Greene was honored with a Distinguished Teaching Award from Cornell University in 1997, a Distinguished Senior Scholar Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2003, and is the 2005-2006 recipient of the R. Stewart Jones Award for the Outstanding Teacher in Educational Psychology Award.  She is a 1971 graduate of Wellesley College and earned her Master's and Ph.D. at Stanford University.

"I am honored to assume the leadership of the American Evaluation Association, especially at this time when - around the globe - evaluation has become a highly valued contributor to policy and program decision making," states Greene. "Evaluation is thus valued in significant part because it brings the reason of empirical data and the legitimate plurality of diverse perspectives to the central responsibility of societies to care well for their citizens."

On January 4, the President signed HR 2142, the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010. A summary, prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), is also available. The bill amends the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and other statutory provisions related to performance reports, and incorporates some broad principles underlying the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) of President Bush's administration and many of President Obama's policies related to a highly performing government. The act provides a three tiered approach to performance management that includes four-year strategic plans, annual performance plans, and high priority goals.

Of special interest to evaluators are the following provisions:

1. Evaluation policies carried over from the original GPRA legislation, including a definition of "program evaluation" as "an assessment, through objective measurement and systematic analysis, of the manner and extent to which Federal programs achieve intended objectives;" and requirements to describe program evaluations used in establishing or revising general goals and objectives in agencies' strategic plans and provide a schedule for future program evaluations, evaluate agency performance plans against performance goals, and include in annual performance reports a summary of relevant program evaluation findings.

2. New evaluation requirements: A requirement for the "Director of the Office of Personnel Management, in consultation with the Performance Improvement Council, . . . [to] identify the key skills and competencies needed by Federal Government personnel for developing goals, evaluating programs, and analyzing and using performance information . . ."

3. New roles for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB): The responsibility to assess program performance and to inform the agency, the Congress, and the Government Accountability Office of unmet goals. The head of the agency may need to prepare plans to correct performance deficiencies.

4. Transparency: The establishment of a Federal website to publish performance goals and assessments.

There is much good news here in the bill's retaining (and thus emphasizing) evaluation as a central aspect of performance management. The new requirement to identify key skills and competencies for evaluating programs will also have a strong and enduring impact on Federal evaluation functions, depending on how it is implemented. A key concern of federal staff may well be in the magnitude of the administrative tasks and the feasibility of carrying out all the requirements of the law. There is also some uncertainty about how active OMB will be in its independent assessment of performance.

This is necessarily a very brief summary of a law that will profoundly impact the management and assessment of Federal programs for years to come. We will discuss this more in the future. Meanwhile, as always, it will be helpful for us to hear from you about your comments and concerns.

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Jonathan A. Morell was honored as the recipient of AEA's Paul F. Lazarsfeld Evaluation Theory Award. Morell, an influential author and editor, co-founded the international journal Evaluation and Program Planning (EPP) in 1978 and continues to serve as its editor three decades later. His newest book, Evaluation in the Face of Uncertainty: Anticipating Surprise and Responding to the Inevitable once again contributes to the cutting edge of evaluation theory. AEA's Lazarsfeld Award is presented to an individual whose written work on evaluation theory has led to fruitful debates on the assumptions, goals, and practices of evaluation.

"Among the many factors considered in his selection was his sustained influence on evaluation theory," states Tarek Azzam, chair of AEA's Awards Committee. "Through his writings, Morell consistently integrated other disciplines to help inform evaluation practice and has addressed many issues in evaluation theory that focus on ethics, the role of methodology, and systems theory. He has had a sustained influence on evaluation theory and has helped shape the debates surrounding its development."

Morell, an Ann Arbor, MI resident and graduate of McGill University and Northwestern University, is an organizational psychologist who has spent his professional life trying to integrate hands-on evaluation work and theoretical interests in evaluation methodology. As a practitioner he evaluates organizational change, research and development, and safety programs. His theoretical interests include the nature and use of logic models, the role of Lean Six Sigma methodologies in evaluation, complex system behavior, and the nature of practical action. Morell is a long standing member of AEA, where he has been instrumental in founding two of its topical interest groups -- Systems and Business and Industry, and is the 1995 recipient of AEA'S Robert Ingle Service Award. Morell's present focus is on trying to answer two questions: How can the integrity and power of evaluation be maintained in the face of unexpected behavior in programs and their evaluations? What would ensue from a tight integration of agent based modeling and traditional evaluation methods?

"Two great pleasures in my life are thinking about what it means to evaluate a program, and doing hands-on practical evaluation work," says Morell. "I have always been intrigued, and struggled, with how these two interests could be made to support each other. I am very pleased that others have seen some merit in the results of my efforts at resolution. I hope I can contribute to a community of interest that will grow our collective ability to do better evaluation for our clients and stakeholders."

We invite you to think about AEA's 2011 Awards and to consider nominating colleagues for this distinction. You'll find an overview at the link below, as well as specific nominating instructions.