EEE-TIG NEWSLETTER, September 2002

 

EEE-TIG web site: http://danr.ucop.edu/eee-aea/

 

 

**  2002 AEA Conference

 

JOIN US in Washington, D.C., November 6-10, 2002 for “Evaluation: A Systemic Process that Reforms Systems.”  The headquarters hotel is the Hyatt Crystal City, located in Arlington, Virginia adjacent to Reagan National Airport.   Check out the AEA web page for all details http://www.eval.org/eval2002/default.htm

 

EEE-TIG sponsored sessions.  Mary Marzchak, 2002 EEE-TIG Program Chair, says we have some great sessions in store including: 

5 demonstrations

2 multi-paper sessions

1 panel session

1 skill building session

 

Thanks to all who submitted session proposals to our EEE-TIG.    

 

Wednesday night social and dinner.  As usual, we will join for a social and dinner on Wednesday evening at 7:30 pm.  Spouses, friends, colleagues, families et al are warmly welcome.   Michael Lambur graciously found a restaurant close to the conference hotel and Michael Newman will handle the registration.  Please open the attachment to this email for the Dinner Registration form (MSWord).  Select your choice and return, with payment, to Michael Newman by October 25; address:  Box 9660, Mississippi State, MS 39762.    This is a chance to relax and talk a bit more informally.  See you there!

 

Thursday Business Meeting.  We will hold our annual EEE-TIG business meeting on Thursday afternoon, from 5-6 pm in the Lincoln Room.  This is the time for elections, awards, annual report and a stimulating discussion appropriate to extension evaluators.  Please attend! 

 

 

***  1890 and 1994 Colleagues

In the Board’s effort to increase the diversity of our membership, we have decided to initiate a ‘’mini scholarship” for colleagues in the 1890 Extension System and the 1994 Tribal Colleges and Universities.  Each year AEA provides $300 to each TIG to cover annual expenses.  We will use $200 of that to support attendance at the AEA conference. You may apply to use the amount for AEA membership and/or to offset conference fees and travel.  Anyone who would like to apply to this fund, please send (1) a brief description of your request; (2) how you hope to benefit from going to the AEA conference; and (3) dollar amount of request.  The Board will review the applications and decide.  Deadline:  October 15, 2002.  Please submit request to Ellen Taylor-Powell, 432 N Lake Street, Room 609, Madison, WI  53606 or email: ellen.taylor-powell@ces.uwex.edu.

 

*** NOMINATIONS to the BOARD

We have a number of openings to fill for 2003.  Please consider the following opportunities and/or nominate one of your colleagues to be part of the EEE-TIG Board.  It is a great way to share in leadership of the TIG, get to know others across the nation, and serve our profession.  Open positions include:

  1. Chair elect
  2. Southern regional representative (2 year
  3. Northeast regional representative

 

Chair elect is a 3 year commitment:  1st year as Program Chair and Chair Elect, 2nd year as Chair and 3rd year as Past Chair and Awards Chair .  The regional representative positions are for 2 years and include full Board responsibilities and liaison to the regional membership.   Please consider this valuable opportunity.  Send nominations to Ellen Taylor-Powell by October 1, 2002;  Email address:  ellen.taylor-powell@ces.uwex.edu

 

***  EEE-TIG Board News

 

The Board has met twice by teleconference in 2002.  Among other business, we’ve been working on the following:

1)     Program for 2002 AEA

2)     Outreach strategies to diversify our membership

3)     2002 Awards

4)     Updating Officer and Board member responsibilities

5)      

We will submit a report of our work at the business meeting in November. 

2002 Board:  Ellen Taylor-Powell, Chair, Nancy Ellen Kiernan, Past chair and awards chair; Mary Marczak, Program Chair and Chair elect; Paula Threadgill, Secretary/Treasurer, Michael Newman, Membership chair; Northeast representative (vacant); Roger Rennekamp, Southern representative; Nancy Gruden-Schuk, Midwest representative; Sherry Betts, Western representative; Bart Hewitt, CSREES representative.

 

           

***  Items of Interest

CSREES has reorganized with a Planning and Accountability unit within the Office of the Administrator.  The new director is Cheryl Oros.  Two Evaluators will be hired, probably at the GS 13/14 level.  It is also likely that there will be one short-term IPA from a Land-Grant University for anyone interested in spending a year or two doing evaluation work for CSREES.   Stay tuned…

A set of three evaluations for a Master Gardener Volunteer Training program in Pennsylvania will be posted Sept 20th at http://www.extension.psu.edu/evaluation  Your county agents may be interested.  At the site, click under PA Examples and again, under Mail Survey or Pre-Post Evaluation (Example 1).  Although designed for a train-the-trainer program, the questions are applicable to many extension programs. If applicable to your Master Gardener program, the evaluations can be printed off and used as is.  Objectives of the program are clearly specified. Questions measure knowledge of both the content and the program's expectations, skills, intentions and practice change.  

The web site for the Program Development and Evaluation Unit at University of Wisconsin-Cooperative Extension has a new look and additional materials at http://www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/     A self-instructional web module for using the logic model in program planning and evaluation is nearing completion and will be launched from this site by mid November.