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Dean's Challenge Award Winner George Fachner
George Fachner, (MA, JLCP '08)
By Anna Maurer
The potential to translate research into practice is what drives me towards research opportunities, leadership activities, and scholarship.
- George Fachner
At age 20, George Fachner enrolled in community college. He went on to complete a bachelor’s degree from Baruch College in New York. Today he is a master’s candidate in Mason’s Justice, Law, and Crime Policy program and was a 2007 recipient of the Dean’s Challenge Award, a fellowship of $2,000. Fachner, who dropped out of high school at age 17, is now actively planning to pursue a doctoral degree.
A political science major at Baruch, Fachner was drawn to Mason’s Administration of Justice Department because of the interdisciplinary nature of its program. “I was initially drawn to the justice and law aspect of the field, but as a result of research projects and coursework I have become interested in crime policy and policing,” he said.
Much of Fachner’s work focuses on policing and terrorism, and he has written a book chapter on the subject with his advisor, Dr. Cynthia Lum (ADJ), and two other authors. The chapter, entitled “Police Strategies and Tactics in Fighting Terrorism and Crime: What We Know and What We Need to Know,” and is scheduled to be published by the end of the year in To Protect and To Serve: Policing in the Years of Terrorism – and Beyond, edited by David Weisberd. It is one of many research projects he has undertaken with Lum, and is one of two publications on which he is listed along with her as an author. Publishing scholarly work is not new to Fachner. As an undergraduate, Fachner published three papers which focused on race, ethnicity, and society.
Lum praised Fachner for his intellectual abilities and willingness to work hard and to learn. “George is one of the few students that I have worked with who displays a strong academic curiosity about a broad range of subjects in criminal justice and is able to think critically and quickly about them,” she said. She went on to speak of his willingness to go above and beyond the research requirements for his degree program and of his understanding of the relationship between research and policy actions.
Fachner, for his part, attributes his ongoing success and his receipt of the Dean’s Challenge Award to the quality of the Administration of Justice Department. “The receipt of this award speaks as much to my department as it does to any of my small accomplishments over the past two years,” he said. “It means that the department is preparing students for careers in criminal justice, from government to academia and everything in between. The hard work and ambitiousness of the department is reflected in the fact that I have had the opportunities to capitalize on that made me a recipient of this award.”
As a student, Fachner is motivated by the real-world applications of the knowledge he gains. “The potential to translate research into practice is what drives me towards research opportunities, leadership activities, and scholarship,” he stated. As he prepares to graduate in May and to carry his knowledge into the workplace this summer, his motivation remains largely the same. “My only criterion for future employment is that my work be consequential.”
This news article first appeared on March 31, 2008.