This Mason business major wasn’t shy about forging his path

Teon Frazier said he will enjoy his May graduation from George Mason University to the fullest.

After his high school graduation was held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no way Frazier is going to miss the ceremony for those leaving the Costello College of Business or the larger university-wide ceremony at EagleBank Arena.

“It just feels so good to have a proper senior sendoff,” said Frazier, whose concentration is in management information systems and is a member of Mason’s Honors College. “It feels like the culmination of eight years, honestly.”

Frazier, from Capital Heights, Maryland, has much to celebrate, even beyond his graduation. 

After two summer internships with J.P. Morgan Chase, Frazier has a job as a rotational HR analyst waiting for him with the company in Columbus, Ohio.

Frazier’s personal growth has been just as dramatic, as he transformed from what he called a “shy high-schooler” into the council president for the National Pan-Hellenic Council at Mason.

He is the president of the Rho Tau chapter of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, and was elected as the associate regional director for the fraternity, the highest regional position a collegiate member can attain.

“For two years, basically from Maine to Virginia, I was traveling, meeting more of my fellow collegiate brothers, hearing their struggles and being as much help as I could,” Frazier said. “From that, I was able to take a lot from them to bring back to Mason and to my own personal development.”

Glenda Cosby, assistant director for success coaching at George Mason, watched the transformation.

“I remember our first meeting, he was so nervous,” said Cosby, recalling how Frazier was concerned that one mistake would cause him to lose his scholarship and have to leave the university. “And just to see how much he’s grown, how much he has gotten involved. That fear, that lack of confidence, was completely out the window.”

Consider what Frazier accomplished at Chase, where he said he presented and helped implement a plan to increase the analytics and data retention in the HR department.

“I just looked at how I could start quantifying stuff, like how many cases that case managers were actually hearing or how many orders of a specific chair were being made because X-amount of employees had lumbar issues,” Frazier said. “So while other interns were pretty much just shadowing the whole time, I had a project I saw completed to the end.”

“Within six months or a year, he’ll be receiving a promotion or something like that,” Cosby said. “He’s that determined and that driven.”

It all started with his George Mason experience, Frazier said, in which he developed his inherent talents while showing the grit and audacity to overcome the shyness that had been a limitation.

“I loved Mason’s diversity, and I liked the campus’ potential for life,” he said. “I could tell the students here, those that are involved, are passionate about it. It taught me to really put myself out there. That’s a skill not a lot of people have.”