aea president's letter |
It seems to me there is some value to conveying news and issues to members more quickly than is possible via our journals, and less expensively (and more interactively) than via our late-lamented newsletter. It will be some time, if at all, before we resume publication of the newsletter which has high labor, printing, and mailing costs. It's true that not all our members read EVALTALK (and some non-members do, too) but neither consideration seems to be a good reason for denying the service to those who can benefit. It would be kind of those of you who have offline AEA colleagues to pass on a copy of these missives, in electronic or paper form - if you deem them likely to be of interest.In particular, it seems that this column might be useful for passing on a selection of: (i) news of affairs currently under consideration by your Board and Exec Committee (the ExCom consists of the three Presidents - last, next, and present - and the current Sec-Treas), (ii) news of notable AEA-related activities by agencies and members of AEA (please pass on items that you think might qualify), (iii) news of office developments (e.g., are we back to normal yet - answer, nearly but 3-4 months later than we thought possible), and (iv) thoughts (mine alone) about issues that face us or possible actions that might be considered. And perhaps (v) other matters that seem to fit this medium.
This is not intended to be a one-way channel. I am counting on generating comments and suggestions (as well as an improved sense of being a valued and integral part of the association), and will sometimes summarize these or comment on what your officers plan to do about them as the views begin to settle out. But most of the time, the discussion of whatever issues do stir up discussion can proceed in our usual informal everyday online way. The general point of the column, however, is that in my opinion our association can be better managed if the process is more interactive, now that we have the technology to do it. We won't be going to online voting, for obvious reasons about the sample, but I think we should be using online input - that is, considerations and suggestions - in our deliberations. Of course, this is just an experiment and will probably require modifications in order to provide optimal service; later presidents will naturally make their own decisions as to whether it's worth continuing. I'm sure that some of the following will be boring for some members, although interesting for others; let's take that for granted. But it will give members a better idea of what's going on at the Board level, or under consideration by the president, and a better chance to comment on it, for immediate or long-term effect. In future, I'll keep the length down; there was some catch-up to do this time.
Here are some current items of possible interest.
1. Three days ago, a new editor was appointed for AJE (the American Journal of Evaluation, nee Evaluation Practice), since Blaine Worthen - whose editorship has been absolutely outstanding - is retiring from Utah State in August (although he will be continuing in an active role as an evaluation consultant). We are extremely fortunate to have Mel Mark picking up the reins as editor on July 1, and welcome him aboard. He is on the staff of the Inst for Policy Research and Evaluation at Penn State, and Professor of Psychology there. Many thanks to Sandra Mathison and the special search committee who pursued this vital issue for us. The transition arrangements (which will also be announced in the next issue for those not online) are: beginning Feb 1, manuscripts should be sent to:
Professor Melvin M. Mark2. As you know, we are somewhat unusual in our use of TIGs (topical interest groups) to whom we delegate a good deal of power in the selection of papers for our annual meeting. We believe that papers are better refereed by those with comparable expertise and interest (i.e., the TIGs), and that doing this encourages the growth of TIGs and attendance at TIG sessions. The only consideration other than merit in their recommendations is attention to the theme of the meeting; papers bearing on that theme can qualify for a presidential strand session, jointly under the TIG banner, if approved by the president and his/her advisers. The theme this year is The Territory Ahead, and I've posted some details of it on our Web site (www.eval.org). The subtitle is New Foundations and New Frontiers, and the general aims are to try to consolidate what we have learnt about evaluation-specific matters and methods, to try to identify the major conflicts and unsolved problems, and to try to suggest some solutions for these high-priority problems and some scenarios that need to be considered in planning the future of evaluation in the next few (or few hundred) years. This is a good time to take a deep breath and prepare for the leap into a new millenium; keep that thought in mind for at least a section of your papers for this year's convention.
Editor Elect, American Journal of Evaluation
Institute for Policy Research and Evaluation
N254 Burrowes
Penn State
University Park, PA 16802.
3. Given the importance of the TIGs in our operation, it is particularly important that we have very good liaison between the TIG leaders and the Board. For some time we have been extraordinarily fortunate in having Ellen Konrad in charge of this. She has just changed jobs and states, and has also been elected president of the Oregon evaluation association (which I'm pleased to say is an affiliate of AEA), a combination that has made it imperative to reduce her AEA load. Fortunately, Nick Smith, a professor on the faculty in the School of Education at Syracuse, and editor of two valuable compendiums (New Techniques for Evaluation, and Metaphors for Evaluation), has agreed to take on this task. That background of knowledge about multiple approaches and topics in evaluation is probably not surpassed by anyone in the Association, and is just the background for this job. TIG leaders and others can reach him at nlsmith@syr.edu.
4. As you know, one of the problems with all professional associations is the tendency to let them be smothered by the Old Guard. Everyone setting up a session is aware that the big names tend to draw the audiences and so one finds the same people taking up a lot of the slots. The problem is that good new contributors get such small audiences they aren't recognized for 'promotion'. We have some restrictions on this (limits on the number of sessions organized/headed by one person), but I think more can be done, so I'm taking one further step towards establishing a counterforce. Of the three presidential plenaries, I have allocated one to be run as a blind-refereed competitive affair which Emil Posavac, professor of psychology at Loyola/Chicago, an experienced evaluator and the author of a distinguished evaluation text, has most kindly agreed to direct. For a topic I have suggested something else that is often seen as neglected by the association: the methodology of low-cost and/or small-scale evaluations. Emil and I will serve as commentators. We are of course mainly interested in papers that are not just reports on evaluations of this type, but that propose models for them. If evaluation is to become widely adopted at the huge low end of the budget spectrum, it will have to offer some well-honed models that fit in there, and this may help us towards adding some to the repertoire. Submissions need to be anonymized by using a number and avoiding the obvious clues in the text and references, and should be accompanied by a sealed envelope containing the author's name and number. They should go to the main office for logging in (P.O. Box 704, Point Reyes, CA 94956) and the staff will send the papers but not the envelopes directly on to Professor Posavac from there; he'll pick and chair a panel of referees. The rewards for being one of the two or three selected for presentation will be fame and (something less than) fortune, namely free registration and $400.
5. Final thoughts about the convention. (i) It seems to me that it's time to separate the presidential address from the optional and expensive awards luncheon; members should not have to pay extra to hear the person they elected give his or her main - and perhaps only - paper. So I'm shifting it to one of the presidential plenaries, and we'll use the luncheon for perspectives on the state of the association and its possible futures, given by one or two key players or critics, and for awards done with somewhat more respect and time. (ii) In turn, that approach will reduce the load on the business meeting, where a shorter summary of the year's activities can more easily fit in to the always overcrowded agenda, in order to allow more discussion of the items there, including thoughts about the future. (iii) I'm negotiating with a talented evaluator who is also an experienced manager of evaluation meetings to take on the job of Evaluation Officer for AEA99, and will arrange support for them to do a good job without spending much on it. (iv) The evaluation report on AEA98 is complete, and I'll post a summary of it in the near future. It is a good report and shows a good result, but was done on a very short shoestring by some volunteer grad students from my institution. I think we need to take it more seriously in the future just because if we can't do _this_ well, we're not applying evaluation to ourselves, which probably qualifies as a high crime and misdemeanor for an evaluation association. (v) In the presidential address, I'll list my choice of major problems we need to solve (some technical, some logistical, some social), and take a step or two forward with a few of them, at least including the psychology of evaluation and the methodology of checklists. (vi) My current thoughts about the third presidential plenary are not final, but focus on the idea of inviting consideration of one of the great roadblocks to evaluation - the zero-effect problem. Three of the best-known evaluators in the country, with considerable first-hand experience of the problem, have indicated their willingness to participate, and we will shortly be discussing exact formulations and procedures; your thoughts are still timely.
6. The main office. The size of the fixit job is only now beginning to become clear. A recent check by Nancy Major reveals that when we took over the (so- called) 'membership database' from PPP, with over 3000 entries, all of whom were receiving journals, we had in fact only 174 currently paid-up members! As of now, we have very closely verified membership records, with dues coming in steadily. The figure will probably stabilize at something over 2000. The big trick to all this, which made it much worse than starting a new association of the same size is that one has to first determine the true state of each of the 3600 alleged members' status. ('Alleged' means entered in one or more of the three databases - the electronic member database, the electronic financial database where payments are recorded, and the paper database with a manila folder holding all the docs for each person. These were hardly ever consistent, and if consistent were usually not current or not correct.) Hence the staff has been involved in the very nasty business of having to retro-bill people for a year in which they have been receiving journals (thinking they were paid-up), and then, a few weeks or a few months later, bill them for the upcoming year (99); this has, understandably, cost us some members. Please bear with us in this difficult period, which will be finished in February. It has not been made easier by the fact that Jeri Jacobsen, the office manager, has been in bed with the local, rather serious, flu bug for about two weeks; we are hoping she will feel better next week.
7. I hope it has been and will be a better year than that for all of you! Let's make it a good year of advance towards The Territory Ahead.
Michael Scriven
President, AEA
mission | aea '98 | aea '96 & '97 | what's new? | job bank
hot stuff! | links | listservs | miscellaneous | home