FRANK BATTEN SCHOOL of LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC POLICY
Batten Reports Spring 2013
Volume 1, No. 2
4 New Pathways to Action 14 Growing the Global Focus of
the Batten MPP Program 19 Celebrating our Past,
Looking to the Future
Dean’s Message
Milestones: Looking Ahead Batten School’s Fifth Anniversary Stimulates Strategic Planning At the Batten School, we focus on how leadership works and what actions lead to tangible results, offering an extensive set of analysis, advocacy, and coalition building skills. Students engage in experiential learning through field experiences, capstone projects for real-world clients, rapid turn-around assignments, and policymaking simulations created by the policy experts who lead our faculty.
Harry Harding joined the Batten School in 2009 as its founding dean. His previous positions include faculty appointments at Swarthmore College, Stanford University, Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University, and Director of Research and Analysis at Eurasia Group.
As part of our celebration of the Batten School’s fifth anniversary, last fall, we embarked on a strategic planning exercise that advanced both of those goals. The exercise reaffirmed that the school’s mission is to educate young men and women who can lead communities of all sizes— from the local to the global—to achieve necessary and sustainable change. It also identified a number of strategic priorities that will guide the School’s activities over the next five years, including recruiting of additional faculty, providing challenging and rewarding experiences for our new undergraduate majors both inside and outside the classroom, promoting cutting edge research and teaching on leadership in the public arena, offering a new course
As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback as we continue to grow to meet the leadership and public policymaking challenges of the century ahead. n
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sequence on social entrepreneurship, globalizing the curriculum in our master’s degree program, experimenting with new teaching methods in both our graduate and undergraduate programs, and engaging more actively with the policy community, especially in Washington. We will also continue to attract a diverse group of scholars, practitioners, and thought leaders who are taking time to speak in Garrett Hall to share their experiences and ideas with the Batten School community.
Editors Gerry Warburg and Katharine Meyer Contributing writers Bill Ashby, Brevy Cannon, Howard Hoege, Christine Mahoney, Jill Rockwell Photography Dan Addison, Cole Geddy, Don Hamerman, Peggy Harrison, Amanda Henry, Jack Looney, Katharine Meyer Design Anne Chesnut Printing Mid Valley Press
Like Batten on Facebook, “Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy (UVA)” Watch Batten on YouTube and LiveStream Follow Batten on Twitter, @UVABatten Listen to Batten on iTunesU
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New Pathways to Action Social Entrepreneurship Initiative Batten’s budding social entrepreneurship initiative offers innovative approach to economic development
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A Conversation with Jon Huntsman Reprinted from the Virginia Policy Review
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Growing the Global Focus of the Batten MPP Program A Conversation with Dean Harry Harding
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Celebrating our Past, Looking to the Future Batten celebrates major milestone
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8 Academic News 16 Student News 18 Alumni News
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New Pathways to Action
Social Entrepreneurship@UVA
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he Social Entrepreneurship@UVA initiative is an interdisciplinary collaboration across the University of Virginia, led by Christine Mahoney, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Politics at the Batten School. The Social Entrepreneurship Working Group has been advancing efforts since 2011 to make UVA a national leader in this emerging field. The Working Group includes interested faculty from the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the Darden School of Business, the McIntire School of Commerce, the Curry School of Education, the School of Engineering, the School of Architecture, and the Schools of Medicine and Nursing. It also includes student leaders of the SE@UVA Initiative and members of SEED (Student Entrepreneurs for Economic Development). Unlike most other social entrepreneurship programs in the country, the SE@UVA initiative will be interdisciplinary and firmly grounded in the idea that for social entrepreneurs to be effective they must be ethical and empathetic partners. The program will be heavily experiential: bringing entrepreneurs into the classroom and students into the field to work on real-world problems.
“In the current financial environment, government and philanthropic funding of community initiatives is steadily declining, as the need continues to grow,” said Mahoney. “Social entrepreneurship is an approach to solving community problems in a financially sustainable way.” UVA is taking a broad approach to social entrepreneurship, exploring and teaching an array of models, from non-profits introducing earned income revenue streams to for-profit companies with explicit social missions. The program also places a special emphasis on the importance of public policy in fostering social innovation including, new state laws allowing for the creation of “benefit corporations,” the concept of tax exemptions for investment in social enterprise, and new federal innovation funds to scale up successful social initiatives. During the 2012-13 academic year, the SE@UVA initiative launched three new undergraduate courses. The first, Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship, had a wait-list of 160 students for 40 course seats two weeks after the class was announced. Taught by two dynamic social entrepreneurs Ross Baird and Sang Hwang, students explored the range of entrepreneurial approaches aimed at solving social problems, from the non-profit to for-profit models. This spring, the initiative is sponsoring two hands-on experiential learning courses, offering opportunities for students to get involved with real-world social entrepreneurs,
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Judges at the Social Entrepreneurship track of the University-wide Entrepreneurship Cup included Ross Baird, Toan Nguyen, Gordon Bennett, and Alex Fife
Skills sets required of SE • Empathy • Design Thinking • Serial Experimentation • Rapid Innovation • Business Fundamentals • Liberal Arts Foundation • Fundamentals of Economic Development
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locally and globally. Using the frame of “poverty reduction,” students in the local social entrepreneurship course, taught by Darden PhD student Lauren Purnell, are studying social ventures being implemented in Charlottesville and students have the opportunity to work directly with social entrepreneurs in the community. The global social entrepreneurship course, taught by Darden PhD student Megan Hess, will use a “conscious entrepreneurship” lens to work with Village Capital portfolio companies—an impact investing firm founded and run by Ross Baird, UVA alum and co-instructor of the Introductory course. Both courses will draw on skills developed in the fall 2012 Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship course to advise ventures on how to raise additional capital for project growth, expansion of marketing, and creative new revenue streams. The Working Group is brainstorming other experiential learning and co-taught courses as well as capstone projects that could be offered to students in their fourth year, including sailing on Semester at Sea and working with the resident entrepreneurs who are taking part in the Unreasonable at Sea social entrepreneurship incubator. Mahoney and David Germano, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, have a grant proposal into the State Department to bring 15 Tibetan social entrepreneurs to Grounds for 6 weeks in 2013 as part of the initiative. The Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship class hosted Paul Polak, author of Out of Poverty, this fall in an evening event open to the public. Polak discussed his experiences as founder of the non-profit IDE International, which designs market-based solutions for major problems in poverty. This spring, Cheryl Mills, chief of staff to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US Department of State and UVA alumna (CLAS ’87), is scheduled to speak on “Alleviating Poverty through Smart Development,” specifically addressing her experience working with the nation of Haiti on post-earthquake recovery. Also scheduled for this spring is Jacqueline Novogratz, UVA alum and founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, a non-profit global social venture capital fund and Simon Desjardins, Energy Social Venture Portfolio for the Shell Foundation. Novogratz will speak at a talk co-sponsored by the SE@UVA group and the UVA Women in Leadership conference. Innovation for a better tomorrow at UVA excelled at the final of the Frank Batten School, SEED Social Entrepreneurship Track of the UVA Cup this fall. The Social Entrepreneurship Track brought together six viable entrepreneurial concepts in the final that tackled empowering Brazilian favela residents (runner up, Authenticiti),
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making the large university lecture smaller (winner, TestConnect), providing hearing aids to millions of impoverished Indians, connecting social entrepreneurs with technical corporate support, solving cost effective water filtration for South African villages, and supporting local farmers and ex-offenders while providing healthy meals in Charlottesville. This diverse array of entrepreneurial innovation coupled with the track’s social focus attracted passionate student social entrepreneurs. The track’s University-wide eligibility allowed for cross-disciplinary student teams that developed out of the box concepts, making the track a unique offering. The winning concept, TestConnect, moved on to earn honorable mention in the competition finals. Conceived by UVA doctoral students and recent graduates in environmental sciences and engineering, TestConnect is a software platform designed to improve teaching and learning in large university classes. The system provides personalized feedback for students and detailed assessment metrics for instructors following multiple choice-style examinations. David Hondula, a doctoral student in environmental sciences and UVA alum (CLAS ’06, GSAS ’09) presented TestConnect’s pitch at the social entrepreneurship track competition. “Entrepreneurship is about identifying an untapped market opportunity and addressing it in a unique way,” said Hondula. “Unlike traditional entrepreneurs who measure their success primarily by profit, a social entrepreneur also considers broader social impacts. TestConnect aims to improve the education system in a way that benefits both students and instructors while being affordable for administrators.” “The quality of concepts this year was of a new level, the concepts were better developed and more spirited than last year’s,” praised judge Gordon Bennett (CEO of the Web Data Corporation). In only its second year, the track is the product of a student initiative, started by the SEED and the SE@UVA student groups, and propelled by Batten School leaders to increase social entrepreneurship offerings inside and outside the classroom at the university. Driven by substantial student demand, the Batten School has introduced three new courses, brought energizing entrepreneurs to Grounds and launched a concept competition. There is much more to do. With our alumni and partners, UVA will build a worldclass program with more classes, scholarships, research grants and seed funds for new ventures. n
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Events G U B E R N AT O R I A L L E A D E R S H I P
Governor Robert McDonnell (R-VA) convened a cabinet retreat at the Batten School to discuss planning and team management strategies with Batten faculty. Organized by Dean Harry Harding, faculty presenters included Eric Patashnik and Craig Volden, Professor of Public Policy and Politics, and Professor Ray Scheppach, former executive director of the National Governors Association.
“Having led the National Governor’s Association,” Scheppach said, “I know that it’s difficult for any governor to gather his Cabinet and get away from the capital to assess what they have gotten done and what they still want to get done.” Discussion topics included consideration of how to ensure policy achievements have
staying power and how to get things done most efficiently in the last sixteen months of the governor’s term. “We were pleased to have an engaging exchange with scholars at the University of Virginia,” commented McDonnell, “and we appreciate the role played by the new Batten School in advancing education in public policy and civic leadership.” n
AROUND GROUNDS
Bipartisan Solutions
Foreign Policy Leadership
Challenges to Economic Growth
Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) conducted a town hall briefing with Batten students focusing on education and bipartisanship prior to a University-wide discussion of the federal debt.
Batten students engaged with Madeleine Albright, 64th secretary of state, in an informal discussion of foreign policy leadership prior to a public address she gave on her recent memoir.
Jeffrey Lacker, President of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank, delivered the keynote address during the Batten School’s Fifth Anniversary Celebration, noting “economic policy requires highly collaborative leadership skills.”
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Academics
Research News Several Batten School faculty members presented at the 2012 APPAM Fall Research Conference November 8–10, including Chloe Gibbs, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education, who earned honorable mention in the annual dissertation competition for her dissertation completed at the University of Chicago on “Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Full-day Kindergarten.” Other Batten-affiliated participants included David Breneman, Christine Mahoney, Eric Patashnik, Sarah Turner, Craig Volden, and Jim Wyckoff.
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David Breneman, University Professor and Batten School Senior Associate Dean, and Professor of Education and Public Policy, participated in a telephone roundtable discussion in September on college costs and quality with other researchers, college administrators, and Obama Administration officials, examining how federal student aid policy has affected the costs of college attendance for students and sharing advice concerning changes in federal student aid policy that could help to hold down college costs and improve the quality of education.
... Jeanine Braithwaite, Professor of Public Policy, received a research grant from UNICEF-Swaziland to undertake a study on child poverty in Swaziland, exploring issues of malnutrition, child labor, education, health, material living conditions, family structure, and orphanage conditions. The grant will provide travel and research support for Braithwaite and two graduate MPP students, who will work closely with the Southern African Region and Headquarters offices.
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Benjamin Converse, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Psychology, published a study “Investing in Karma: When Wanting Promotes Helping” in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Converse and co-authors Jane Risen and Travis Carter of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago hypothesized that people would be more likely to help others when facing important but uncontrollable outcomes, and found support for that through four related experiments.
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Eileen Chou, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, published an article in PLOS ONE on “Life or Death Decisions: Framing the Call for Help” with J. Keith Murnighan, Northwestern University, which
C E N T E R F O R H E A LT H P O L I C Y
Arthur Garson, Jr., MD, MPH
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The Center for Health Policy is a joint program of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences, and the Batten School. The mission of the Center is to conduct rigorous, nonideological, non-partisan, evidence-based research on problems of the health of the public and the most effective and efficient means of addressing them, to educate the next generation of those who will study, teach and influence policy and to inform debate and influence decisions on health policy, both in the United States and abroad.
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Arthur Garson, Jr., MD, MPH former Provost and former Dean of the Medical School at UVA, University Professor of Public Health Sciences and Public Policy, is the Center’s founding director. The Center celebrated its inauguration this September with a keynote address from Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in the US Department of Health & Human Services. Center Fellow Christopher Ruhm, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, presented a white paper to faculty and students on “Understanding Obesity: Interactions between Economics and Biology” in November.
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explored through two experiments how framing a charitable goal as either a potential gain or a potential loss influenced interpersonal helping behavior.
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Jennifer Doleac, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics, conducted the first cost-benefit analysis of DNA profiling. She found that violent offenders whose DNA is collected and stored in a database are 23.4 percent more likely to be convicted of another crime within three years than their unprofiled counterparts.
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Molly Lipscomb, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics, taught a weekend-long development seminar to Batten MPP students on “Monitoring and Evaluating Development Process,” in which students practiced designing, monitoring, and evaluating programs for actual projects in developing countries.
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Christopher Ruhm, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, published a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) paper on “Work-Family Balance” examining two trends—dramatic increases in employment rates for women, including mothers of young children, and the rise of lone-parent families.
... Sophie Trawalter, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Psychology, will serve on the implementation team for a $3 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE Institutional Transformation program to increase the representation and advancement of women in academic science, technology, and engineering, and math careers.
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Craig Volden, Professor of Public Policy and Politics, published an article in the Public Administration Review co-authored with Charles R. Shipan, University of Michigan, on “Policy Diffusion: Seven Lessons for Scholars and Practitioners.” The article provides and introduction for scholars, students, and practitioners to the extensive scholarship on policy diffusion in political science and public administration, and offers seven lessons derived from that literature.
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Gerald Warburg, Professor of Public Policy and Assistant Dean for External Affairs, published “Nonproliferation Policy Crossroads” in The Nonproliferation Review. The article reviews the nuclear trade pact with India enacted in 2008, and is based on an analysis of the negotiating record and congressional deliberations.
CAN ANYONE LEAD FROM ANYWHERE?
Benjamin Converse
The Working Group on Leadership is a pan-University, interdisciplinary group that seeks to identify best practices in leadership education and spark cross-Grounds conversations about effective, enlightened, and ethical leadership through panels and special events. The Group hosted their first major public event, “Why Do Leaders Act Unethically?” on November 27, launching their “Can Anyone Lead From Anywhere?...and other Big Questions about Leadership” speaker series. The panel featured Max Bazerman, Harvard Business School, and R. Edward Freeman, UVA’s Darden School of Business, moderated by
FRANK BATTEN SCHOOL OF LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC POLICY
Benjamin Converse, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Psychology at Batten. The Group, with 30 faculty members representing eight of UVA’s 11 schools, along with the Miller Center and the Sorensen Institute—is co-chaired by Martin Davidson, Darden School, and Sidney Milkis, Miller Center. In March, the Group will host Alice Eagley, Northwestern University, and Ashleigh Rosette, Duke University, in a discussion of “Must Women Lead Differently Than Men?” moderated by Batten’s Sophie Trawalter, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Psychology.
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Academics
Faculty Profiles
EILEEN CHOU Assistant Professor of Public Policy
What class are you teaching this semester? I am teaching ‘Values Based Leadership’ this semester, which is an elective course for the MPP students. The class focuses on various dilemmas that leaders face in virtually every decision they have to make. For instance, they have to decide whether to profit-maximize or do the socially responsible thing. In each class session, students are thrown into a different exercise that simulates one of
Eileen Chou
these dilemmas. I enjoy teaching this class because it’s very experiential and the students get to know themselves better. It’s fun for me to see them grow throughout the course—and
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I trust it is enlightening for the students as well!
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What have your findings been in your contracts research? My research on contracts is very dear to my heart. In the United
What are your general research interests? My overall research theme is how people regulate behavior. I investigate that theme at three different levels of analysis: intrapersonal, interpersonal, and group. Currently, my research lab is looking at how people fend off temptations, the role of reciprocity and whether people actually ‘pay it forward,’ and whether we can contract for creativity. We are also looking at some physiological manifestations of uncertainty and ambiguity.
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States, we sign contracts for everything. Just as an example, when you purchase a ticket with an airline company, the contract that you sign with them is about 35-pages long, on average. In my research, I look at how specificity of the contractual clauses can affect employee motivation, creativity, task persistence, and organizational commitment. My research shows that the more specific the contract, the less motivated people become and the more likely they’re going to behave to the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. In short, my research highlights that
What have your findings been in your hierarchy research?
when it comes to contracts, the ‘devil’ is in the details.
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We investigated the functionality of hierarchy by collecting data from eleven seasons of the NBA basketball games. We tracked twenty-nine teams and measured their on-court behavior and whether that correlated to their season performance. We found that the more hierarchical the team, the more games they won. This boost in performance was due to their increased coordination and cooperation effort on court.
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Why did you decide to take a faculty position at the Batten? I moved to Charlottesville from Chicago. It definitely helped that my first visit here was March last year, when it was still snowing in Chicago! But more seriously, I was drawn to the atmosphere of the school and the attention that the school pays to both the faculty members and to its students.
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CRAIG VOLDEN Professor of Public Policy and Politics
What are your findings from your recent article on policy diffusion in the Public Administration Review? We’re trying to characterize the broad concept of policy diffusion— how policies spread from localities to states or countries to countries and so on—how one government’s policies influence another government’s policies. The policy diffusion scholarship had been quite limited about a decade ago, to thinking about “well, if we
Craig Volden
look at one state, does it adopt a policy with a greater likelihood if its neighboring states have that policy?” And that’s, in our view, too limited for how states are engaging in experimentation these days. There’s no reason why the ideas of Virginia wouldn’t be picked up in California, or wouldn’t be picked up far away from its geographic neighbors. And so in this piece we want to break down the fact that diffusion is not just a geographic process. We wanted this to be an article that exposes lots of new folks to these methods and approaches, and also speaks to practitioners.
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One of our recent exciting findings that’s coming out this year in the American Journal of Political Science is that women are more effective than men in Congress. So then we asked further, well— why are women more effective than men in Congress? And it turns out to be that when in the minority party, women still try to advocate their particular policies that they espoused from the beginning and introduced even when they were in the majority
What are some of your findings from your project on
party. They’re still working to build a coalition, still working to get
legislative effectiveness?
things done. And men, when they move into the minority party,
My research on legislative effectiveness is part of a long-range project that I’ve been undertaking with Alan Wiseman at Vanderbilt University. The US is unique compared to a lot of our comparison
tend to be more obstructionist. They think of themselves now as the loyal opposition, trying to keep out those horrible policies that the other side is trying to adopt.
countries that have parliamentary systems, in which the cabinet
That’s a big difference between women and men that we can trace
ministries come up with some policies and the legislature votes
back to social psychology, that we can track in other fields as well.
them up or down, more or less. In the US, policy ideas come from
Part of the reason I’m delighted to be in the Batten School is
the legislators themselves, often in consultation with constituents,
that we have all of those connections and we’re not simply isolated
interest groups, and other policymakers. About 3% of those
disciplines in separate departments. Instead, we build multi-
proposed bills become law, and what we’re tracking in this project
disciplinary connections that help me better understand some of
is “who are the lawmakers who are most effective in coming up
the root causes of the findings that we have thus far.
with those ideas and turning them into law?”
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A Conversation with Jon Huntsman Virginia Policy Review Volume VI, Issue I Interviews I.
Jon Huntsman, Former Governor of the State of Utah Tony Woods, Former White House Fellow
II.
Editorials III.
Districts Can Take the Lead on Critical Education Reforms; They Just May Not Know It Michelle Rhee, Students First D.C. Statehood: Liberty and Justice for All Michael Brown, U.S. Shadow Senator (D-D.C.) A Twenty-First Century NATO: Smart Solutions for an Uncertain Future Harold Mock, Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Virginia Address Inefficiencies to Protect Victims of Domestic Violence Kelly Connors, MPP Candidate at the University of Virginia
IV.
V.
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Obesity in the United States Evan Vahouny, MPP Candidate at the University of Virginia
Research VIII. Detroit’s Empowerment Zone: Evaluation of Success Tara Clark, MPP Candidate at the University of Virginia IX. Can’t You Just Sanction Them? Financial Measures as an Instrument of Foreign Policy Jonathan Burke, Department of the Treasury X. Finance, the Informal Welfare State, and the Crash Herman Schwartz, Professor of Political Science at the University of Virginia
Book Review XI.
Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance, 1937-1948
This article was reprinted with permission from the spring 2013 edition of the Virginia Policy Review. VPR strives to publish work that will impact the wider
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overnor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. began his career in public service as a staff assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He has since served four US Presidents in critical roles around the world including Ambassador to Singapore; Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Asia; US Trade Representative; and, most recently, US Ambassador to China. Twice elected as Utah’s Governor, Jon Huntsman brought about strong economic reforms, tripled the states rainy day fund and helped bring unemployment rates to historic lows. During his tenure, Utah was named the best-managed state in America and best state in which to do business. Recognized by others for his service, Governor Huntsman was elected as Chairman of the Western Governors Association, serving nineteen states throughout the region. Governor Huntsman most recently ran as a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination until leaving the race in January 2012. In addition he serves as a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institute, a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Trustee of the Reagan Presidential Foundation, and as Chairman of The Huntsman Cancer Foundation. He is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania.
policy debate through a variety of journalistic mediums including research, opinion pieces, interviews, and book reviews. Although this organization has members who are University of Virginia students and may have University employees associated or engaged in its activities and affairs, the organization is not a part of or an agency of the University. It is a separate and independent organization which is responsible for and manages its own activities and affairs. The University does not direct, supervise or control the organization and is not responsible for the organization’s contracts, acts or omissions.
VPR. The first topic is international trade. China’s export policies have led some to advocate for reconsidering our free-trade policies. Republican nominee Mitt Romney mentioned tariffs as a possible idea in the second Presidential debate. Do you think we should more proactively address the trade imbalance with China? Huntsman. The only way we can address the trade imbalance is to enforce our laws and to somehow influence the emerging generation of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are going to have a lot more influence domestically than we will. We need to get back on our feet domestically in terms of economic competitiveness. Those are the steps that I think are the most important. Tariffs that are in place for punitive reasons—in a perfect world you can make that argument. But we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world of economics. We live in a world where you have to deal with the aftermath of tariffs or sanctions. So before you go about doing that, although it might sound like a good political line, you have to look at the chessboard. You have to
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look three or four moves ahead and see where it lands you. You have to be smart about it.
VPR. What areas of state budgets do you think will be hurt the most from the fallout of a slower economy? Do you think education and infrastructure will be included?
Huntsman. There are certainly aspects of both. Budgets have fixed costs that are tied to teacher salaries and the annual increases in salaries and healthcare costs. Budgets also include costs associated with population growth, which you cannot do anything about. Variable costs are driven more by programmatic areas. These are the ones that will be looked at it in most states. But in my mind, having run a state and having put education as one of my main priorities— knowing that is an investment because you are making your state competitive for tomorrow— it isn’t always about costs. It’s about priorities and how you allocate dollars. You can’t do everything, but you can do some things pretty well. You just have to figure out what your state needs to do well in order to stay relevant. You then rebuild your budget around those factors.
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VPR. Assuming some of those cuts are forthcoming, what can an executive do to maximize the dollars a state has?
Huntsman. Education and infrastructure are critical components to competitiveness in the 21st century. When I was governor, education and infrastructure were critical expenditures. But in order to adequately address those needs, I had to make sure that the economy was functioning on the other side of the balance sheet. I made the argument to the legislature and the people of my state that we needed to reform taxes. We needed to aggressively remarket the state. We needed to have closer alliances between the state and our major research universities. All of that made our state more competitive. You have to make the argument over competiveness from the standpoint of what feeds cash flows. Because the better you do at marketing your state and bringing in investment, the better you are going to do in terms of funding your education base and addressing your infrastructure needs. For me, it was all about proactively tightening our approach to competitiveness. We really focused on our bottom line issues. If our state is not bringing in investments, chances are we were losing out to other states. So why was it that Utah was losing out? These were real-time market issues. Was it taxes? Was it about regulation? Did it concern trimming government related to business development? We had to address those issues and make sure we were best in class. Ultimately, that made Utah the number one economy in the country during some of those years. We were also the best managed state in America based on the PEW data that has gone out. Changes are coming to education and infrastructure. But changes can be good as long as they improve your competitive prospects and bring in more investment. We found that we were able to build more roads, pay teachers more, and invest in infrastructure, and that all played into Utah’s long term needs.
VPR. Is it politically and economically viable to label China a currency manipulator? Second, is it wise to take a harder stance in general given our present position?
Huntsman. You can do whatever you want. It’s a political season, so a lot of the language and a lot of the posturing we hear has to do with that. When someone is elected, they sit down in the oval office and realize that the relationship is a whole lot more complicated than previously imagined. That has been the case ever since I traveled to China in the early 80’s. A lot of people have campaigned on a hard line. Bill Clinton campaigned that way in 1992. He then turned around and had an engagement-drive policy. Barack Obama criticized George W. Bush for going over to the Olympics in 2008. So there is the election season posturing, but there is also the recognition of what you can do in the real world. These are different realities. VPR. Let’s say we are in that post-election reality. As a policymaker, is it viable to draw a harder line?
Huntsman. It depends what you mean by harder line. There are idiotic stances like the ones that are being talked about today. Or, there are some of the hard line stances that I took when I was ambassador. I went out and promoted our nation’s values like human rights, free markets, liberty and religious tolerance—a lot of stuff that China does not like to talk about. But it is who we are. It is an expression of 315 million Americans who are hoping that US ambassadors will represent those kinds of values. But you also have to remember that interactions between the US and China are part of a longterm relationship that you must build very carefully. There are no real short-term gains to be made. It is about a long-term focus when you build the two largest economies in the world, and you bring them together around trade. You have to build the relationship while keeping in mind how trade will affect small business and agricultural exports in the US. Some of those are small communities that are impacted. The last thing you want is to see them take a hit. You also have to build a longer-term security relationship, militarily speaking. That means building military and security links that contribute to transparency, trust, and dialogue. You must also make sure to not only build a bilateral relationship, but a global one. That is the challenge both countries face today—moving forward in a global context. n
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Batten School hosts National Journal Conference (NJC)
The Virginia Policy Review hosted the inaugural National Journal Conference for Schools of Public Policy and Affairs January 25–26, 2013, endorsed by the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). The conference convened in Garrett Hall and promoted meaningful dialogue and exchange among graduate student publication staffs of public policy and public affairs schools across the nation. Fifteen schools from across the US participated in the conference, which featured special guests such as Douglas Blackmon, PulitzerPrize winning author of “Journalism that Impacts Policy;” Lymari Morales, Gallup Editorial Director; David Freedlander, Senior Political Correspondent, Newsweek/Daily Beast; and Jon Sawyer, Executive Director, Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting.
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Growing the Global Focus of the Batten MPP Program
A Conversation with Dean Harry Harding EDITOR’S NOTE
As part of the strategic planning exercise and the celebration of the Fifth Anniversary of the Batten School, Dean Harry Harding has established an increased global focus for the MPP curriculum. Professor Harding recently sat for a conversation with Assistant Dean for External Affairs Gerry Warburg to expand upon the logic behind this new initiative. Following are excerpts. Why is the Batten School placing greater emphasis on global education? Globalization is one of the most important trends that shapes public policy challenges today. Problems heretofore considered primarily domestic in nature are increasingly transnational. They will require multilateral approaches to resolution. Second, our students (and our prospective students) are asking for this new focus; the advanced policy project clients and internships they select, and their future employers often have an international focus.
Dean Harry Harding
What does this portend for MPP degree requirements? The increased global focus will be reflected in three ways. First, there will be more courses with global content, where we can show students how to apply the analytic tool kit that they have developed to transnational challenges. Second, working with Batten School faculty, we’ll be adding global content, where practical, to core courses in economics, policy history, institutions and policy analysis. Third, we’ll encourage students to continue designing their internships and client projects on transnational problems. Will there be new core courses and additional electives, or will there be a ‘global expectation’ throughout the Batten MPP curriculum? All of the above. Students will have more course options as we work to infuse the curriculum with a global perspective. For example, I am teaching this semester a new course on Global Leadership. We will also develop new cooperative relationships with the first rate public policy programs for study abroad to complement the wealth of experiences MPP candidates already bring to the classroom and to increase their global awareness. Because so many policy challenges now cross borders—and because advanced democracies are confronting so many similar problems on economic growth, aging populations and entitlement reforms— our public policy studies need more comparative approaches. When Batten talks about “reinventing the MPP degree for the 21st century” how does this relate to global education and the School’s unique approach to preparing global citizens? We are distinctive because of our focus on leadership theory and best practices, as well as our commitment to the interdisciplinary study of public policy skills. Our commitment to the interdisciplinary study of leadership, our experiential education, and our focus on designing a wide range of co-curricular activities, complement our classroom study at Batten. Is this part of the Batten School’s new strategic plan? Yes. This initiative reflects a key conclusion of faculty and staff involved in this important mission-defining exercise. It also grows, frankly, from our very distinguished Advisory
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Following Secretary of State John Kerry’s first major foreign policy address, delivered on Grounds at UVA, the Batten School launched a “Flash Forum” dialogue series discussing Secretary Kerry’s historic visit.
Professor Jeanine Braithwaite convenes a weekly research working group with students interested in global development, working closely on real-world projects with the World Bank and UNICEF.
Board, comprised of alumni and friends, a majority of whom have had their careers evolve to incorporate a more global focus than they had prepared for. Board members felt strongly that with the boundaries of public policy challenges eroding, it would be folly to create artificially separate tracks to study ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ problems. I wholeheartedly concur. How does global focus and interdisciplinary work on leadership led by Batten professors relate to the broader mission of the University? The Batten School has the great advantage of being new and, therefore, entrepreneurial in our approach to leadership and public policy education. We are committed to tearing down walls between departments and collaborating with the many outstanding professional schools on Grounds, as well as with a public undergraduate College second to none. We have a remarkable number of joint degree programs with the nationally acclaimed professional schools on Grounds, including law, medicine, business, architecture and urban planning. We are eager to advance President Sullivan’s vision of a collaborative educational enterprise that routinely integrates curriculum across many disciplines.
Kate Stanley (MPP ’13) interned with Spark Microgrants in Kigali, Rwanda during summer 2013
What would Thomas Jefferson think of your focus on global issues? I believe he would be pleasantly surprised. I do not think his original vision for the curriculum would have anticipated so much global content. Yet, Jefferson was such an extraordinary global citizen—with his eclectic interests in everything from French diplomacy to upland agriculture in Vietnam—that his thoughts would surely have evolved over the centuries. I imagine him chuckling as he remarks, “I wish I had thought of that!”
FRANK BATTEN SCHOOL OF LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC POLICY
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Student News
Batten in Action
M
otivated by the goal of capturing the spirit of the
student body, the Batten Council launched its inaugural Summer Photography Contest in 2012. The theme of the first contest, “Batten in Action,” highlighted students’ involvement in
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communities near and far. The vivid and dynamic student photos that are submitted bring to life the Batten School motto, “Policy is everywhere. Lead from anywhere.” n
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1 Melina Schoppa, MPP ’13, Chateau de Chillon 2 Mindy Adnot, MPP ’13 3 Shivshanka Srikanth, MPP ’13, Fruit Landy of Cartagena 4 Emily Laser, MPP ’14 5 Mindy Adnot, MPP ’13 6 Elena Weissmann, MPP ’14 3
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NEWS
Anna Ro re m
(MPP ’13) published an
article on “Cultivating Young Women’s Leadership for a Kinder, Braver World” with
MPP Class of 2014
Monisha Bajaj, Teachers College, Columbia University, in Harvard University’s Kinder, Braver World series. The article explores leadership development and civic participation among youth, indicating that youth who engage in service to their communities learn leadership skills through civic action and may be more likely to vote and be civically engaged as adults.
Elena Weissmann (MPP ’14) BA Class of 2014
developed a public radio broadcast, aired on Charlottesville’s WTJU, about her experience as a Linden Scholarship recipient working during summer 2012 in Jerusalem at Project Harmony Israel, an English immersion camp run in conjunction with the Hand in Hand Schools.
New Class, New Traditions We love their enthusiasm! They may be the
O R I E N TAT I O N
For the first time, this fall the Batten School welcomed three cohorts of new students: our inaugural undergraduate students (BA ’14), along with our post-graduate and accelerated Master’s degree candidates (MPP ’14). These diverse students include varsity athletes, campus and community leaders, researchers and scholars, business owners, and Peace Corps and Teach for America alumni; they truly embody the Batten spirit of “leading from everywhere.” The students’ back-to-school welcome events included two separate orientation programs, an extended MPP Math Camp, and a record-setting, all-school Batten Builds day of service.
newest class at Batten, but the undergraduate Batten majors are already seeking to create a legacy. They spent the fall organizing and drafting a mission statement for the inaugural undergraduate Batten Council, elections for which were held in late February. In the meantime, the “unofficial” undergraduate student council has hosted a number of events, including a meaningful student-faculty Thanksgiving Food Drive and Luncheon in the Great Hall on November 14. Plans are underway for an off-site undergraduate Leadership Retreat that will be held later
LEADING THROUGH CRISES
The Fifth Annual Batten School MPP Leadership Retreat focused on “Leading through Crises” and featured a high stakes “toxic sludge” simulation that kept students highly engaged and sitting on the edges of their seats. International crisis expert Dr. Eric Stern presented “Poison Mountain,” a case-based simulation that required students to analyze a rapidly changing mining disaster that raised challenging ethical, environmental, economic, and international political issues. The simulation was followed by a chilly, but exciting rafting trip down the New River—where all additional crises were fortunately averted!
this spring.
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Alumni News
BAAC to Batten
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n conjunction with Batten’s Fifth Year Anniversary Celebration in October, the Batten Alumni Advisory Council held its inaugural meeting in the Rotunda. Led by Brenan Richards (MPP ’09), the BAAC includes representatives from all four graduating classes. During the fall meeting, members discussed and revised a draft charter that outlines the group’s mission of advising the Batten administration, enriching the alumni experience, and supporting the school and its current students. In addition to the Executive Committee, additional supporting BAAC committees will focus on enhancing Alumni Relations, Professional Development, and Fundraising. If you are interested in learning more or helping advance the efforts of the BAAC, please contact Jill Rockwell, Senior Assistant Dean for Student and Career Services, at jill.rockwell@virginia.edu.
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Holiday Happy Hour
Dean Harding convened a ‘State of the School’ joint session of the Batten Advisory
Approximately 50 Batten alumni, students, faculty, and staff braved the winter weather—and rush hour traffic!—for the Batten Holiday Happy Hour. Held on December 20 in Washington, DC, the event was a fun way to wind down the year and to greet Batten friends, old and new.
Board and newly formed BAAC during the Fifth Anniversary celebrations.
UCAN HELP CURRENT STUDENTS!
As the internship- and job-hunting season
heats up for our students, we encourage Batten alumni to take a moment to register with the UVA Alumni Association’s “University Career Assistance Network” (UCAN), an online database of alumni who have volunteered to assist fellow Cavaliers entering the job market or seeking career advice. We’re hoping for 100% participation! Register at Hoosonline.virginia.edu; click on the “Career Center” tab, and choose “Batten” as your second school.
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Remember, “UCAN” find valuable contacts through this online alumni network—and through the Batten School Career and Professional Development Office, too! We are proud to offer our Batten alumni lifelong support for all their career and professional development needs. If you need a brush-up on your resume, advice about your next job search, or you just want to tell us about a recent promotion you received in your current position, we encourage you to contact us through the Alumni Portal at the top of the Batten website. We miss you; please stay in touch!
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Major Milestones
Celebrating our Past, Looking to the Future S T R AT E G I C P L A N N I N G In May 2012, Dean Harding initiated a comprehensive strategic planning process to coincide with the five year anniversary of the School’s founding gift. Two fundamental ideas guided the process, which was led by Bill Ashby, Associate Dean for Management and Finance, and Howard Hoege, Assistant Dean for Admissions and Strategic Initiatives. First, Dean Harding insisted on a “resourcebased” process, meaning that the School fully integrated its strategic and financial plans. Second, Dean Harding framed the planning process as an opportunity to capture and institutionalize the Batten School culture— a forward-looking, entrepreneurial mindset within our students, faculty and staff that is so palpable at the school. While the Batten team produced a written report, the many conversations that this process drove with individual faculty, staff, alumni, students, and advisory board members, the sharing of individual perspectives, expertise, and ideas, and the resulting commitment to a collective statement about who we are and where we are heading, are the truly valuable and lasting products of this process. As a result, the Batten School now has a well thought out, widely vetted set of measureable strategic initiatives. We consider it our road map, one that focuses us on a destination while providing varying routes to reach it.
FIFTH ANNIVERSARY Batten celebrated its fifth anniversary in October, marking the matriculation of the first class of Accelerated Bachelor/MPP students who began classes in 2007. Frank Batten Sr., the retired chairman of Landmark Communications, made the largest single
philanthropic gift in University of Virginia history in April 2007—$100 million—to endow the Batten School. Speaking to Batten School alumni, faculty, students and supporters, Dean Harry Harding announced several new gifts, likening the donations to new fuel for a spaceship that has blasted off successfully and reached a sustainable Earth orbit, but still has far greater objectives to reach. In what Harding called “a remarkably generous vote of confidence in the successful launch of this new school,” Jane Batten, widow of the school’s founding benefactor, gave a $1 million unrestricted cash gift that will fund three key initiatives: student fellowships, global initiatives and faculty hires. Former UVA Rector John O. “Dubby” Wynne, who chairs the Batten School Board of Advisors, committed $1 million toward a $5 million fund for the school’s first endowed
faculty chair, in leadership, Harding said. Batten Board member Brian Siegel, a principal at Deloitte Consulting, worked with former US Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, director of federal government affairs at Deloitte & Touche, to secure a $125,000 commitment from Deloitte partners, matched by $125,000 from the Deloitte Foundation, to fund $250,000 of graduate student scholarships over the next five years. Harding announced four other major gifts, supporting a leadership speaker series, an initiative to globalize the Batten curriculum, a fund to support offerings in the 21stcentury challenge of technology policy, and a fund for co-curricular programs, panels and conferences in Charlottesville and Washington designed to build Batten’s
FRANK BATTEN SCHOOL OF LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC POLICY
President Sullivan and Dean Harding gave brief remarks at fifth anniversary celebration
reputation as a reliable source of data and nonpartisan discussion on current public policy challenges. In brief remarks following the gift announcements, UVA President Teresa A. Sullivan congratulated the school on its “extraordinary achievements” during its first five years. In addition to having “virtually doubled in size each of the last two years,” she said, the school has added a post-graduate master’s degree program and a new undergraduate major. “I especially want to single out the pioneering alumni among us,” Sullivan said. “You were the first students to enroll in the first new school created on Grounds since 1950. You are our living endowment and your work as ambassadors will go to great lengths to secure a top-notch reputation for the school.”
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FRANK BATTEN SCHOOL of LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC POLICY Garrett Hall 235 McCormick Road Charlottesville, VA 22904
434.982.6761 TEL 434.243.6858 FAX
Gift opportunities As the first new school at the University of Virginia in more than five decades, the Batten School’s remarkable trajectory began with Frank Batten Sr.’s historic founding gift. We invite you to help to build upon that momentum, and help ensure we realize the full potential of Mr. Batten’s vision. There are multiple opportunities to support the Batten School. ......
Student experience Provide scholarship support and internship opportunities. To ensure the most inquisitive and diverse student body, we seek an endowed capacity to support future leaders. Batten seeks resources for paid internship opportunities and for capstone projects—professional-quality studies conducted under faculty supervision by second-year students for real-world clients.
Faculty support Recruit world-class professors, create endowed professorships, and support faculty research. Batten faculty are committed to teaching rigorous analytical skills, understanding of political, social and economic context, and application of leadership best practices to initiate change.
Public Programs and Conferences Support ongoing public speaker series and future academic conferences. Policy is everywhere, and so are leaders. Our students benefit from an impressive public speaker series that invites practitioners to Grounds to share their experiences and ideas.
www.batten.virginia.edu
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