In this class students will learn to analyze claims about the material and social worlds through formulation and testing of new questions and hypotheses based on observation and experience.

How do developing countries in the global South navigate the emergence of renewed great power competition? This class will explore the impact of European & non-Euro imperialism on large parts of the developing World. We will seek to answer this question by looking at the engagement of countries & actors in the global South with established and emerging powers in an increasingly multi-polar World.

An introduction to the craft of writing poetry, with relevant readings in the genre. For more details on creative writing courses, see our program website at creativewriting.virginia.edu.

Leading teams in an outdoor space require a strong team foundation, good risk-management skills, learn to live outdoors, and develop a wide range of outdoor technical skills. An emphasis will be placed on reflection of field time and how content learned in class can apply to a variety of contexts. Learning to lead in outdoor spaces gives leaders tangible leadership practice and a flexible mindset to solve front-country problems.

Course investigates practical challenges policy researchers face conducting impact evaluations. Develop capacity to replicate prominent empirical research using experimental & quasi-experimental methods & present results in compelling, accessible formats.Course primarily uses R (No prior exp. w/R expected). Course assumes prior grad-level instruction in experimental & quasi-experimental methods and Batten MPPs likely have completed RMDA II.

Covers foundations and applications of NLP with a focus on the most popular form of unstructured data - text. Convert source texts into structure-preserving analytical form and then apply information theory, NLP tools, and vector-based methods to explore language models, topic models, sentiment analyses, and GenAI techniques. Focus is on unsupervised methods to explore cognitive patterns in texts, with real-world examples and demonstrations.

Bayesian inferential methods provide a foundation for machine learning under conditions of uncertainty. Bayesian machine learning techniques can help us to more effectively address the limits to our understanding of world problems. This class covers the major related techniques, including Bayesian inference, conjugate prior probabilities, naive Bayes classifiers, expectation maximization, Markov chain monte carlo, and variational inference. A course covering statistical techniques such as regression.

An introduction to the craft of writing fiction, with relevant readings in the genre. For more details on creative writing courses, see our program website at creativewriting.virginia.edu.

Discussion-based course w/a developmental examination of child poverty (multi-layer effects of history, culture,&geographic location). Examine: school reform efforts ("turnaround" schools,charter schools); implications of No Child Left Behind &2015 Every Student Succeeds Act; barriers (social isolation,violence,oppression,etc.) that contribute to failure of previous reform initiatives; education policies&proposals aiming to address these issues.

This course provides the opportunity to offer new topics in the subject of Creative Writing.