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AEA THOUGHT LEADER DISCUSSION SERIES Are you an AEA member? Click here to go directly to the Thought Leaders Discussion! The Thought Leader Discussion Series connects thought leaders in our field with AEA members, new and old alike. It is one of many ways we strive to build bridges among members and foster a sense of community. Most months, we host an asynchronous (not in real time) online exchange over the course of a week using AEA’s discussion forums. During each exchange, an established evaluator or theorist contributes daily to an online dialogue around issues of importance to the field and to our professional practice. As a participant, it is up to you whether to sit back and watch the exchange or become an active contributor, asking questions of the speaker and your participant colleagues or providing insights based on your own background and experiences. How to Participate and Frequently Asked Questions
Upcoming Thought Leader Discussions
Leonard Bickman
Fiona Cram  Fiona Cram is from Aotearoa New Zealand and has Māori/Indigenous tribal
connections with Ngāti
Pahauwera. Fiona has a PhD from the University of Otago (Social and
Developmental Psychology), and over 20 years of research and evaluation
experience. Currently, Fiona serves as the Director of Katoa
Ltd, a research and evaluation company, where she is involved in a wide range of
Kaupapa Māori (by Māori, for Māori) research and evaluation with Iwi
(tribal) and Māori (Indigenous New Zealanders) groups, philanthropic
organisations, District Health Boards, and government agencies. Current projects
include working with a team of researchers at the University of Otago on a study
of the health journeys of young pregnant Māori women, and the evaluation of the
Kaitoko Whānau initiative, which is a social service navigator service
for vulnerable Māori families. With Ricardo Millett, Fiona is serving as the
2012 conference Presidential Strand co-chair, focusing on the conference theme
of Evaluation in Complex Ecologies: Relationships, Responsibilities,
Relevance.Past Thought Leaders Discussions Past Thought Leader Discussions
Jim Rugh
Ernest House
Beverly
Parsons
François Dumaine
and Keiko Kuji-Shikatani Francois Dumaine and Keiko Kuji-Shikatani are active members and leaders at the Canadian Evaluation Society. Keiko is an Education officer in the Student Achievement Division (Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation Team) of the Ontario Ministry of Education and is the first Vice President for Professional Designations Program at CES. Francois directs PRA Inc.’s Ottawa office and is the immediate Past President of CES. Keiko and Francois were instrumental in fostering CES’s Professional Designations Program that builds on the CES Competencies for Canadian Evaluation Practice. The CES Credentialed Evaluator (CE) designation is designed to define, recognize and promote the practice of ethical, high quality and competent evaluation in Canada through a program for professional designations. It is a voluntary program that recognizes those with the education and experience to provide evaluation services, and through its maintenance and renewal requirements, promotes continuous learning within our evaluation community. Their combined expertise is formidable ranging from project management to evaluation capacity building to nonprofit management and even law! During their week on the Thought Leaders forum, tune in for discussion of issues ranging from the challenges of identifying evaluator competencies to the hoped for outcomes and considerations related to CES’s evaluator credentialing initiative.
Eleanor Chelimsky
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2011
AEA Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Award winner, and 1996 AEA President
Leonard Bickman has a distinguished 40-plus year career as a
social psychologist and is recognized as a pioneer in applied
research and evaluation. He spearheaded a comprehensive study of
children's mental health services more than a decade ago that
involved 1,000 children and their families over a five-year period -
one of the largest mental health services demonstration projects
ever conducted on children and adolescents. He and his colleagues
have since developed the Contextualized Feedback Systems (CFS) model
in an effort to improve mental health services and educational
leadership. "Driven by the lack of positive findings for children's
mental health services, Len has dedicated this stage of his career
to trying to improve this area of intervention," notes Deb Rog,
AEA's 2009 President who nominated Len for the Myrdal Award.
The August Thought Leaders
forum will focus on issues related to AEA’s place and presence in the
international arena. The AEA Board launched an "International Listening Project"
to help us set strategic directions for our international collaborations with
evaluators, evaluation associations, and evaluation clients around the globe.
The Listening Project is intended to help us listen well to the ideas for
international evaluation initiatives of our members as well as our colleagues
around the globe.
Ernest
R. House is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Education at the
University of Colorado at Boulder. Previously, he was at the Center
for Instructional Research and Curriculum Evaluation (CIRCE) at the
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has been a visiting
scholar at UCLA, Harvard, and New Mexico, as well as in England,
Australia, Spain, Sweden, Austria, and Chile. He served as a Fellow
at the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences,
Stanford from 1999-2000. A prolific author, his books include
Values in Evaluation and Social Research (with Ken Howe, 1999),
Evaluating with Validity (1980), and Where the Truth
Lies, an evaluation novel (2002). 1990 recipient of AEA’s Paul
F Lazarsfeld Award for Evaluation Theory, and 1989 recipient of the
Policy Research Journal's Howard E. Lasswell Prize in the policy
sciences, Ernie’s work explores issues of truth, validity, values,
and democracy in evaluation – fundamental discussions in this, AEA’s
25th Anniversary year.
The
April Thought Leaders forum will focus on environmental
sustainability, the topic of the AEA Board’s Question of the Quarter
(an initiative intended to engage members in discussions of issues
of potential policy interest). Aided by other experts in the area of
environmental sustainability, Beverly Parsons will lead the forum
from April 17-23. Beverly is the Executive Director of InSites (
Melvin Hall is Professor of Educational Psychology at
Northern Arizona University. Initially trained in program evaluation
at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Center for
Instructional Research and Curriculum Evaluation – CIRCE), he
interrupted evaluation practice to serve as a dean at four public
universities located across the United States. Returning to
full-time faculty status in 2002, he began active engagement in AEA
serving as the Chair of the Diversity Committee followed by two
years as chair of the task force charged with drafting an AEA
statement on the importance of cultural competence. He currently
serves on the AJE Editorial Advisory Board, and with Gail Barrington
is co-chairing the presidential strand for AEA’s 2011 meeting. With
Stafford Hood, Melvin has co-directed multiple NSF grants to support
capacity building and culturally responsive evaluation, and in 2008
he was recognized by the Multiethnic Issues TIG with its
professional achievement award. Join Melvin for a discussion which
will continue exploration of “values and valuing in evaluation” with
particular focus on the role of values in meaning-making throughout
the program evaluation process. 
Jennifer Greene has been an evaluation
scholar-practitioner for 35 years. Within AEA, she served with Gary
Henry as co-editor-in-chief of New Directions for Evaluation,
and she has been on the AEA board and active in multiple task forces
related to AEA’s diversity and multicultural initiatives. As a
professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, Jennifer’s research and practice interests
emphasize the advancement of responsiveness and democratic values
through evaluation and the thoughtful use of qualitative and mixed
methods approaches to evaluation. These interests are reflected in
the theme Jennifer has chosen for AEA in 2011, when she will be
president of the association. The theme is “values and valuing in
evaluation,” and Jennifer is looking forward to engaging with other
evaluators in conversations about the character and role of values
in evaluation planning, implementation, and utilization. Jennifer
was also the 2003 recipient of AEA’s Lazarsfeld Award for
Contributions to Evaluation Theory, the co-editor of the 2006
Sage Handbook on Evaluation (with Ian Shaw and Mel Mark), and
the author of a 2007 book on Mixed Methods in Social Inquiry.
Laura Leviton is a noted author, Special Advisor for
Evaluation at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), and past
AEA President. Laura co-authored the classic text Foundations of
Program Evaluation: Theories of Practice (SAGE, 1990), co-edited The
Handbook of Leadership Development (Jossey Bass, 2006), and most
recently contributed to and co-edited the June 2010 issue of New
Directions for Evaluation on The Systematic Screening and Assessment
Method. Laura has overseen evaluations in most of RWJF’s focus areas
and currently focuses primarily on the Foundation’s initiatives in
preventing childhood obesity. This week, Laura will raise and
discuss issues such as : (a) What foundations do and what they could
do, not being the government (e.g. learning vs accountability); (b)
Uncharted territory for which foundations are uniquely suited
including fostering communities of practice, working on
generalization, and sharpening the operationalization of programs,
practices, and policies, for better outcome evaluation; and (c)
implications for evaluation theory.
Eleanor Chelimsky has been an evaluator for many
years, first at NATO, where she worked at the international level to
perform defense studies and improve the data systems available to
support evaluation; then at a not-for-profit consulting firm, the
MITRE Corporation, where she directed evaluations for executive
branch agencies, and finally, at a legislative agency, the GAO,
where she ran an evaluation unit of about one hundred social
scientists (the Program Evaluation and Methodology Division) doing
evaluations for the Congress. Under her leadership, PEMD pioneered
the use of new methodologies and performed studies in almost every
subject area. She also worked to improve GAO's general capabilities
in evaluation and helped a number of different countries establish
their own evaluative institutions. She was president of the
Evaluation Research Society and of the American Evaluation
Association, and received GAO's top honor, the Comptroller General's
Award. She is currently a member of AEA's Evaluation Policy Task
Force, working on ways to advance both the understanding and
performance of evaluation in government.
Jim Altschuld is Professor Emeritus in Educational
Policy and Leadership at The Ohio State University. Retired for more
than six years he continues to be active in evaluation (4 projects
since leaving the faculty), writing many books on needs assessment
as part of the Needs Assessment Kit available from SAGE in 2010,
conducting and publishing research on evaluation with a particular
emphasis on identifying and prioritizing needs and the methods used
to do so, and presenting workshops and papers for over 30 years at
the annual meetings of AEA. In the late 1990s he chaired the AEA
task force charged with examining the possibility of certifying or
credentialing evaluators in the US and in the 90’s and early 2000’s
he and his colleague (Molly Engle) studied the training of
evaluators. Although he has nearly 40 years of work experience in
evaluation and might be viewed as an “old hand” in age and
experience, he thinks there is no such thing and that we are all
learners and should be learners along this journey.
June’s thought leader, Melvin Mark – Mel to his
friends and colleagues – has served as AEA’s President, edited the
American Journal of Evaluation, completed two terms on the
AEA Board of Directors, and currently is an active contributor to
AEA’s Evaluation Policy Task Force. Mel’s interests range widely to
embrace the theory, methodology, practice and profession of program
and policy evaluation. The books on which Mel has served as
co-author or co-editor attest to the breadth and depth of his
knowledge and expertise, including, most recently: Evaluation: An
Integrated Framework for Understanding, Guiding, and Improving
Policies and Programs (with Gary Henry and George Julnes),
The SAGE Handbook of Evaluation (with Ian Shaw and Jennifer
Greene), Evaluation in Action: Interviews with Expert Evaluators
(with Jody Fitzpatrick and Tina Christie), and What Counts
as Credible Evidence in Applied Research and Evaluation Practice?
(with Stewart Donaldson and Tina Christie). Mel is Professor and
Head of Psychology at Penn State University. Among other things, Mel
reports thinking these days about pathways to evaluation influence,
research on evaluation, and getting more effective programs to
evaluate.
David Fetterman is President of Fetterman and
Associates, an international evaluation consulting firm, Professor
of Education, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (HBCU), and
Director of the Arkansas Evaluation Center. He is a past-president
of the American Evaluation Association and is one of two evaluators
to have received both the Myrdal Evaluation Practice and Lazersfeld
Evaluation Theory Awards. His most recent books are: Empowerment
Evaluation Principles in Practice with Abraham Wandersman and
Ethnography: Step by Step (3rd edition). David also has a recent
article that has just been published in Academic Medicine (last
week) titled Empowerment Evaluation: A Collaborative Approach to
Evaluating and Transforming a Medical School Curriculum. The
article highlights the use of empowerment evaluation in Stanford
University's School of Medicine.
Michael Morris is Professor of Psychology at the
University of New Haven, where he directs the Master's Program in
Community Psychology and does research on ethical conflicts in
program evaluation. He served as the first editor of the Ethical
Challenges section of the American Journal of Evaluation, and his
research has appeared in Evaluation Review, Evaluation and Program
Planning, and the American Journal of Community Psychology, among
others. His most recent study focuses on the pressures applied to
evaluators to misrepresent findings. Michael is a faculty member at
The Evaluators’ Institute (
March's thought leader,
Rodney K. Hopson is Professor,
Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership in the School
of Education, and teaching faculty member in the Center for
Interpretive and Qualitative Research, in the School of Liberal
Arts, Duquesne University. He received his initial graduate and
doctoral training in evaluation from the Curry School of Education,
University of Virginia and remembers fondly his days learning
evaluation in the former Bureau of Educational Research. His
evaluation interests are several and are reflected in the theme
Rodney has chosen for the AEA 2012 conference on evaluation in
complex ecologies with a focus on relationships, responsibility, and
relevance. Rodney’s interests include historical study and
understanding of culturally responsive evaluation, the study of
application of program evaluation standards, and understanding the
relevance and application of graphic conceptual models in
educational settings. Rodney has sat on several editorial advisory
boards for journals and books in evaluation, served as founder of
the AEA Graduate Diversity Internship Program and co-director of the
Robert Wood Johnson Evaluation Fellowship Program. He has been
recipient of the Robert Ingle Award for Service (2010) and the
Marcia Guttentag Early Career Award (2000) of the American
Evaluation Association,
Ricardo
Millett works as an independent evaluation consultant and as an affiliate of
Community Science, Inc. He is a veteran philanthropist, Board
member at the Center for Effective Philanthropy, former President of the Woods
Fund of Chicago, and former Director of Evaluation at the WK Kellogg Foundation. Millett has been a consistent and prominent voice on issues of diversity and the
intersection of evaluation, philanthropy, and social justice. As a senior
consultant to the Diversity in Philanthropy Project (DPP), he was the primary
author of a recent DPP Case Study on
Evaluation With a Diversity Lens: Exploring Its Functions and Utility to Inform
Philanthropic Effectiveness. Millett’s commitment to making evaluation
practical, useful, and integrated with programs has formed a cornerstone of his
40 years of work in the field.
Want to chat with the presenter of the AEA eLibrary’s
most viewed Evaluation 2009 presentation materials: “Improving
evaluation questions and answers: Getting actionable answers for
real-world decision makers”? Hailing from Aotearoa/New Zealand
and with a doctorate from Claremont Graduate University, E Jane
Davidson runs her own evaluation consulting firm, serving central
government and other clients across multiple sectors. Her work
includes evaluation capacity building, training and development,
strategic evaluation support, as well as independent evaluations.
Jane is a winner of AEA's Marcia Guttentag Promising New Evaluator
Award, and co-editor of the Journal of Multidisciplinary
Evaluation. She is author of
