EVALUATION 2007 CALL FOR PROPOSALS &
PRESIDENTIAL INVITATION

The American Evaluation Association invites evaluators from around the world to attend its annual conference to be held Wednesday, November 7, through Saturday, November 10, 2007 in Baltimore, Maryland. We will be meeting in two immediately adjacent conference hotels, the Sheraton Baltimore City Center at 101 West Fayette St and the Radisson Plaza Lord Baltimore at 20 West Baltimore Street. The two hotels are connected via a skybridge on their conference levels. The AEA registration desk will be at the Radisson and the conference sessions are split between the two venues.

AEA's annual meeting is expected to bring together over 2500 evaluation practitioners, academics, and students, and represents a unique opportunity to gather with professional colleagues in a supportive, invigorating, atmosphere.

The conference is broken down into 38 Topical Strands that examine the field from the vantage point of a particular methodology, context, or issue of interest to the field as well as the Presidential Strand highlighting this year's Presidential Theme of "Evaluation and Learning." Presentations may explore the conference theme or any aspect of the full breadth and depth of evaluation theory and practice.

This year's event is to be held in two hotels, the Sheraton Baltimore City Center at 101 West Fayette Street and the Radisson Plaza Lord Baltimore at 20 West Baltimore Street, in historic downtown Baltimore. The two venues are immediately adjacent to one another and connected by a short bridge above street level. Sessions and workshops will be held in both hotels while conference registration, your starting point for the conference, will take place on the Mezzanine level in the Radisson.

We invite you to learn more:

• Read a letter of invitation to submit from the AEA President Learn more

• Review the Frequently Asked Questions about proposal submission and the conference Learn more

• Explore the types of sessions that may be proposed Learn more

• Consider proposing an extended workshop to precede or follow the conference Learn more

• Review the draft conference schedule Learn more

• Go directly to the proposal submission forms Learn more

Letter of Invitation to Submit for Evaluation 2007 from AEA's President

For as long as contemporary forms of evaluation have been around, questions concerning effective practice, relevant theories, impacts and consequences, and use of findings, have been posed and debated by practitioners and scholars in the field. Embedded in all of these questions is an implicit assumption that evaluation, in some way, is about learning…learning about a program and its outcomes, learning from an evaluation process, learning how to do evaluation, or learning about evaluation’s effect on others. If learning is the act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skills, then it is hard to imagine evaluation as anything other than a means for learning. Increasingly over the years, evaluators have come to acknowledge the learning aspect of evaluation by framing it as evaluation capacity building, evaluation use and influence, evaluation for organizational learning, empowerment evaluation, knowledge management, and within the broad construct of evaluation, social betterment. Inherent in each of these areas of study and practice is the notion that learning is a fundamental process that enhances our individual and collective capacity to create the results we truly desire now and in the future. Consequently, learning from and about evaluation has the potential to generate knowledge for decision-making and action and to move us in the direction of our visions.

The 2007 Presidential Strand theme, "Evaluation and Learning," will provide a focus for us to explore this topic in various ways. For example, the following questions, though not exhaustive, illustrate some of the issues that could be addressed within the context of the conference theme:

• What does it mean to learn from and about evaluation processes and outcomes?

• How does evaluation facilitate learning? Conversely, how and when does evaluation hinder learning?

• How might learning from evaluation be enhanced and sustained?

• In what ways can evaluation create learning communities of practice?

• How can differences—individual learning styles, community cultures, ethnic and geographic dimensions—enhance and challenge our learning from and about evaluation?

• What does learning from evaluation look like in different organizational and community contexts?

• Who else is involved in the process of learning from evaluation in different contexts and how?

• How, and in what ways, does learning lead to evaluation?

• What kinds of evaluation designs and approaches maximize which kinds of learning from and about evaluation?

• What is the relationship between workplace and adult learning theory and evaluation theory? What other theories help us understand the intersection of learning and evaluation?

• The AEA Annual Conference is a vibrant and exciting learning community: how do we maximize our own learning in the evaluation profession?

Some of the sessions for the Presidential Strand will be specially invited by the Strand program Chair, Darlene Russ-Eft. Others will be selected from sessions nominated by AEA’s Topical Interest Groups (TIGs) from the proposals that they review. And, I expect that several other excellent sessions, outside the Presidential Strand, will be related to the Strand theme. I encourage you to consider submitting a proposal that addresses some aspect of the relationship between evaluation and learning, or on any topic of interest to evaluators, for peer review by one of AEA’s 38 TIGs.

I hope that you will consider sharing your best work as part of what promises to be a stimulating and enlightening conference. I look forward to seeing you in Baltimore - home of crab cakes, the first U.S. railroad, and the place where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner. Be sure to explore this site to learn more about the conference and access the proposal submission guidelines and forms.

Regards,

Hallie Preskill

2007 President
American Evaluation Association 

Draft Conference Schedule