The Washington Post has noticed that there’s a school called George Mason University in its neck of the woods, and the editors sent a reporter there to find out what goes on:
From the administration offices to the switchboards — where the recorded greeting is now “Welcome to George Mason University, home of a Final Four basketball team” — the 34-year-old Fairfax school exulted in the Patriots’ extraordinary upset victory over top-seeded Connecticut on Sunday.
But success comes with a price:
Classes seemed reasonably well attended, but it was hard to miss the wink-and-nod in Provost Peter Stearns’s early morning e-mail to faculty: “Without in any way wishing to distort our priorities,” Stearns wrote, “I write to urge a bit of leniency in response to any absences from undergraduate classes today. Thanks for your understanding.”