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Dana Laurens (MPP ’10) knows firsthand how much good schools matter. When she was a child, she and her parents immigrated from Trinidad so she could get a better education, and she became the first in her family to go to college. This year, she was named to Washingtonian magazine’s Most Influential People list.

In his new course, Batten professor Tim Davis is helping Cavalier athletic coaches tap into the psychology of resilience.

Interviewed for The Conversation, Batten’s Raymond Scheppach says the flood of federal money may have been a rare occurrence in federal-state relations: too much of a good thing.

Thanks to two University of Virginia alumni, Batten students with an interest in national security have a new pathway to success through the Duke-Richards National Security Fellowship. Batten students Kevin Heaney (MPP ’22) and Sydney Pulliam (BA ’22) are the first recipients of the fellowship.

Batten alum Cameron Haddad (MPP ’20) takes a closer look at everything from health care in South Africa to children’s welfare in Tajikistan, with a core maxim in mind: Remember the people on the other side of the numbers.

In advance of Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, Batten professor Lucy Bassett spoke with USA Today about the significance of the trip, and the complexity of the root causes contributing to record numbers of migrants seeking asylum at the southern border.

Batten Professor Craig Volden no longer designs spacecraft—instead, he’s engineering a metric to combat political gridlock.

The School's new postdoctoral fellows will investigate perceptions of minorities in academia and the workplace, among other subjects.

According to research from Batten's Center for Effective Lawmaking, retaining experienced legislative staff is crucial to Congress doing its job better. In an op-ed for The Hill, center co-directors Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman say that when it comes to congressional staff, we get what we pay for.

UVA plans to invest $100 million in the study, teaching and promotion of democracy made possible with a $50 million gift from Martha and Bruce Karsh to establish the Karsh Institute of Democracy. The Institute will bring together and augment the work of entities already dedicated to the study of democracy at UVA, including the Batten School.

Despite many challenges posed by the pandemic, Adams and Bassett demonstrated outstanding skill, compassion and creativity in keeping students engaged in virtual classes and relating their subject material to daily life.

In her graduation poem – read at Sunday’s ceremony – Hannah Semmes (BA '20) said maybe she would have taken that last walk around Grounds, gone to that dinner, asked out that boy, gone to that party if she knew we were leaving so soon.