Dr. Ayesha Boyce and Dr. Jill Chouinard, as well as 5 UNCG graduate students, recently attended and presented at the 2015 American Evaluation Association (AEA) conference, Exemplary Evaluations in a Multicultural World, in Chicago, IL.

Dr. Chouinard had three presentations. She chaired a session entitled “Decolonizing International Development Evaluation – An Exploration of Culture across Multiple Contexts.” This well-attended session was a preview of her upcoming co-edited volume for The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation.

Dr. Boyce also had three presentations. Her presentation “Engaging Stakeholders in an International Context: Lessons Learned from Brazil’s African-Descent Communities” was a follow-up piece to her co-authored American Journal of Evaluation paper. Boyce also continued her tenure as the AEA STEM Topic Interest Group Chair.

Dr. Chouinard and Dr. Boyce also presented a paper with 5 UNCG students: Robyn Thomas, Myrah Stockdale, Juanita Hicks, Justin Long, and Jennie Jones. The students served as panelists for the paper, entitled “Bridging Theory and Practice Through Evaluation and Fieldwork: Experiences of Novice Evaluation Practitioners.” This paper will be submitted to The American Journal of Evaluation with all presenters as co-authors.

ERM students Keshia Martin and Juanita Hicks presented a paper entitled “Conducting Comprehensive Literature Reviews for Evaluation Projects Big and Small” with Karla Lewis and Ben Thrift of the SERVE Center.

Overall, all UNCG authored sessions went well and ERM students had the opportunity to meet a number of well-published evaluators, including Michael Quinn Patton, Rodney Hopson, Stafford Hood, Thomas Schwandt, Leslie Goodyear, and Peter Dahler-Larsen.

Dr. Chouinard and Dr. Boyce are already making plans for presentations with UNCG students for AEA 2016, which will be held October 22-30, 2016, in Atlanta, GA.

For more information on the presentations of ERM/UNCG faculty and students, please visit the conference’s Conference Program page.