About News News Subscribe Political Science Leadership Domestic Policy & Politics Democracy Racial Justice and Equity Education Advocacy Research and Commentary Ethics Facet Area of Focus - News Ian H. Solomon Brian N. Williams Christine Mahoney Benjamin Castleman Kirsten Gelsdorf Gerald Warburg Gabrielle Adams Philip Potter Daphna Bassok Jay Shimshack John Holbein Lucy Bassett Andrew S. Pennock David Leblang Allan Stam Raymond C. Scheppach Sarah Turner Sophie Trawalter Christopher J. Ruhm Timothy L. Davis Bala Mulloth Benjamin Converse Sebastian Tello Trillo Eileen Chou Jeanine Braithwaite Jennifer Lawless Jill Rockwell Todd S. Sechser Alexander Bick James H. Wyckoff Peter Johannessen Steve Hiss Daniel W. Player Gerard Robinson Laura Toscano Michael D. Williams Noah Myung William Shobe Brooke Lehmann Harry Harding James R. Detert Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi Jeff Chidester Kyle S. H. Dobson Larry Terry Margaret Foster Riley Molly Lipscomb Abigail Scholer Adam Leive Allison Atteberry Andrew Simon Brad Carson Derek Wu Frederick P. Hitz Galen Fountain Gerald Higginbotham Isaac Mbiti Michele Claibourn Sally Hudson Tim Layton Xiao Wang Adam Roux Amanda Crombie Andy Ortiz Ashley Jardina Brendan J. Boler Brooke Ray Charles J. Rush Charles J. Rush Diane Biesecker George Foresman Jieun Pai Justin H. Kirkland Kimberly Jenkins Robinson Melissa Thomas-Hunt Pam Cipriano Paul Becker Tim Layton (-) Craig Volden (-) Paul S. Martin Facet People - News Center for Effective Lawmaking Miller Center Facet UVA Partner - News Research and Commentary Faculty In Action Racial Justice and Equity Accolades Featured Research Facet News Type - News Sep 18, 2020 Members of Congress are Specializing Less Often. Volden and Wiseman Say That Makes Them Less Effective. Democracy Political Science Batten’s Craig Volden and Vanderbilt’s Alan Wiseman, co-directors of the Center for Effective Lawmaking, find that members of Congress are becoming less specialized and in turn, less effective. How do we encourage more expertise and reverse the trend? Read in The Washington Post Aug 05, 2020 Scoring Effectiveness in Congress Political Science What makes someone an effective lawmaker? Surprisingly, until Batten’s Craig Volden and Vanderbilt’s Alan Wiseman began discussing that question a little over a decade ago, we didn’t have a clear answer. Learn more Apr 17, 2020 Coronavirus policies spread quickly across the U.S. Are cities and states learning — or just copying? Political Science As the novel coronavirus has spread across U.S. cities and states, so have public policies aimed at stopping the pandemic. Batten's Craig Volden and co-author Charles R. Shipan examine how some states have learned from others’ policy successes, while others simply copy their neighbors or even compete against them, and why that matters. Read in The Washington Post Apr 10, 2020 Batten's Paul Martin Receives All-University Teaching Award Leadership Martin, who came to UVA as a visiting professor in 2004 in the Department of Politics, then joined the Miller Center of Public Affairs, and became a member of the start-up team when the Batten School was created in 2008, has been lauded for his unrelenting commitment to cultivating his students to be thoughtful citizen-leaders. READ IN UVA TODAY Mar 06, 2020 Productive Politicians Fare Better in Primaries Political Science Leadership Now that Super Tuesday is behind us, voters can look forward to another primary in the spring – this time for Congressional candidates. As a professor of public policy and politics at the Batten School and co-director of the Center for Effective Lawmaking, Craig Volden has studied what factors make for a successful candidate and drawn some conclusions about this state’s congressional delegation. Listen on WVTF Sep 12, 2019 Congress is back in town. Here’s why lawmakers will struggle to get much done. Leadership Research and Commentary Congress is back from its August recess, and lawmakers face public demands for action on issues as varied as health care, infrastructure, gun safety and trade. Legislators face at least one set of “must pass” agenda items: 12 spending bills that need to be enacted into law by Oct. 1 or the federal government will shut down. Read in The Washington Post Aug 21, 2019 University Faculty Learn How to Live More Connected Lives by Confronting Difficult Past Democracy Racial Justice and Equity This past June, Batten professors Lucy Bassett and Andrew Pennock participated in the University’s Teaching Race at UVA seminar. Launched in the summer of 2018, the seminar which is an initiative of the Office of the Provost grew out of a desire to deepen faculty’s understanding of the University’s and greater Charlottesville’s complicated history with race. Learn more Jul 18, 2019 Professor Spotlight: Craig Volden Education Leadership “My mother was a professor of nursing at the University of North Dakota, and she served as associate dean of the School of Nursing for a number of years,” said Volden. “So, I grew up with an example of what it meant to be a valued professor and an academic leader. Although I thought of pursuing other paths along the way, this one felt very natural to me as I finished college and started into graduate school.” Learn more Jun 25, 2019 Professor Jay Shimshack Appointed Batten School Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Education The Batten School announced the appointment of Professor Jay Shimshack as associate dean for academic affairs. Shimshack succeeds Professor Craig Volden, who will conclude his distinguished four-year term as associate dean at the end of June and transition to the role of interim dean of the Batten School until Dean-elect Ian Solomon’s arrival on Sept. 1. Learn more Jun 04, 2019 Batten Professor and Student Play a Pivotal Role in UVA's Successful New Tour for First Gen Students Education University of Virginia President Jim Ryan has said one of his missions is that UVA “opens wide the door to opportunity for first-generation, low and middle-income students.” A group of students embraced that spirit even before Ryan joined the University last year and this past semester, opened their arms to local first-generation students with a day of programing tailor-made for them by current first-gen students at UVA. Learn more Mar 01, 2019 Batten’s Center for Effective Lawmaking Announces the Most Effective Lawmakers in the 115th Congress Today the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL), a joint initiative between the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University, announced the most effective lawmakers of the 115th Congress (2017-18). Learn more Nov 13, 2018 Post-Election Wrap Up with Craig Volden On Monday, Nov. 12, Batten students gathered in the Great Hall of Garrett Hall for a post-election wrap-up led by Batten’s Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL). This was not a typical Batten Hour with the exception that food was served. Rather, the event was reminiscent of a game of musical chairs. Every eight minutes, students moved to a new table, where CEL Director Craig Volden, Operations Director Greer Kelly, CEL researchers and interns, along with Professor of Practice of Public Policy Gerald Warburg, discussed the implications of last Tuesday's midterm election results. Learn more Pagination Previous page ‹ Previous Page 1 Page 2 Current page 3 Page 4 Next page Next › Stay Up To Date with the Latest Batten News and Events Subscribe
Sep 18, 2020 Members of Congress are Specializing Less Often. Volden and Wiseman Say That Makes Them Less Effective. Democracy Political Science Batten’s Craig Volden and Vanderbilt’s Alan Wiseman, co-directors of the Center for Effective Lawmaking, find that members of Congress are becoming less specialized and in turn, less effective. How do we encourage more expertise and reverse the trend? Read in The Washington Post
Aug 05, 2020 Scoring Effectiveness in Congress Political Science What makes someone an effective lawmaker? Surprisingly, until Batten’s Craig Volden and Vanderbilt’s Alan Wiseman began discussing that question a little over a decade ago, we didn’t have a clear answer. Learn more
Apr 17, 2020 Coronavirus policies spread quickly across the U.S. Are cities and states learning — or just copying? Political Science As the novel coronavirus has spread across U.S. cities and states, so have public policies aimed at stopping the pandemic. Batten's Craig Volden and co-author Charles R. Shipan examine how some states have learned from others’ policy successes, while others simply copy their neighbors or even compete against them, and why that matters. Read in The Washington Post
Apr 10, 2020 Batten's Paul Martin Receives All-University Teaching Award Leadership Martin, who came to UVA as a visiting professor in 2004 in the Department of Politics, then joined the Miller Center of Public Affairs, and became a member of the start-up team when the Batten School was created in 2008, has been lauded for his unrelenting commitment to cultivating his students to be thoughtful citizen-leaders. READ IN UVA TODAY
Mar 06, 2020 Productive Politicians Fare Better in Primaries Political Science Leadership Now that Super Tuesday is behind us, voters can look forward to another primary in the spring – this time for Congressional candidates. As a professor of public policy and politics at the Batten School and co-director of the Center for Effective Lawmaking, Craig Volden has studied what factors make for a successful candidate and drawn some conclusions about this state’s congressional delegation. Listen on WVTF
Sep 12, 2019 Congress is back in town. Here’s why lawmakers will struggle to get much done. Leadership Research and Commentary Congress is back from its August recess, and lawmakers face public demands for action on issues as varied as health care, infrastructure, gun safety and trade. Legislators face at least one set of “must pass” agenda items: 12 spending bills that need to be enacted into law by Oct. 1 or the federal government will shut down. Read in The Washington Post
Aug 21, 2019 University Faculty Learn How to Live More Connected Lives by Confronting Difficult Past Democracy Racial Justice and Equity This past June, Batten professors Lucy Bassett and Andrew Pennock participated in the University’s Teaching Race at UVA seminar. Launched in the summer of 2018, the seminar which is an initiative of the Office of the Provost grew out of a desire to deepen faculty’s understanding of the University’s and greater Charlottesville’s complicated history with race. Learn more
Jul 18, 2019 Professor Spotlight: Craig Volden Education Leadership “My mother was a professor of nursing at the University of North Dakota, and she served as associate dean of the School of Nursing for a number of years,” said Volden. “So, I grew up with an example of what it meant to be a valued professor and an academic leader. Although I thought of pursuing other paths along the way, this one felt very natural to me as I finished college and started into graduate school.” Learn more
Jun 25, 2019 Professor Jay Shimshack Appointed Batten School Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Education The Batten School announced the appointment of Professor Jay Shimshack as associate dean for academic affairs. Shimshack succeeds Professor Craig Volden, who will conclude his distinguished four-year term as associate dean at the end of June and transition to the role of interim dean of the Batten School until Dean-elect Ian Solomon’s arrival on Sept. 1. Learn more
Jun 04, 2019 Batten Professor and Student Play a Pivotal Role in UVA's Successful New Tour for First Gen Students Education University of Virginia President Jim Ryan has said one of his missions is that UVA “opens wide the door to opportunity for first-generation, low and middle-income students.” A group of students embraced that spirit even before Ryan joined the University last year and this past semester, opened their arms to local first-generation students with a day of programing tailor-made for them by current first-gen students at UVA. Learn more
Mar 01, 2019 Batten’s Center for Effective Lawmaking Announces the Most Effective Lawmakers in the 115th Congress Today the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL), a joint initiative between the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University, announced the most effective lawmakers of the 115th Congress (2017-18). Learn more
Nov 13, 2018 Post-Election Wrap Up with Craig Volden On Monday, Nov. 12, Batten students gathered in the Great Hall of Garrett Hall for a post-election wrap-up led by Batten’s Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL). This was not a typical Batten Hour with the exception that food was served. Rather, the event was reminiscent of a game of musical chairs. Every eight minutes, students moved to a new table, where CEL Director Craig Volden, Operations Director Greer Kelly, CEL researchers and interns, along with Professor of Practice of Public Policy Gerald Warburg, discussed the implications of last Tuesday's midterm election results. Learn more