Brendin Duckett, who will graduate later this month, has immersed himself in University life since transferring to UVA after suffering a lacrosse injury.

Two years ago, the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy’s Center for Leadership Simulation and Gaming put students through the paces of a global food security simulation. Last year, the center created a global pandemic simulation.

The ebullient young man who goes by Pobo is many things – a graduate student in UVA's Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, one of the elite throwers in NCAA track & field, an accomplished chess player and teacher, among them – but on this night he was an amateur working with a pro.

2019 Batten graduates received year-end recognition with an impressive range of accolades honoring academic achievement and attributes including intellectual curiosity, athletic success, character, service, kindness, and leadership.

Six University of Virginia students were selected for this year’s Governor’s Fellows program, the largest contingent from a single school in the state. Of those six, three are Batten students or recent graduates.

Batten student Hanna Davis (BA ’21) is taking the road to Morocco on a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship.

Today, the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy announced the 2019-20 student recipients of the Bocock and Hitz Public Service Fellowship. Established in 2012 by a generous gift from Mary Buford and Fred Hitz, the Bocock and Hitz Public Service Fellowship Fund supports outstanding students in Batten’s Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree programs who are committed to effecting positive change through careers in public service.

This week, Batten hosted the first Batten Hour of the year featuring brief remarks from Dean Ian H. Solomon followed by a roundtable conversation with the dean, students, and faculty, providing an opportunity for the Batten community to get to learn more about the new dean, both professionally and personally.

The Batten School announced the selection of eight Batten students as finalists in the highly competitive Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program. The PMF program, administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the federal government’s most prestigious fellowship for graduate students entering the federal workforce.