Transforming the George Mason Student Experience
George Mason is implementing a new platform designed to enhance the student journey called Patriot Connect. Patriot Connect is built on Salesforce Education Cloud, a cloud-based platform that provides a comprehensive view of the entire student lifecycle, ensuring that each student receives seamless and personalized support. Patriot Connect is one tool with two primary offerings rolled out in sequential releases. Release 1: Student Success launched in April 2025, replacing Navigate. George Mason will phase in Release 2: Recruitment and Admissions in 2026, replacing TargetX.
Patriot Connect: Student Success offers a centralized online platform for students to schedule appointments, review meeting notes, and engage with student support services including academic advising, student success coaching, learning services, and more.
Patriot Connect: Recruitment and Admissions will enhance engagement between the university and applicants through streamlined application management, a dynamic applicant portal, efficient document management, and improved reporting capabilities.
Why Patriot Connect?
Our students are at the heart of what we do here at George Mason. The implementation of Patriot Connect will allow us to modernize and create a more connected student experience, enabling success through simplified and efficient student services. This university-wide transformation prioritizes leveraging a 360-degree view of each student to provide personalized support services tailored to their unique needs.
What is Student Success?
Patriot Connect: Student Success enables our student support services community, such as advisors, success coaches, and others to effectively manage and access information regarding the student experience at George Mason.
Patriot Connect: Student Success features:
- Enable students to schedule appointments with academic advisors, success coaches, and program coordinators, and access student support services
- Capture advising interactions and notes, creating a comprehensive student advising record
- Provide a mechanism to make referrals to other student support services and track referral status
- Provide a centralized student contact record, offering a holistic view of each student
What is Recruitment and Admissions?
Patriot Connect: Recruitment and Admissions will enable enrollment management faculty and staff to effectively manage the student outreach, application, admissions, and enrollment processes, including event management.
Patriot Connect: Recruitment and Admissions features inlcude:
- Mobile-friendly applicant portal to give applicants one place to start and view their applications and engage with admissions faculty and staff
- Centralized tool in which admissions faculty and staff will process and evaluate all applications
- Efficient invitation, registration, and event management for college fairs, tours, and orientation
- Seamlessly integrated with Patriot Connect: Student Success under a single login, creating a connected student journey from prospect to graduation
Patriot Connect Mission Statement
The Patriot Connect Mission Statement and the five guiding principles below have been developed by the Patriot Connect team. They are intended to provide clear direction and purpose, serving as a framework for program decision-making in alignment with our shared goals and values.
George Mason University is committed to student success by leveraging innovative technology to address student needs, providing a modern and inclusive experience that fosters connections and personal growth while promoting excellence throughout their academic journey.
Guiding Principles
Foster collaboration and consistency:
Ensure staff and faculty adopt and provide shared, efficient, and collaborative services across academic and administrative units to enable consistent student experiences and minimize confusion.
Optimize data for impact:
Provide consistent, standardized data to enable impactful insights that inform decision-making and align university resources to enhance scalability and efficiency.
Continually improve and evolve:
Continuously improve and enhance university systems and processes by leveraging qualitative and quantitative data, delivering value to meet modern student needs.
Prioritize student success:
Equip staff and faculty with a tool to empower students to achieve their goals by fostering engagement that prioritizes both student development and degree completion.
Provide holistic student support:
Foster an inclusive and informed environment that combines human and technology resources to offer holistic support that is customized to the needs of a modern and contemporary student.
Questions? Check out the FAQs. The Patriot Connect Program Management Team welcomes you to provide general comments, and feedback through our Let’s Connect form!