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.

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.

Nearly five dozen UVA and Harvard University students have been selected for the new 22nd Century Scholars scholarship program, which is launching this week as partnered with the UVA Center for Politics, the Miller Center, and the Weldon Cooper Center/Sorensen Institute.

Earlier this week, Batten professors moderated a discussion between the four candidates on issues ranging from racial justice to gun control.

Batten professor Andy Pennock spoke with a panel of alums representing federal, state, and local government for last week’s edition of Batten’s Expert Chat Series.

Batten's John Holbein and other Political Scientists found that while the nature of politics encourages politicians to undermine negative coverage through claims of bias, ideological bias in U.S. newspapers is largely nonexistent.

The U.S. already has some of the lowest youth voting rates in the world, as illustrated in Batten professor John Holbein's recent co-authored book, “Making Young Voters: Converting Civic Attitudes Into Civic Action.” In the latest Batten Expert Chat, Holbein discussed the potential impacts coronavirus could have on youth voter turnout.

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.

Batten’s Ray Scheppach, who served as the executive director of the National Governors Association from 1983 to 2011, on why the nation’s governors are prepared to take quick and aggressive action during a crisis and how they have exercised leadership in their states to limit the spread of COVID-19.