— Graduate International Transactions Program —
(Reunion of Initial Graduates After 35 Years.)
Recent reunion of initial graduates (early 1990’s) of the George Mason’s MAIT Program (Masters of International Transactions). Happy and successful group.
As the Founder and Former Director of the program, I am really proud of them. The program quickly became the largest graduate program at GMU.
Glad to reunite after 35 years. Many met their spouses in the program and all remain friends and colleagues today (even their children).
Many have had outstanding professional careers in the federal government, international organizations and have established very successful professional and commercial enterprises. Great tribute to George Mason University and the Commonwealth of Virginia of Virginia.
Stuart Malawer
U.S. LAW & GLOBAL TRADE RELATIONS. 
it was so wonderful to see you, Stuart! We were all thrilled you joined us. Below are thoughts i shared with the gang before seeing your blog. -Jean
1990-93 doesn’t seem like a banner time anyone marks with great fanfare. But a lot happened in the early ‘90s. The first Gulf War to liberate Kuwait and squelch Saddam Hussein began the decade. Then Bill Clinton and Al Gore, two incredibly young and hip guys for the time, were elected to office in the US. The European Coal and Steel Community was evolving into the European Economic Community, which would become the EU with the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992. NAFTA, the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement between the US, Canada, and Mexico, came into force just afterward. The Tiananmen Square protests had been brutally quelled in China, inspiring protests that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall as the decade turned, and the Soviet Union was disintegrating. Yugoslavia was cracking apart. Dissident Vaclav Havel had risen to power in Czechoslovakia, which then split apart and ousted him. Dictator Manuel Noriega of Panama was convicted of leading a drug cartel. The first mobile phone that integrated pager, fax machine, and “personal digital assistant” all in one was introduced. The World Wide Web was born! The international cell phone became a thing (at great expense!). The rules of the world were shifting, and the map itself was rapidly reshaping.
And that was the time a bunch of us took a chance on a brand new interdisciplinary graduate program designed to weave together the politics and the economics, the diplomacy and the finance. We poured over 1/2-foot tall copies of NAFTA, worked in groups with students from every continent, learned contract law and international finance, worked by day, took classes all evening, and partied at night. We were the vanguard of a new era. And our main professor, Stuart Malawer, was the visionary who pulled it all together. Amazing foresight.
We launched and scattered out into the world, some keeping in touch but many not—because it was hard to keep up by mail and fax and limited email then. We did some pretty amazing things, led pretty extraordinary lives, got married, raised kids. And started finding our way back to each other.
As Varun said, “I don’t want new friends anymore, I want old friends who understand.” Our mini-reunion this weekend fed my soul. Now we just have to keep it up. Can’t thank Varun enough for pulling it together, especially for bringing Stuart back with us. Here’s to more extraordinary times together!
Jean: Thank you very much for your comments. You’ve always been very thoughtful and thorough. I’m so glad that the group is so energetic and nice. That’s very meaningful to me. We all need to keep in touch! …. Stuart