Battinto L. Batts Jr., Dean of the Cronkite School, is an award-winning journalist and journalism educator with deep experience in philanthropy and nonprofit administration. As the school’s top leader, he supervises approximately 170 full-time and part-time faculty, 50 staff members and 2,300 students. He also oversees 13 intensive full-immersion professional programs as well as all undergraduate, graduate and online curriculums.

A native of Ettrick, Virginia, Batts comes from a news-loving family, which read two newspapers every day and expected the children to do so as well. His love for news as a career started at age 8 when a cousin was captured by rebels in Beirut and held hostage for 13 days. His family, who was interviewed by reporters, listened to the news day and night to learn the fate of the young Army colonel. Batts was the first to hear of his cousin’s release.

Batts began his formal journalism career through the Urban Journalism Workshop, a program sponsored by the Dow Jones News Fund for aspiring young journalists. His first story, which focused on older students returning to college to earn their degree, earned the workshop’s Best News Story award. After earning his bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Virginia Commonwealth University, he worked for 18 years at various newspapers including the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Virginia-Pilot, the Tampa Bay Times, the Daily Press (Newport News, Virginia) and the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Batts’ career in higher education began as an adjunct professor at Hampton University in Virginia. He later joined the Hampton faculty full time as a professor in the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications. He was appointed the director of the University’s William R. Harvey Leadership Institute, an interdisciplinary program that awards a minor in leadership studies. After four years, he returned to the journalism school as the assistant dean for academic affairs, overseeing curriculum and instruction, internship placement and senior capstone, among other operational duties.

Batts’ most recent position was as director of journalism strategies for the Scripps Howard Foundation in Cincinnati, Ohio. While at the foundation, he helped manage journalism initiatives and funding priorities and oversaw the prestigious Scripps Howard Awards, a program that honors the best in journalism across multiple categories. He also played a pivotal role in the development of the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism which was awarded to the Cronkite School and the University of Maryland in 2018.

Batts holds a master’s degree in media management from Norfolk State University and a doctorate in higher education management from Hampton University. Batts is married to Tamala McBath, who attended high school in Phoenix. The couple have four daughters — Lyndsay, Mayah, Olivia and Jourdan — and a grandson, Brycen.