated section of GOVT 101 designed for Democracy Lab students.
- Notable research opportunities, including “the Voter Turnout Study”, led by LC faculty director Jennifer Victor
Web Links
Director, Jennifer Victor
Jennifer Nicoll Victor is an associate professor of political science at George Mason University’s Schar School Policy and Government.
She studies the U.S. Congress, legislative organization and behavior, social network methods, political parties, campaign finance, organized interest groups, and lobbying. She is the coeditor of the Oxford Handbook of Political Networks (2017). Victor is the coauthor (with Nils Ringe) of Bridging the Information Gap: Legislative Member Organizations in the United States and the European Union (U. Michigan Press 2013). She has published research in the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, American Politics Research, Party Politics, Interest Groups & Advocacy, P.S.: Political Science and Politics, and elsewhere. In 2019, she was awarded George Mason University’s Teaching Excellence Award.
Victor is a cofounding contributor to the political science blog “Mischiefs of Faction,” and is a contributing writer for GEN by Medium. Her public scholarship has also appeared in the New York Times, The Conversation, OUPblog, and LSE U.S. Politics blog. She serves on the Board of Directors of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, is the past president of the National Capital Area Political Science Association, and past chair of the APSA-organized section on Political Networks.
In 2005, she served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in the office of Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND). From 2003-12, she was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh. She joined the faculty at George Mason University in 2012.
She holds a BA in political science from University of California, San Diego (Magna Cum Laude, 1997), and an MA (1999) and PhD (2003) in political science from Washington University in St. Louis.
Areas of Research
- Campaign Finance
- Elections
- Interest Groups
- Legislatures
- Quantitative Methods
- Social Network Analysis
- U.S. Politics
