The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program seeks to help prevent 7 million HIV infections, treat 2 million people with HIV/AIDS with antiretroviral therapy, and care for 10 million people with HIV/AIDS. Its legislative authority expires this year and AEA is working to ensure that the PEPFAR reauthorization documents incorporate thorough and thoughtful program evaluation.

In March, Victor Dukay of the Lundy Foundation contacted AEA member Jody Fitzpatrick requesting help in convincing Congress to include evaluation funding in the reauthorization of PEPFAR. Jody relayed the request to the Evaluation Policy Task Force (EPTF) Chair, and the EPTF went to work through its policy consultant, George Grob. While working on the evaluation funding issue, we also discovered significant problems involving evaluation nomenclature.

There were no caps or gowns, but there was pride and celebration in abundance at recent commencement exercises for the latest participants in the AEA/Duquesne University Graduate Education Diversity Internship Program (GEDIP). The commencement took place at a June 25 luncheon held in Atlanta during the annual Summer Institute that is jointly hosted by the AEA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nine graduate students from fields as diverse as applied anthropology, education, law, public health, and social work were applauded for completing the nine-month program. The GEDIP program provides graduate students of color and other underrepresented groups an opportunity to extend their research, theory, and practice capacities to evaluation.

"Without cultural context and cultural competency in evaluation, there can be no evaluation," said Stafford Hood, Arizona State University, the commencement's featured speaker and a member of AEA's Nominations & Elections Committee. "You are now part of an extended family, and if you listen closely, you will hear the footsteps of those who follow after you and whom you will help train."

In addition to attending workshops and conferences, making site visits to evaluation agencies, and participating in group telephone calls about evaluation, students were assigned to real-world evaluation projects. Half conducted traditional evaluations at sites within their geographical area, while the other half studied logic model use with a National Science Foundation's Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) program.

Lisa Dirks, an Alaska resident who is pursuing a master's degree in administration, worked on an evaluation project related to homeless and alcoholism reduction programs in the Anchorage area and said her work "helped me learn how to become a culturally responsive evaluator." Derrick Gervin, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in social work at Clark Atlanta University, said his work with the program gave him "the opportunity to watch and apply logic models apply and see how they operate in practice."

Rodney Hopson, director of the program, noted that 25 students have come through the GEDIP internship program. "It seems like yesterday when the inaugural cohort came through this experience, and now they are doing post-docs, working as directors of public health agencies, doing HIV/AIDS work in Africa, entering PhD programs in Public Policy, Public Health, and other fields, and finishing their respective programs," Hopson said. "This group of cohort members named itself 'All Four Directions,' and follows the 'Power Ladies' and the 'Supersonics.' Each group not only has its own identity, they go on to contribute to the lives of communities, institutions, and individuals while developing incredible skills and learning from experts in the field. What an opportunity this has been!"

Members of the fifth cohort will be announced this fall, following selection in late August/early September.

We all know that working as an evaluator means having to be flexible, ready for change, and able to leap buildings in a single bound. One minute we're methodologists, in another we're content experts, and at other times we serve as mediator/negotiators. Depending on our projects, we even become experts at convening meetings, event planning and logistics, and troubleshooting electronic gadgets.

The Internal Scan of the membership of AEA has turned up some interesting findings with regard to the "many hats" we wear in our evaluation work. For example: While almost all members are involved in conducting evaluations (91%), only 8% focus exclusively of this type of work. Other evaluation-related work includes, in descending order: technical assistance, evaluation capacity building, training others in evaluation, writing about evaluation, planning/contracting for evaluations that others conduct, and teaching evaluation. In fact, as one respondent mentioned in an open-ended question, "Describing myself solely as an evaluator can be limiting in the work I do."

Members of AEA also conduct their evaluation work across multiple content areas. The most common content area for AEA members is education (combining all categories of education) at 62% of members. Second up is health/public health at 41%. 81% of members work in one or both of these areas, and 22% of members work in both areas.

As another example of the many hats we wear, for those who do evaluation work in health/public health, 43% do work related to nonprofits, 37% work in the area of government, 34% do work in human services, 34% do work in youth development, 30% work in K-12 education, 30% do work related to evaluation methods, 30% do public policy/public administration work, 28% work with special needs populations, and 27% work in child care/early childhood education.

But wait, there's more! Find out more about your colleagues and friends who took part in the Internal Scan by checking out the report and loads of data available online.

This article was written by Leslie Goodyear, Chair of AEA's Internal Scan Task Force.

AEA's Membership Committee will be offering a special session Examining AEA's Topical Interest Group (TIG) Structure - What Works, What Changes Are Needed at the 2008 Evaluation Conference. The session follows a survey of TIG leadership conducted earlier this year and has findings relevant to all AEA members.

In 2007-08, AEA's Membership Committee undertook an examination of its current TIG structure including leadership, governance, activities and benefits to the TIG members. As part of this effort, the committee conducted a survey of TIG leadership and examined similar structures in similar organizations. This Think Tank session will introduce to participants some of the key findings and begin a dialog to identify common elements that might enhance the existing TIG structure within AEA. This session will encourage participation from all AEA members and especially invite the current TIG leadership to join the discussion.

TIGs serve a critical function in the professional development of AEA members and planning for each annual meeting of the association and provide a forum for engagement among AEA members with similar interests and professional expertise or needs. Consequently, the TIGs are instrumental in furthering evaluation practice and literature by providing a professional 'home' within AEA of common thoughts and interests. However, anecdotal evidence suggests wide variability in the exact nature of each TIG and in level of activity and tangible services for its members. This variability in itself may be beneficial to a degree, but given the rapid growth in AEA membership, there was a desire to explore whether more standardization and alternative modalities may be warranted at this time. The Membership Committee's Think Tank will provide a timely forum for this effort where membership and leadership communication can be fostered. While several TIG-related think tanks are being proposed, they each serve different purposes and will allow the TIGs and the Membership Committee to triangulate the knowledge gleaned from these sessions.

AEA members Jody Fitzpatrick, Christina Christie, and Melvin Mark are editors of a new 472-page book published by SAGE that showcases the decisions made and the lessons learned through real-life evaluations by real-life evaluators. Evaluation in Action: Interviews with Expert Evaluators is intended for students, faculty, and professionals working in program evaluation.

From the Publishers Website:
Evaluation in Action takes readers behind the scenes of real evaluations and introduces them to the issues faced and decisions made by notable evaluators in the field. The book builds n "Exemplars," a popular section in the American Journal of Evaluation (AJE), in which a well-known evaluator is interviewed about an evaluation he or she has conducted. Through a dialogue between the evaluator and the interviewer, the reader learns about the problems the evaluator faced in conducting the evaluation and the choices and compromises he or she chose to make. The book includes twelve interviews illustrating a variety of evaluation practices in different settings, along with commentary and analysis concerning what the interviews teach us about evaluation practice and ways to inform our own practice.

The book features:

• Extended examples of how evaluation is actually practiced, the real pressures and choices evaluators face, the decisions they have to make, and a sense of how they make these decisions in the context of real- life evaluations.
• A guiding matrix and discussion of the different ways in which the interviews may be grouped and read, which will help students and practitioners looking for more information and insight on particular issues.
• Twelve interviews and cases chosen to represent (a) different settings (e.g., welfare reform, higher education, mental health, K-12 education, public health); (b) different types of evaluations (e.g., formative, summative, needs assessment, process, outcome); (c) different approaches (e.g., participatory, theory-based, research-oriented, decision-oriented); (d) different arenas (e.g., federal, regional, state, local); (e) and different levels of resources (large and small studies).
• Commentaries and analyses concerning what the interviews teach us about evaluation practice and ways to inform one's own practice as well as discussion questions that provoke the reader to consider the key issues of the interview and how one interview and experience may contrast with another.
• Introductory and Summary chapters that cover the major types of evaluations and the lessons that emerge from the interviewees' experiences, all of which helps to firmly ground the information and issues presented in each interview.

Jody L. Fitzpatrick is Director of the Master's in Public Administration Program and an Associate Professor with the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver. Christina A. Christie is an Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Institute of Organizational and Program Evaluation Research in the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences at Claremont Graduate University. Melvin M. Mark is Professor and Head of Psychology at Penn State University. A past president of the American Evaluation Association, he has also served as Editor of the American Journal of Evaluation where he is now Editor Emeritus.

AEA members receive a 20 percent discount on books from SAGE 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.

We are reprinting an updated version of this article. Our last issue did not acknowledge Marguerite Foxon's contribution to the book. Marguerite is a member of AEA and a co-author of Evaluator Competencies: Standards for the Practice of Evaluation in Organizations.

AEA members Marci J. Bober, Marguerite Foxon, and Darlene F. Russ-Eft 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:
The 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.

"This book will be welcomed by Training, Learning, and HR professionals who have struggled with evaluation - it has been written with their specific needs in mind," says Foxon.

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."

"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."

Marcie J. Bober, Ph.D., is professor in and chair of the Department of Educational Technology at San Diego State University. Marguerite Foxon, Ph.D., is a highly respected evaluation and performance improvement specialist who brings 25 years of experience in managing large-scale evaluation and global leadership development programs in Australia and the United States. 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.

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).

The Hawaii-Pacific Evaluation Association (H-PEA) will be hosting its Third Annual Conference and Pre- conference Workshops on September 4-5 at the Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel. Three half-day pre- conference workshops will be held on Thursday, September 4, followed by an all-day conference on Friday, September 5. This year's conference theme, "Building An Evaluation 'Ohana' (Family)," focuses on evaluation capacity-building. In response to requests from H-PEA members, paper presentations and a poster session are being planned. Workshop presenters and conference keynote speakers include Hallie Preskill, Professor at Claremont Graduate University and 2007 President of the American Evaluation Association, and Tom Kelly, Evaluation Manager at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Maryland. H-PEA, a local affiliate of AEA, was founded in 2005.

The Australasian Evaluation Society will hold its 2008 International Conference on September 8-12 in Perth, Western Australia. The theme of the Conference is Evaluation: Adding Value. Three sub-themes are designed to sharpen the focus of the Conference:

• Value for Whom? provides a reminder that effective evaluation is 'audience driven' and invites us to consider whose interests an evaluation might serve, will serve and should serve
• Whose Values? questions the value basis upon which recommendations and program decisions will be made, and indicates that this should be a carefully considered decision in evaluation; and
• Optimising Value emphasises that evaluation inevitably involves 'trade-offs', in both the conduct of an evaluation and the utilization of the information obtained, and invites consideration of how the needs of the various program stakeholders might best be served.

Keynote Speakers will address various aspects of the Conference theme and discuss specific evaluation issues related to the Conference sub-themes, as well as provide an international perspective. A special feature of the Conference will be an Industry Focus each day. Issues of evaluation in health, education, Indigenous affairs, performance monitoring, community services and environmental and natural resource management will all be highlighted. A number of specialized workshops, specifically designed to develop participants' knowledge and competencies relevant to evaluation and its practice, will also be available.

From the AES website:
The changing landscape of evaluation in Australasia, and in the world more generally, requires evaluators to 'add value' to decision making about programs, policies and services through developing and assessing new and alternative procedures for evaluation. There are also particular evaluation knowledge and competencies which enhance the understanding and effectiveness of those involved with evaluation. It is this orientation to innovation and training which underpins the AES 2008 Perth Conference.

Do you have a background in distance learning or online community building? Then we would like to hear from you for possible participation in a task force of the Professional Development Committee.

We will be offering orientation for leaders for AEA's online bookgroups this fall at the annual conference. Surveys from recent online bookgroups suggest that a key facet to improving the bookgroup program is improving both the quality of the online dialogue and the opportunity for making peer-to-peer connections. We are bringing together a small team to guide the development of an agenda and materials for use at the fall training.

We aren't asking for volunteers to write (although you are welcome to do so), but rather to contribute your knowledge and expertise around distance education and/or online dialogue and community building. We anticipate meeting for up to three one-hour conference calls during September and October and exchanging emails over the same period to guide the staff's development of the agenda and materials.

Conference registration opens each year the first week in July. In 2002, 112 people registered for the conference in all of the first month. In 2008, 161 people registered in the first week alone and we cleared 500 in July on the way to 2500 or more registrants for the event. Register early to ensure your first choice of workshops and lower registration rates!

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.