[2][3][4] After law school, Mason returned to his home state to begin his career as house counsel at the Southern Cooperative Development Fund (SCDF) in Lafayette, Louisiana,[5] headed by Rev.
In addition to serving as principal legal adviser to the president, senior officers, academic deans, and the administrative board of the Tulane Educational Fund, he played a significant role in bringing the Amistad Research Center—one of the largest collections of manuscripts, documents, and artwork relating to the experiences of African Americans and other minorities—to the university.
Over four years, from 1996 to 2000, Mason sat as the federal Executive Monitor, a one-person Board of Directors of HANO, while simultaneously serving as senior vice president of Tulane from 1996 to 1998.
In addition to helping to improve HANO, Mason also started the innovative Campus Affiliates Program assigning Tulane students and faculty to work with public housing residents.
[7] In 1998, Mason took a leave from his position as senior vice president and general counsel at Tulane to establish the Tulane-Xavier National Center for the Urban Community (NCUC).
While at Southern, Mason created a national initiative called the 'Five-Fifths Agenda for America', which focused on reclaiming and developing Black male human capital.
The focal points of the initiative were Centers for Undergraduate Student Achievement, designed to break the cycle of violence and the school-to-prison pipeline that characterized the coming of age for many young men in New Orleans at that time.
Under Mason's leadership, the university expanded its information technology infrastructure and launched specific initiatives to build UDC's brand among DC Public Schools, its primary feeder institutions.