Summer 2026

If you walk across campus right now, you will find a profound stillness. The summer months often feel like a deep breath—a quiet pause between the vibrant, kinetic sprints of the academic year. But beneath that quiet surface, in the digital bedrock of this university, there is no pause. There is an engine running hotter and faster than ever before. 

For decades, higher education has treated IT as a background utility. The mandate was simple and silent: keep the lights on. IT was the invisible plumbing—the group you only noticed when a system broke, a password expired, or a screen went dark. We were expected to maintain the institution’s gravity. 

But George Mason is not an institution that settles for gravity. We are an institution built for momentum. And a university of this magnitude cannot change the world if it is dragging the weight of outdated, fragmented technology. So, we are declaring an end to the era of the IT utility. We are no longer here to just keep the lights on. We are here to light the way. 

What you cannot see this summer is the massive architectural shift happening behind the scenes. We are taking a sledgehammer to the digital silos that have historically forced you to bounce from portal to portal. We are weaving a new, seamless fabric across this university anchored by a singular ideal of Digital First, Touch Once - believing that the true currency of a university is not only data but also time. 

Every time a student has to re-enter their information, every time a faculty member has to navigate a labyrinth to secure a research grant, and every time our staff is bogged down in manual processing, we are stealing that currency. Through the initiatives we are forging right now—like the university-wide foundational framework of PatriotAI—we are giving that time back. We are hunting down digital friction so that it completely disappears from your daily life. 

When we remove the friction of the process, we clear the runway for your potential. We want our faculty focused entirely on the kind of research that redefines human understanding. We want our staff empowered to build a world-class operational backbone. And we want our students to have the frictionless, boundless space they need to chase their highest possible aspirations. 

Technology at George Mason is no longer just a tool; it is the canvas upon which this community will paint its future. We are incredibly proud to be the architects of that canvas, and we cannot wait to unveil these new capabilities. 

Enjoy the quiet of the summer. In the fall, we take flight. Let’s imagine there are no boundaries. 

Go Patriots! 

Raj Murthey

Chief Technology Officer

Information Technology Services