Category: Spotlight

Name:

Mariel del Castillo

Role at George Mason University:

Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions

I am a Patriot Connect Change Champion for:

Undergraduate Admissions

Q: What does being a Patriot Connect Change Champion mean to you?

A: Being a Patriot Connect Change Champion is important to me as a part of the management team in my office I am happy to be able to champion this new technology for others on my team and to help provide clarity on the process.

Q: How do you see Patriot Connect helping you and your team?

A: I see Patriot Connect allowing us to connect seamlessly with other teams on campus. Working with prospective students allows us the unique opportunity to connect with so many other teams. Patriot Connect will help us keep communications clear and provide the best service to future Patriots!

Q: What is your favorite spot on campus?

A: The greenhouse on top of Exploratory.

Q: What is your favorite season on campus?

A: I love fall! Even though it is the height of travel season and I am not on campus for much of it I love seeing all the fall leaves and the fun Halloween stickers on the Starship robots.

Q: What is something you like to do outside of work?

A: Read.

Name:

Chris Williams

Role at George Mason University:

Associate Director of Graduate Recruitment and Admissions

I am a Patriot Connect Change Champion for:

College of Public Health

Q: What does being a Patriot Connect Change Champion mean to you?

A: To me, serving as a Change Champion means actively learning about Patriot Connect and sharing that knowledge within my unit. I view this role as a liaison, someone colleagues can rely on for accurate information, guidance, and support as we navigate new processes. It also means being a central point of contact for questions, feedback, and ongoing communication to help ensure a smooth and well‑informed transition.

Q: What excites you the most about Patriot Connect?

A: I am excited to learn a new system and to see how it supports the full student journey from initial inquiry through graduation. Having a single, unified platform that allows us to follow a prospective student from their first point of contact, through the application process, and throughout their time at George Mason will be incredibly valuable. I believe this integrated approach will strengthen how we track engagement, connect students with resources, and ultimately enhance the overall student experience.

Q: Ask me about…

A: George Mason or the Northern Virginia area! As a double alum with ten years of experience in various roles across campus, I am very familiar with George Mason’s resources, policies, events, etc. And if I don’t have the answer, I can usually point you to someone who does. I have also called Northern Virginia home for the past fifteen years, so I am well‑versed in the area’s best restaurants, local attractions, and hidden gems.

Q: What is your favorite spot on campus?

A: My favorite spot on campus is the Johnson Center. At the center of campus, it’s where I often run into colleagues and students throughout the day. It’s a great place to grab lunch or meet for coffee, and I frequently stop by Starbucks for a frappuccino!

Q: What is your favorite season on campus?

A: My favorite season on campus is spring. I enjoy walking across campus when the weather is warm and everyone is out and about. It’s great to see students and staff connecting with friends and colleagues, participating in events, and bringing so much activity to the university.

Name:

Christina Bizzaro

Role at George Mason University:

Senior Graduate Admissions Specialist

I am a Patriot Connect Change Champion for:

Office of Graduate Admissions

Q: What does being a Patriot Connect Change Champion mean to you?

A: To be able to represent our office and share learned knowledge with the team.

Q: What excites you the most about Patriot Connect?

A: To experience a new interface that can efficiently facilitate student success.

Q: What is your favorite spot on campus?​

A: SUB I Quad.

Q: What is your favorite season on campus?

A: Fall!

Q: What is something you like to do outside of work?

A: Taking walks with family and enjoying nature.

Name:

Dylan P. Henry

Role at George Mason University:

CRM Reports Analyst

I am a Patriot Connect Change Champion for:

Enrollment Management

Q: What excites you the most about Patriot Connect?

A: Patriot Connect is George Mason’s opportunity to achieve something that not many other colleges have accomplished: an all-in-one platform to recruit and serve our Patriots! As a data-focused person, having the ability to get pertinent data without jumping between different platforms is a dream.

Q: How do you see Patriot Connect helping you and your team?

A: Patriot Connect will allow us to have a better holistic view of our recruited students, and will be beneficial in our hand-off of our newly enrolled students to the folks to continue their George Mason journey with orientation.

Q: Who do you want to give a special shoutout to on the Patriot Connect team and why?

A: Shout out to all of our unsung heroes who are getting our current processes, applications, data-flows, migrations, and technical knowledge into Patriot Connect! It’s not an easy job, but I’m very thankful for their knowledge and hard work to leave no stone unturned!

Q: Ask me about…​

A: Ask me about learning to play musical instruments, and why Sprite isn’t a soda!

Q: What is something you like to do outside of work?

A: I love to spend time with my wife and son, I love to play music (I play 6 instruments), and I love to build LEGO.

Name:

Wren Badalis

Role at George Mason University:

Senior Regional Admissions Counselor- Tidewater

I am a Patriot Connect Change Champion for:

Freshman Admissions

Q: What does being a Patriot Connect Change Champion mean to you?

A: To me, being a Change Champion means being an advocate for my team during such a big transition that will have an impact on almost everything we do on a day to day basis. I can help make sure my team gets the information they need for the transition to be a success, and also be their voice as issues and questions arise so they feel heard and valued in the change, even if they are not directly on any of the implementation teams.

Q: What excites you the most about Patriot Connect?

A: I am most excited for the arrival of a full lifecycle Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system so both staff and students have continuity and consistency throughout the entire George Mason journey. With all of the departments joining Patriot Connect, we’ll be better able to serve students and less information will get lost in the shuffle when students are seeking help with issues.

Q: What is your favorite spot on campus?

A: The deLaski Performing Arts Building.

Q: What is your favorite season on campus?​

A: Winter! I am a cold weather, snow-loving person through and through, so seeing campus covered in snow is one of my favorites.

Q: What is something you like to do outside of work?

A: I absolutely love Dungeons & Dragons, both as a player and the Dungeon Master, and have two weekly campaigns I am a part of.

Name:

Makenzie Gold Quiros

Role at George Mason University:

Assistant Director of Housing Operations & Special Projects

I am a Patriot Connect Change Champion for:

Housing and Residence Life

Q: What excites you the most about Patriot Connect?

A: Ever heard of the Mason Shuffle? Patriot Connect is here to help end it! George Mason is a massive place. It is difficult to know who to go to and for what—even for us professional staff. Navigating that as a student, parent/guardian, or anyone without 10 years of higher ed experience is exceptionally challenging. Patriot Connect will give us the ability to better support our students behind the scenes, connecting us with other units, providing us with more information, and creating natural avenues to get students where they need to go with no effort on their part. It gets help to the people that need it faster, whether that’s registering for classes, navigating a difficult conversation with their new roommate, or getting registered for orientation. Easy access to resources with a few clicks? Sounds great to me!

Q: How do you see Patriot Connect helping you and your team?

A: One of my teams runs the [email protected] email, which feeds into Patriot Connect. We work with the Mason Student Services Center, who answer general housing questions and send my team the specific questions that require a housing professional. Just today, someone’s inquiry needed input from three different staff in the department from two different sub-departments. In the past, that would have taken several days of emailing and trying to hunt people down in person. Today, it took us five hours to get the student what they needed. These sorts of situations will only become more frequent as we roll out Release 2 of Patriot Connect and get more of the university into our system.

Q: What is your goal for Patriot Connect?

A: I love data! I am so looking forward to having more data on what our students’ needs are and where the gaps in our communication can be filled. Coming to university can be such an overwhelming experience—I want to be able to better support our students as they navigate that change and ask us for help along the way.

Q: Who do you want to give a special shoutout to on the Patriot Connect team and why?​

A: A massive shoutout to Tahisha Mayfield and Kim Shumadine! T has been a joyful and understanding presence in the Patriot Connect Change Champion/Training space and Kim, while not on the Patriot Connect team directly, has had massive impact on our R2 dialogue. Thank you both!

Q: What is your favorite spot on campus?

A: Those concrete slabs on the main quad between the painted announcement pillars and Southside. In the summers I like to lay out there and just bake for a bit!

Name:

Brittany Terwilliger

Role at George Mason University:

Senior Director of Strategic Enrollment

I am a Patriot Connect Change Champion for:

College of Education and Human Development (CEHD)

Q: What does being a Patriot Connect Change Champion mean to you?

A: Every Mason unit uses our current constituent relationship management (CRM) system a little bit differently, so it’s important that we all have representation during this Patriot Connect implementation to ensure the tool is set up to meet our unique needs and to bring knowledge and training back to unit faculty and staff. Being a change champion is being that dot-connector, and making sure my colleagues have the resources they need to move forward effectively.

Q: How do you see Patriot Connect helping you and your team?

A: Right now we have fragmented data and disconnected touch points. Patriot Connect is going to give us the insights we need to build more seamless engagement that will lead to stronger relationships with prospective students, current students, and alumni.

Q: What is your goal for Patriot Connect?

A: My team manages recruitment and marketing for the College of Education and Human Development, so my goal for Patriot Connect is to create a data-driven prospective student experience that supports every stage of the enrollment funnel.

Q: Who do you want to give a special shoutout to on the Patriot Connect team and why?​

A: I would like to give a special shoutout to the Enrollment Management team, who have been so engaged in every meeting, every demo, every sprint, to ensure this platform is not only built to meet our needs, but to ensure that all of the right voices are part of the conversation.

Q: What is your favorite George Mason tradition?

A: In CEHD we have an annual Celebration of Gratitude. It’s so lovely to get everyone together and remember our mission and why it matters, and to reconnect with all of the caring, committed colleagues who show up every day for our students.

Name:

Emily Quick

Role at George Mason University:

Associate Director

I am a Patriot Connect Change Champion for:

Mason Student Services Center

Q: What does being a Patriot Connect Change Champion mean to you?

A: Change is hard. It’s even harder when it feels forced or misunderstood. That’s where Change Champions come in. My role is to encourage widespread acceptance of Patriot Connect by fostering positive attitudes, communicating specific benefits for our unit, and gathering constructive feedback. Basically, being a Change Champion means being a Patriot Connect cheerleader and, at the same time, a conduit for sharing concerns back to the core planning team.

Q: What excites you the most about Patriot Connect?

A: I am really excited for Patriot Connect to serve as a central hub that connects the different areas of the university. George Mason is a very large institution, and it can be really challenging for students to navigate— especially when different student touchpoints occur across various siloed departments. Patriot Connect will bring all of these touchpoints into one central location, allowing us to provide more cohesive and comprehensive student support. I believe Patriot Connect will foster a truly student-centered experience where each student can be seen as an individual with a unique story rather than just a general student.

Q: What is your goal for Patriot Connect?

A: My goal for Patriot Connect is widespread adoption and implementation. This system can only be effective if we all commit to using it, and that is why the work of our Change Champions is so important!

Q: What is your favorite season on campus?

A: Fall— all of the leaves are so beautiful and the chilly weather feels so cozy. I especially love walking across the wooden bridges on campus and looking at all the colorful trees.

Q: What is something you like to do outside of work?

A: I love spending time with my cat, Luna, and trying new restaurants!

Name:

David Burge

Role at George Mason University:

Vice President for Enrollment Management, Office of the Provost

Role on the Patriot Connect Team:

Salesforce Executive Committee (SEC) Member for Enrollment Management

Q: What does being on the Patriot Connect team mean to you?

A: I am awestruck by the institution-wide effort that is the Patriot Connect project and I am filled with immense gratitude to the individuals who give so much each and every week to make sure it is a success. Being on the Executive team carries significant responsibilities to advocate both for our students and our staff—looking for solutions that will work for everyone, even if they are not obvious at first. I am excited that we will soon be able to use a robust, enterprise-wide engagement tool to enhance the Patriot experience for all of our students and staff.

Q: What excites you the most about Patriot Connect?

A: Personally, I am excited to learn about areas of the university that I don’t know much about—coaching and advising as two examples. Professionally, I am excited to see the creativity that our university community will bring to using this new, powerful tool. More than both, however, I am excited about the way that we are going about this implementation—with a holistic lens, developing something new with the input of all types of users, and better connecting technical staff with functional staff to make better decisions.

Q: How do you see Patriot Connect helping George Mason?

A: As Mason has grown and expanded—we only had 33,000 students when I joined the Mason community 10 years ago—all manner of processes and services have needed to change. We often have been limited by our technical tools or ability to configure those tools to meet the contemporary expectations of our students. I see Patriot Connect helping Mason break down silos between offices, leveraging automated communications to nudge students with just-in-time notifications, and better connect students to the really great things that Mason already does to encourage student success.

Q: What is your goal for Patriot Connect?

A: The immediate goal is to not lose a step while we build something bigger and better than what we have now. We have had to invest lots of time and energy into this project already and I think everyone has done a great job keeping the lights on while building something new. Five years from now I hope we are asking ourselves if we were able to do the work without Patriot Connect—feeling as though it is central to the Mason experience as Banner and Canvas have become.

Q: What is your favorite George Mason tradition?

A: My favorite Mason tradition is the annual painting of the benches by our student organizations—I seem to learn about a new club/organization each time I walk to Sub1 or the Johnson Center. I have worked at three other public universities and I have encountered nothing close to it.

Name:

Charlie Spann

Role at George Mason University:

Chief Experience Officer (CXO), Information Technology Services 

Role on the Patriot Connect Team:

Co-Chair, Salesforce Executive Committee (SEC)   

Q: What does being on the Patriot Connect team mean to you?

A: Patriot Connect is transforming the student experience at George Mason by leveraging technology. It is an amazing experience to be a part of the team that is making a significant impact to our students and enabling George Mason faculty and staff to provide improved coaching and advising, and more!

Q: What excites you the most about Patriot Connect?

A: The Patriot Connect program is much more than a software implementation. Stakeholders across George Mason are working together to improve the processes that support and enable student success. Patriot Connect is a change to the way we engage students and the way we manage information systems.

Q: How do you see Patriot Connect helping you and your team?

A: Patriot Connect will provide us with insights into the lives of George Mason students that will enable all of us to identify ways to improve the student experience. This is accomplished by analyzing student data to identify factors that contribute to success.

Q: What is your goal for Patriot Connect?

A: Adoption of Patriot Connect by faculty, staff, and students alike is key for its success. It is my goal to continuously build upon Patriot Connect functionality to maximize the return on investment and move the needle on student success.

Q: What is your favorite George Mason tradition?

A: My favorite George Mason tradition is the celebration of our independence from the University of Virginia on Mason Day, which includes Patriots marching across campus in uniform playing snare drums.