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Grad Students / New Evals

Our Mission
The mission of the AEA Graduate Student and New Evaluator (GSNE) TIG is to develop activities for, and represent the interests of, AEA members who are completing graduate degrees and/or new to the field of evaluation. The intent is to foster communication and networking among graduate students, new evaluators, interested faculty, recent graduates, potential employers, and other AEA members who wish to support the interests our TIG. It is believed that these activities will:

expand knowledge and awareness of AEA, its mission, and active use of the Guiding Principles for Evaluators, and lead to growth of the American Evaluation Association;

provide heightened visibility for the evaluation profession;

encourage diversity in the American Evaluation Association; and

foster increased interest in the evaluation field.

Background of GSNE TIG
At the 1998 AEA Conference, some interest was expressed in establishing an AEA Graduate Student Association. A list was circulated at the AEA Board's Student Reception, and signed by 33 conference attendees.

At the same time, David Bernstein organized a Doctoral Roundtable, the purpose of which was to allow doctoral students, faculty, and recent post-doctorates an opportunity to network and discuss their research interests. He felt it would be in AEA's best interest to foster and encourage doctoral student networking and participation, since doctoral students are a major potential contributor to the enhancement of evaluation practice and theory. With a rather large percentage of AEA's membership employed in academia, Mr. Bernstein thought the Doctoral Roundtable might, as a permanent organization, encourage and promote the benefits of long-term membership in AEA, and provide the Association with a focus for developing the next generation of evaluation academics. A second annual AEA Doctoral Roundtable is scheduled.

Since then, the Graduate student Association has grown into the new Graduate Student and New Evaluator (GSNE) TIG to connect all graduate students, new evaluators, and other AEA TIGs together.

Greetings from the New TIG Committee

Dear Graduate Students and New Evaluators TIG members,

The Graduate Student and New Evaluators TIG would like to take a moment to say “Hi!” and let you know about the exciting things going on within our TIG and at AEA for 2010. Read on to find about the call for proposals, our new website and plans for our program at the conference this year.

This is the start of the year of Evaluation Quality. As many of you may have seen, the call for proposals is out and if you haven't already done so, we encourage you to read the Letter of Invitation from AEA President Leslie Cooksy. The deadline for submissions is midnight, March 19, 2010. We look forward to reviewing your proposals!

Don’t have a proposal to submit, but are interested in contributing to the TIG? Serving as a reviewer is a great way to get involved and contribute to the health of the TIG (plus, you can put it on your resume or CV as service activity). Email us below if you are interested in serving as a reviewer. If you are submitting a proposal, indicate your interest using the drop down box on the submission form.

We are also anticipating an exciting and productive year for the GSNE TIG and its members. We have many plans in the making, including the construction of the TIG website, and some activities in the works for San Antonio, Texas. Here are some things to look forward to:

Open Forum: On the website, we plan to make space for graduate student and new evaluators to post evaluation questions, requests for review of writing, and share stories “from the field.” As our TIG is targeted toward new practicing evaluators and graduate students learning all about the field of evaluation, we wanted to create a forum that would allow our naturally transient members to get the most of their membership while they are with us. This is one way we think this can happen. Stay tuned for more details.
“A conversation between the ‘new’ and ’seasoned’: We working hard to put together a panel for AEA 2010 that consist of a dialogue between new evaluators like ourselves with established and well-known evaluators in the field and academia. We will be sending more details soon including how you can submit a request to sit on the panel.

We also welcome any ideas for activities in and around San Antonio for the “Nights out to see the city” during the conference. So, if any of you are familiar with the San Antonio area or have something in mind that would be fun for us to do, please email them to us below! , please consider e-mailing them to the leadership at the e-mails below. We really would like to see the TIG membership continue to grow. If any of you out there are in Grad School, or have a good professional network going, tell your colleagues about our TIG. You can find your TIG leaders on Facebook, too – friend requests are welcome!

Finally, AEA has issued a call for participation in the Haiti relief efforts. If you haven’t already, visit any one of the reputable disaster relief organizations’’ websites (e.g., www.redcross.org, www.unicef.org, http://clintonbushhaitifund.org) and give what you can. Again, we look forward to serving you this year, and are very excited to see the great work come out for the AEA 2010 conference! Our best wish for a productive year of personal growth, professional fulfillment and prosperity.

Happy Evaluating to All!

Jason Burkhardt, Program Chair
Nora Gannon, Co-Chair
Gargi Bhattacharya, Co-Chair
Jeremy Zhang, Webmaster