Student Stories

During a luncheon in the Great Hall of Garrett Hall on Friday, Dec. 7, students enrolled in Professors Paul Martin and Sarah McLean’s “NGOs in the Policy Arena” course awarded $80,000 in grants to six local organizations fighting food insecurity.

University of Virginia founder Thomas Jefferson said, “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” An apt statement and one that resonates strongly with Batten student Thomith Chin (MPP ’20) and his nonprofit organization, International Youth for a Better World (IYFABW).

Future MPP Student, Jocelyn Willoughby, Lawn Resident Juggles Basketball, Books and Service.

A survey by Best Value Schools named the Batten School one of the most innovative public service schools in the U.S. The Batten School was ranked number nine out of 50 schools listed. 

By combining empathy and action, we can better confront public policy issues.

Batten has given me the analytical tools to test and prove facts that were previously only hunches—and disprove many more.

I am extremely interested in poverty in relation to demographics, and specifically in areas where black Americans have migrated in order to start and build families that have been torn down by police.

For two incoming MPP students and returned Peace Corps volunteers it was an experience that has positively shaped who they are today.

Working with a team of colleagues, 4th-year Batten student Emmanuel Agyemang-Dua established the 21st Century Citizens Initiative (21st CCI), whose aim it is to help Ghanaian youth embrace technology and become more involved in local policy issues and their creation.

The University of Virginia will launch one of its largest interdisciplinary degree programs to date this month. The new entrepreneurship minor is open to all undergraduate students and represents a strategic collaboration between multiple schools.

When she left Charlottesville for the summer, MPP student Nora Neus had no idea how much a Batten education would help her in the workplace.

Paige McDermott (BA ‘15) and Stephanie Hough (BA ‘15) represented the school at a national conference and competition with representatives from 14 peer institutions to vie for the top prize of $50,000. McDermott and Hough’s proposal won the top prize this past weekend.