Victor Battistich
Dr. Victor Battistich was an Associate Professor in the Division of Educational Psychology, Research and Evaluation at the University of Missouri—St. Louis.
Prior to coming to UMSL in 2003, he
co-founded and, for over 20 years, was senior researcher at the
Developmental Studies Center in Oakland, CA—a nonprofit educational
research and development organization dedicated to fostering the social,
ethical, and intellectual development of children through school-based
programs and curricula.
The Center’s programs, most notably
the Child Development Project, and its extensive educational
research and evaluation activities are widely recognized for their
quality, and have received numerous awards and designations as
“exemplary” from such organizations as the American Association of
School Administrators, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development, the National Association of Elementary School Principals,
the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Education.
Dr. Battistich was born and
educated in California and graduated with a B.A. degree in Psychology
from California State University, Sacramento, in 1974. He received his
Ph.D. in Personality and Social Psychology from Michigan State
University in 1979, and was an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Psychology at Cleveland State University before returning to California
in 1981 to found the Developmental Studies Center.
He has authored or co-authored over
50 professional publications, including journal articles in education,
child and adolescent development, pediatrics, psychology, prevention,
and public health, and chapters in the Handbook of Moral Behavior and
Development, Handbook of Research on Teaching, Handbook of
Moral Development, Handbook of Classroom Management, and Handbook of Research on Schools, Schooling, and Human Development.
Dr. Battistich is survived by his wife Martha
Montgomery and their two daughters: Sarah, who currently is in medical school
at the University of Michigan, and Caitlin, who currently is an
undergraduate at San Diego State University.
Battistich has been a Principal or Co-Principal Investigator on numerous
research grants from government agencies and private foundations,
including the following:
-
National Institute on Drug Abuse
-
The
National Science Foundation
-
The
U.S. Department of Education
-
The
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
-
The
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
-
The
Stuart Foundation
-
The
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Dr. Battistich was internationally
recognized for his expertise in the areas of character education and
prosocial development, and in research design and data analysis, and
consults extensively with individuals and organizations on the
development, implementation, and evaluation of school-based
interventions in character and moral development, and delinquency and
drug abuse prevention.