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Today, the Batten School announced the nine student recipients of the Bocock and Hitz Public Service Fellowship for 2020-21. Through the generosity of Mary Buford and Fred Hitz, the fellowship was established in 2012 to support exceptional students in MPP program who are dedicated to creating positive change in their public service careers.

Last week, University of Virginia men’s basketball players Austin Katstra and Tomas Woldetensae were recognized for their work in the classroom.The National Association of Basketball Coaches named the rising fourth-year students to its Honors Court, a group of student-athletes from across the country who earned varsity letters and had a grade-point average of 3.2 or higher at the conclusion of the 2019-20 academic year.

“Congressman Lewis exemplifies citizen leadership,” said Allan Stam, former dean of the Batten School. “From his days as a student leader to his co-founding of SNCC to his long career as an elected official, he has selflessly served the public good."

Incoming Batten student Valencia Lagbo was nervous heading into her first session as a summer orientation leader. Mainly, she feared that a new virtual event called “HoosHome” – taking place over the Zoom videoconferencing platform – would make it hard to engage, and, subsequently, bond with the incoming first-year and transfer students.

Jocelyn Willoughby excelled as an athlete at the University of Virginia. In basketball, Willoughby was the Atlantic Coast Conference’s scoring leader. But playing sports was merely one facet of her UVA experience.

Dan Laufer (Col ’06) and Ed Festa (Col ’02, Darden ’10) shared stories and advice from their respective careers in emerging technologies during last week’s Batten Expert Chats.

The public session of the University’s Racial Equity Task Force featuring Dean Solomon occurred virtually Friday, over one month after a group of Black student activists and the Black Student Alliance sent separate list of demands to the task force.

Batten student Avery Shivers creates Main Street Speaks podcast with two fellow UVA students to discuss national news with a local angle. “We are not trying to add more political divisiveness, but to fill a void of information,” said Shivers.

As they rebuild their education, health-care and tax systems after the devastation of COVID-19, they can take important steps that can significantly narrow income and wealth disparities.

Batten Professor of Public Policy Jeanine Braithwaite and PhD candidate Kamwoo Lee discuss poverty and upper respiratory infections in Senegal for the Center for Global Health's Global COVIDiaries.

Last week, Annie Rorem (MPP ‘13) shared a new vision for a country of people inspired to serve the public good.

In the wake of past injustices, truth commissions offer divided communities the chance to reach a common understanding of their history. For his Applied Policy Project (APP) at Batten, George Rudebusch (MPP ’20, Law ’20) studied eight historical truth commissions from across the nation.