The President's letter above lays out a roadmap for the evolution of the association. We wanted to provide you with a specific list of what to keep your eye out for over the coming months:

• Mission, Vision, Values, and Goals: We'll be vetting widely among the membership a draft mission, vision, values and goals statement. Between late summer and the end of the year, you will see announcements in the newsletter and opportunities for feedback, reflection and discussion around this key document.
• Member Involvement: We'll be expanding the ways in which members can be involved and enhancing the transparency and accessibility of the volunteer engagement process. You will begin to see more information about volunteering and ultimately, by this time next year, will be able to access an online volunteer resource and referral center.
• Member Input: A key commitment of the board as we move to policy governance is an expansion of the ways and means for learning from and representing the members of the association. We'll be working at our meeting in November to explore expanding avenues for listening and learning from members.
• New Technologies: We will be upgrading and expanding our online systems, incorporating a web-based resource library that members and groups can manage and use, (the number one request emerging from the member scan), enhanced directory, a discussion and forum system, and mini-websites for subgroups of the association. The full roll-out will take the better part of a year, but stay tuned for key components to be up and running by the conference as well as for volunteer opportunities around planning for and maximizing our new technology resources.
• Enhanced Communications: The new technology system will allow for more targeted communications and a centralized clearinghouse where you will be able to sign up for those lists and emails that you wish to receive. In addition, you will be able to subscribe to updates and RSS feeds as content gets added to our online system.

So, stay tuned, stay in touch, and enjoy your summer. We are excited by what is to come!

After three cycles of year-to-year approval and appropriations during which we were refining content, format, and logistics, the AEA Board of Directors approved ongoing support for the AEA/CDC Summer Evaluation Institute. Thus, we anticipate offering training in Atlanta each summer for the foreseeable future.

The Institute welcomed over 650 attendees to Atlanta this past June 22-25, the largest gathering of its kind to date. Attendees represented 40 states, five countries, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands! With over 50 training sessions and three keynote addresses, the Institute offered an opportunity for exploration of a range of hot topics as well as evaluation fundamentals. We invite you to take a look at this year's agenda and to keep an eye out for next year's Institute program when it goes online on or about April 1.

Howard White is director of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation - 3ie (www.3ieimpact.org). This organization was recently established to promote and increase the quantity and quality of impact evaluations of social and economic development programs. AEA recently interviewed Howard as part of our series of discussions with notable figures within the international evaluation community. Below are excerpts from the interview:

"...We are still in the process of setting up 3ie. The plan is to start operations by September of this year, with the first request for proposals for impact studies being launched early next year."

"... I am very surprised... that I continue to read comments that 3ie is just about promoting RCTs - that never was the case, and certainly will not be so under my watch, though of course there are cases when they can and should be used."

"...My own vision - which of course 3ie shares! - is that studies and workshops are not ends in themselves. Indeed, they are rather far down the causal chain on the way to what matters, which is improving welfare outcomes... In terms of evaluation approach, I am strongly eclectic, wedded to mixed methods. What matters most to me is an issues-led design that will answer the right questions in the right way at the right time."

"...The biggest challenge 3ie faces is to ensure close engagement with Southern partners, so we respond to a Southern agenda. This challenge for 3ie is part of a broader challenge of increasing Southern ownership of the donor-driven agenda. Whilst this is indeed a broader challenge, evaluation has an important role to play. Increasing Southern-based evaluations will increase the information flow to policy makers, as well as making those policy makers more accountable for the use of development resources.

"This will not be easy, since the tradition is one of policy-based evidence making - "here is my policy, please provide the evidence to support it" - rather than evidence-based policy making. 3ie will need to target its activities well to ensure some early successes to help bring about the necessary culture change."

The Arkansas Group of Evaluators (AGES) is co-sponsoring a free Summer Evaluation Workshop with the Arkansas Evaluation Center. It will be held at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff on July 10-11. The workshop is primarily designed to help build minority evaluator capacity, but is open to anyone interested in learning about evaluation throughout the United States and abroad. AGES, a local affiliate of AEA, will also hold a networking social on July 10 from 7:30 to 8:30. Dr. Abraham Wandersman's "Getting to Outcomes" empowerment evaluation work will be highlighted. Other featured speakers and workshop faciliators include:

Plenary Luncheon Speakers

• Senator Tracey Steele, State of Arkansas
• Mr. Kevin Collins, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Dr. Naccaman Williams, Walton Foundation
• Mr. Charles Gasper, Missouri Foundation for Health

Workshop Facilitators

• Dr. Stewart Donaldson, Dean of the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences, Claremont Graduate University
• Dr. Tarek Azzam, Senior Research Associate, School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences, Claremont Graduate University
• Dr. Rosalie Torres, Torres Consulting Group
• Dr. David Fetterman, School of Medicine, Stanford University and School of Education, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff

Workshop Topics

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Best Practices (evaluation)
• Foundation Pespectives about the Significance of Program Evaluation
• Getting-to-Outcomes
• Interviewing Skills for Evaluators
• Introduction to Empowerment Evaluation
• Introduction to Practical Program Evaluation
• Introductioon to Technology and Evaluation (Geographic Information Systems and Online Surveys)
• Politics and Taxpayer Accountability

Long-time member, award-winner and former AEA president Michael Quinn Patton has revised a classic text. "The pace of evaluation's globalization has accelerated and new perspectives have become influential, especially systems thinking and comprehensive approaches to evaluation influence," says Patton. "This book pulls together in one place what we have learned about increasing use (and avoiding misuse) from over more than a quarter century of research on use -- and we have learned a great deal, a great deal, indeed." Utilization- Focused Evaluation 4th Ed. is published by SAGE.

From the Publisher's Website:
Both practical and theoretical, the Fourth Edition of the best-selling Utilization-Focused Evaluation shows how to conduct program evaluations and why to conduct them in the manner prescribed. This entirely rewritten edition offers readers a full-fledged evaluation text from identifying primary users of an evaluation to focusing the evaluation, making methods decisions, analyzing data, and presenting findings. Each chapter reviews the relevant literature and actual case examples to illustrate major points.

"As a career evaluation professional, it is a pleasure to see the depth and breadth of developments occurring in evaluation and to find creative ways to capture and communicate those developments to a new generation," says Patton, who is the recipient of both the Alva and Gunner Myrdal Award for Outstanding Contributions to Useful and Practical Evaluation from the Evaluation Research Society and received the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award for Lifelong Contributions to Evaluation Theory from AEA in 1997.

Patton was on the faculty of the University of Minnesota for 18 years, including five years as Director of the Minnesota Center for Social Research, where he was awarded the Morse-Amoco Award for innovative teaching. He won a University of Minnesota storytelling competition and has authored five other Sage books: Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, Creative Evaluation, Practical Evaluation, How to Use Qualitative Methods in Evaluation, and Family Sexual Abuse: Frontline Research and Evaluation. His creative nonfiction book, Grand Canyon Celebration: A Father-Son Journey of Discovery, was a finalist for 1999 Minnesota Book of the Year. He is also co-author of Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed, Random House Canada, applying complexity science to social innovation.

AEA members receive a 20 percent discount on books from SAGE publications when ordered directly from the publisher. The discount code for AEA members is SO5CAES or members can call the Customer Care department at 1-800-818-7243.

AEA members Darlene F. Russ-Eft and Marci J. Bober are among five co-authors of Evaluator Competencies: Standards for the Practice of Evaluation in Organizations. Published by Jossey- Bass Publishing, the book focuses on the challenges and obstacles of conducting evaluations within dynamic, changing organizations, and provides methods and strategies for putting these competencies to use.

From the publisher's website:
This book is based on research conducted by the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance, and Instruction and identifies the competencies needed by those undertaking evaluation efforts in organizational settings.

"The most rewarding aspect of the project involved the opportunity to work with colleagues from several different countries and cultures," says Russ-Eft. "The diverse experiences and engaging ideas helped me (and others on the team and the ibstpi board) appreciate the complexity of the work of an evaluator."

Bober adds that the research involved evaluators on all continents except for Antarctica. "Thus, the identification and subsequent validation of the competencies attempts to suggest what is common throughout the world."

Darlene F. Russ-Eft, Ph.D., is a professor in and chair of the Department of Adult Education and Higher Education Leadership within the College of Education at Oregon State University. Marcie J. Bober, Ph.D., is professor in and chair of the Department of Educational Technology at San Diego State University.

Jossey-Bass Publishing offers AEA members a special savings on its publications when ordered directly from the publisher. To receive your 20% discount, please use the promotional code "AEAF8" online or by phone (1-800-225-5945).

As fall approaches, we draw nearer to AEA's annual Evaluation conference and the fall academic year. As always, there are many ways right now to participate in the life of the association. Please click through to the appropriate item below to find out more.