page_title: George Mason University
section_title: Housing
hierarchical_section_title: George Mason University / Student life / Housing
caption_attribution_description: Liberty Square GMU
context_page_description: George Mason University is a public research university located in Fairfax County near Fairfax City in Virginia. In 1956, the Commonwealth of Virginia authorized the establishment of a Northern Virginia branch of the University of Virginia and the institution that is now named George Mason University opened in September 1957. It became an independent institution in 1972. It has since grown to become the largest four-year public university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The university is named after the founding father George Mason, a Virginia planter and politician who authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights that later influenced the future Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution. Mason operates four campuses in Virginia, as well as a fifth campus in South Korea.
  The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". It is particularly well known in the fields of economics and law and economics. Two Mason economics professors have won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics: James M. Buchanan in 1986 and Vernon L. Smith in 2002.
context_section_description: On the Fairfax campus the northernmost housing is technically on campus, but about a mile from the center of campus, about a half mile from the edge of the majority of the Fairfax campus in the housing area known as the Townhouses. On the eastern edge of the Fairfax campus lies Masonvale, houses intended for graduate students and visiting faculty. On the southern edge of the Fairfax campus you will find President's Park, Liberty Square, and Potomac Heights. On the western side of the Fairfax campus, near Ox Road/Rt 123, are the Mason Global Center, Whitetop, and Rogers. The Student Apartments off Aquia Creek Lane were torn down in 2019. Closer to the center of the Fairfax campus are the residence halls along Chesapeake Lane, named: Northern Neck, Commonwealth, Blue Ridge, Sandbridge, Piedmont, and Tidewater, as well as Hampton Roads, Dominion, Eastern Shore, and the Commons. At the Science and Technology (SciTech) campus near Manassas, Virginia, 21 miles (34 km) west of Fairfax, Beacon Hall was designed for graduate student housing. 54 miles (87 km) west of Fairfax, the G.T. Halpin Family Living & Learning Community is on the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation campus.  6,961 miles (11,203 km) west of Fairfax, Student's Hall and Guest House are on the Songdo campus.
caption: Liberty Square housing complex on the Fairfax campus
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