The University serves Virginia, the nation, and the world by preparing responsible citizen-leaders; advancing, preserving, and disseminating knowledge; and providing world-class patient care.
All gifts of any kind help secure the University’s place as a premier institution of learning and make it possible for our students, faculty, and researchers to shape a brighter future.
You can give to all 12 schools across Grounds. The possibilities are endless for supporting our students, faculty, and programs. Together, we will find the way forward.
You can join the growing number of alumni and friends who invest now in the University’s future by including UVA as a beneficiary of their wills, charitable trusts, and retirement plans. Gifts like these can offer you and your family significant tax benefits as well as greater financial flexibility in meeting your personal and philanthropic goals.
The Honor the Future campaign, the largest in University history, concluded in 2025, thanks to thousands of loyal supporters. Its impact on students, faculty, facilities, and research reaches across Charlottesville, Wise County, and Northern Virginia as it continues to advance the school in its third century of service to the commonwealth, nation, and world.
When Claudia Nunn (Batten ’26) arrived at UVA, she was no stranger to public policy and service. With a bachelor’s degree in public policy from University of California, Riverside, Nunn had also just served as a California Climate Action Fellow in Los Angeles, working on community outreach and education about Senate Bill 1383, the state’s law to mandate organic waste collection and keep household materials like food scraps and yard trimmings, which create greenhouse gases, out of landfills. The bill had passed in 2016 but was just being implemented in the city.
“I fell in love with the idea of grassroots service,” Nunn said, “because making policy is all well and good, but I also wanted to have a better understanding of how policy actually affected people directly—to work on the ground in communities where environmental policy is being implemented and being able to talk about it and how it impacts everyday life.”
Part of that experience interacting with those impacted by SB 1383 brought to light some of the bill’s unintended consequences: namely, that the associated costs of this mandated organic waste disposal were being passed on to renters. This was because multi-family properties had to pay for the service, which was free for single-family homes. Nunn helped to write a motion that was unanimously passed at City Hall, amending the city’s mandate to address that issue.
Nunn comes from a family of social workers and foster carers who emphasized the importance of dedicating time to others. For Nunn, that grounding eventually translated into an ongoing interest in studying and working in public policy, and she began her application to pursue a master’s degree in the Frank Batten School for Leadership and Public Policy. She abandoned the application when she realized the significant obstacle that tuition costs would pose. But when she learned she was being considered for a fellowship created by George and Kathy Hicker, she was encouraged to continue her pursuit to study at the school. Nunn is the first fellow of this new initiative, which is designed to draw graduate students from all 50 states to create a community of students from a variety of backgrounds and with a wide range of perspectives.
“There’s so much polarization and divide in the country as a whole, and having a student from each state and facilitating conversations in a safe classroom setting will hopefully lead to positive benefits outside of the classroom in the real world,” Nunn said of the Hickers’ initiative.
One of the things that has impressed Nunn most about her experience at Batten so far is the school’s connection to alumni and to the community outside of UVA. This includes the coursework itself, which involves not only the theoretical grounding for her studies but also requires practical work with partners outside the University; in her case, that has meant examining aspects of Virginia utility policy and working with representatives in Wise County to source funding for flood resiliency. On Grounds, too, Nunn emphasized the school’s dedication to bringing in outside speakers for students to learn from and engage with during the weekly Batten Hour series and through individual classes in which professors also frequently invite guest lecturers.
A recent Batten Hour event with Yohannes Abraham, former U.S. ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and a visiting professor at UVA, talking with Philip Potter, professor of public policy, founding director of the National Security Policy Center at the Batten School, and executive director of UVA’s National Security Data and Policy Institute.
“Batten continues to help me to bridge the gap between theory and practice,” Nunn said. “The school’s connection to alumni and the greater community is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and they do a really good job of making it accessible for students.”
Nunn’s dream is to follow her passion to safeguard the environment. Her education in environmental policy has given her the confidence and enthusiasm to take on the work ahead: “This scholarship has completely changed my life. It’s priceless.”
