My esteemed colleague and a former director of San Francisco Mental Health, Reiko Homma-True, who is the President of AAPA, organized a Plenary Session where a panel of Asian American psychologists representing four different generations in terms of their career (current doctoral students, 1-5 years post-doctoral, 5-15 years post-doc, and 15+ post doc) presented on the factors inhibiting or promoting Asian American participation in the mainstream.

The most commonly identified factor was mentorship or lack thereof. I think this is relevant to the field of evaluation as well. We need to build a critical mass of mentors in the field that will provide the much needed leadership for the ethnic minorities from young days. The trouble in saying that you need an African American mentor for an African American student is that it raises a lot of political flak.

Some people invariably start questioning where does it all end, do we need Asians for Asians, Latinos for Latinos, Gay for gay, lesbian for lesbian etc. While I heard glowing testimonies at that conference, the cross-cultural psych literature is still split on this issue. In psyhcotherapeutic realm for instance, a vocal group is arguing that the therapeutic skills are more important than cultural match. Perhaps so. But a combination of both may be better. While the literature continues to lack any definitive answers in this area, I am in favor of erring on the side of trying to build a cadre of mentors.

Thanks David for raising the issue...it is an important one.

From Rodney K. Hopson:
Yeah, I'm familiar with the AERA committee designed to assist junior faculty and doctoral students of color with developing a research agenda, with mentoring and other issues that surround scholars of color in academe. Having participated a couple of years ago, I did find it quite useful. Certainly, the creation of some similar venture within AEA would be to the benefit of the junior scholars as well to the larger organization.

Considering the changing nature of this EVALTALK discussion, it seems we are in a prime position to begin some venture(s) which look(s) at creative endeavors to attract and maintain more women scholars, scholars of color, and other under-represented scholars to our profession and organization.

Based on Sandra and Saumitra's EVALTALK inputs recently (see above), which are particularly important considering their leadership in AEA, more attempts should be made to develop strategies (like our other peer associations and organizations) that aid in the development of "diverse" scholars. It could be that our peer organizations have created initiatives that we can emulate.

The most recent attempt within the AEA ranks I am familiar was the one that was generated in 1994 by the Minority Issues In Evaluation TIG. A report was developed by Wynetta Lee and Edith Thomas under the leadership of James Davis (as chair) which suggested a number of ideas concerning the recruitment and retention of scholars of color. Presented to the board, the report has since faded and produced maybe one result: at the 1996 meeting in Atlanta, a few graduate students from Clark Atlanta University attended the annual conference meeting. While these budding evaluation scholars of color attended courtesy of the board and in response to the 94 Recruitment and Retention report, minimal attention was paid to their participation then and little effort has been made in building this endeavor.

The establishment of the diversity committee by Donna Mertens last year seems to be a productive step in bringing a number of issues to the fore of the organization. And surely, this past conference initiated (or continued) important dialogue. But while the diversity committee develops its charge and mission in the ensuing years, this committee should not be perceived as the only voice and vehicle to drive a particular set of issues that relate to AEA as a whole. In fact, my main critique of the committee during its infancy is its somewhat amorphous and non-committal relationship it has with the AEA board.

I only hope that these discussions translate to some tangible activities that can be incorporated into AEA in the very near future. If not, this discussion would have probably been for naught.

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At this time, I am working closely with the community-based programs to develop evaluations that meet their needs. The discussion about cultural impact on evaluation is a timely one.

Seligman commenting on violence among school children suggested that there have been marked changes in the way American children are raised: "Traditional American child-rearing in individual responsibility has been replaced by a self-esteem movement. This movement tells parents and educators that their first duty is to make kids feel good about themselves. Kids are taught mantras like 'I am special,' and they believe them. Low self-esteem is seen as the cause of teen-age pregnancy, depression, suicide, drug abuse and violence, and so teaching self-esteem is supposed to be a vaccine."

He continues: "Unfortunately, it turns out that hit men, genocidal maniacs, gang leaders and violent kids often have high self-esteem, not low self-esteem. .... We need to teach our children warranted self-esteem and realistic optimism--based on the skills of doing well in the world, on doing well with others and on personal responsibility."

It appears that a large segment of public school teachers have the cart before the horse; competence, concern for others, and responsibility typically form the basis of self-esteem, not the other way around. Evaluators of school-based programs with self-esteem as an expected outcome might well consider exploring the place of self-esteem relative to competence and responsibility in logic models of the programs.

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