I am Susan Kistler, the American Evaluation Association’s Executive Director and aea365 regular Saturday contributor. Did you know that April 22 is Earth Day and that all this week we’ll be celebrating Earth Week on aea365 with our colleagues in the Environmental Program Evaluation Topical Interest Group? What is particular exciting is that this year we have two new things to note on this special week.
Get Involved – Planning Team for Environmental Priorities: At its winter 2012 meeting, the AEA Board of Directors set priorities for the coming fiscal year, for the first time explicitly including environmental issues within the priority set. They noted (in the association’s policy language):
A priority will be taking steps that help evaluators to conduct their evaluation work with greater environmental consciousness and responsibility at a budgetary allocation of up to $10,000 across FY2013 and FY2014.
Fiscal Year 2012 runs from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013 and we’re diving in to be ready. Across FY13 and FY14, we’ll be looking at ways to help evaluators increase attention to environmental issues as part of their professional practice. Do you have a great idea about how to do so? Add it to the comments below. Would you like to be part of a planning team for moving forward in this area? Again, note your interest in the comments and we’ll bring together an advisory group to discuss, plan, advise, and make it happen.
Get Involved – Attend (and present at?) the 2012 Environmental Evaluators Forum Unconference: AEA is so pleased to be co-hosting for the first time the 2012 Environmental Evaluators Network Forum gathering, to be held July 18 and 19 in Washington, DC.
- Registration is now open on the EEN Website and is only $25 for the two-day event.
- The Forum is to be an ‘unconference’ where those in attendance develop the agenda on site. Session ideas are being solicited in advance to get the ball rolling. Is there a topic you would like to see covered? Something that you would like to present and share with others? Go to the Forum Moderator site and suggest a topic, discuss topic suggestions from others, or vote on those topics already identified.
Hot Tip – Low Cost Pre-Forum Workshops: This may be the best offer I’ve seen in evaluation professional development. If you are attending the EEN Forum, you can register for any of four full-day pre-Forum workshops to be held the day before for only $25. These are independent from the forum, and require a separate registration, but offer a unique opportunity.