Getting to know George Mariz

Name: George Mariz

Title: Professor of History and director of the Honors Program

Hobbies: Music (classical), architecture, travel and cross-country bicycling

Favorite Restaurant: Busara

Favorite Books: Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” many Shakespearean plays, Greek tragedy, William Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom!” and “The Sound and the Fury” and works by Dostoevsky, Kafka and Austen

Favorite Movie: “Citizen Kane”

Favorite Place in Bellingham: Boulevard Park

Favorite Thing to Do in Bellingham: Walk from Taylor Street to Boulevard Park along the boardwalk

Favorite Quote: William Faulkner’s Nobel acceptance speech—too long to quote here, but its message is “prevail”

Most Memorable Vacation: Christmas in Rome with my wife (2005)

Reason I Got into Teaching: Realized it was what I wanted to do about a month after I started college

What I Like Best about WWU: Its undergraduate character, its students and my colleagues

Unrealized Dream: If I had the talent, to be a professional musician (cellist)

Greatest Achievement: Having grandchildren

Awards/Honors: Most recently, receiving an inscribed glass plaque from a scholarly society I served as president