The Honors College recognizes the Honors College Black Ambition (HCBA) Student of the Month for October: Osaze Shears.
Osaze is a junior Computer Engineering major at George Mason University. Since starting at Mason in Fall 2014, he has been involved in the Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Multicultural Education (ODIME), the Student Transition Empowerment Program (STEP) and the registered student organization F1rst Gen Mason.
As the Technology and Equipment Coordinator at ODIME, Osaze plays a significant role in maintaining and improving the various diversity projects run by the office. This includes ensuring that students and staff alike are able to easily use the office website in order to access diversity resources and to connect with key faculty to further orchestrate new ideas to build campus inclusivity. He has worked a facilitator for ODIME’s Creating Community workshops, allowing him to cultivate a sense of community within several classroom settings.
As a lead coordinator for STEP, Osaze has been able to assist incoming first generation college students with their transition into Mason. During his involvement with STEP, Osaze has provided participants key information about how to excel in college both socially and academicall and created mobile applications to help these students to succeed.
As president of F1rst Gen Mason, Osaze has had the opportunity to advocate for and to support first generation college students by initiating several projects in hopes of informing and empowering first generation students. Whether this is facilitating the creation of scholarships to financially support first generation students or planning out events to increase the first generation student support network, his primary goals have always been to satisfy the needs of others.