ATLANTA AREA
EVALUATION ASSOCIATION
About the
newsletter….
The Newsletter is one
way to help AaEA
members: Learn,
Participate, Share, Net-
work and Evaluate.
Each issue contains an
article to help us:
News from AaEA’s President
Learn and Evaluate by Dear AAEA members,
translating
methodology into Sal Alaimo has served the
practice AAEA as an active and
Participate by engaged member since its
featuring recent or inception almost ten years
upcoming AaEA ago, and has provided excel-
lent leadership as President.
events
Along with the Council, I
Share and Network by wish him the best as he
highlighting upcoming moves on to pursue
professional opportunities outside the
development and Atlanta Area. I am confident
other opportunities.. that Sal will remain a friend
of the affiliate and look
forward to opportunities to
INSIDE THIS gain from his expertise in the
future.
ISSUE:
News from the 1 As President for the
President remainder of 2009, my plan
is to continue to implement
March Professional 1 the strategic goals that the
Development Event Council determined for this
year, including reenergizing
Conducting 2
Community
Intervention
Evaluations What Evaluators Can Learn From Ice Cream!
Opportunities 2
On March 26, AaEA members
Professional 3/4 learned about sampling meth-
ods and strategies at Sampling
Development
Matters: What Evaluators Can
Opportunities
Learn from Ice Cream and
School Reform, an event spon-
sored by AaEA’s Professional
Development Committee. The
group tasted different ice
creams to learn how different
sampling strategies give
different results, and how small
sample sizes can limit what we
know about a population (or
ice cream carton!). Once
member engagement,
maximizing member
benefits, diversifying and
increasing the member base
and serving as a resource
for the non profit
community.
I invite all members to reach
out to fellow evaluators as
well as potential evaluators
including students, recent
graduates and new
evaluators in publicizing our
events and offerings.
Practitioners in all
disciplines including the
social and behavioral sci-
ences, education, public
health, development, and
business to name a few, are
involved in evaluating the
success of their work. I
would like our member base
to expand to represent all of
terms were learned and ice
cream bowls filled, the group
turned their attention to the
problems of using an unfo-
cused sampling strategy,
using a case study from the
field of education. Throughout
the event, a lively discussion
occurred as participants
shared their experiences with
various sampling approaches
and lessons learned on how to
overcome potential chal-
lenges. The interactive ses-
sion proved how much AaEA
S U M M E R 2 0 0 9
these fields so we can each
benefit from the experiences
of these many practices.
I have benefited
tremendously from my affilia-
tion with the association over
the past few years, through
the professional
development opportunities
as well as from interacting
with other evaluators. I hope
membership with the AAEA
holds this potential for each
of you. Please stay tuned for
our upcoming trainings and
events for the remaining
quarters of this year, and
take advantage of our many
announcements and
opportunities.
Sincerely,
Bina Jayapaul-Philip
President, AAEA, 2009-2010
members have to share and
how valuable our collective
wisdom can be!
The professional development
committee hopes to offer more
of these opportunities to learn
from each other. Please con-
tact Maureen
(mwilce@cdc.gov) and Kate
(kate@evaluationgroup.com)
with ideas or suggestions for
future sessions.
 PAGE 2
Opportunities:
GoGirlGo! has a
Leadership Conference
scheduled for June
25th. They would like a
volunteer to come and talk
to the GoGirlGo! network
organizations about
program evaluation.
June 25th from 9:30 to
1:00. Registration is from
9:30 to 10:00. Forty-five
minutes is set aside for the
speaker. The time is
flexible, but would prefer to
have them on early,
between 10:15 and 11:30. If
this is not possible, time
can be reserved after lunch,
which will be around 11:45.
For more information on the
organization:
www.GoGirlGoAtlanta.com.
The contact is: Candice L.
Dixon,
cdixon@womenssportsfoun
dation.org; or 404.256.3323
The California
Department of Public
Health, Office of AIDS,
currently has available
positions of interest to
evaluators posted at:
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/
programs/aids/Pages/
OAEmploymentInformation.
aspx
The Agency for
Healthcare Research and
Quality (AHRQ) is seeking
to fill the vacancy for a
Planning and Evaluation
Officer. If interested,
please follow the link for
Planning and Evaluation
Officer: Planning and
Evaluation Officer
Conducting Community Intervention Evaluations
On June 3, AaEA members
learned about evaluating com-
munity interventions in a talk by
Mary L. Ohmer, Assistant
Professor, School of Social
Work, Georgia State University.
Dr. Ohmer’s talk,
Challenges to and Solutions for
Conducting Evaluations of
Community Interventions
provided a great mixture of
presented materials and group
conversations around identifying
and addressing challenges to
evaluating community
interventions, including how to:
• Develop logic models for
community-level interventions.
•Develop theory of change
models for community-level
interventions.
•Identify more rigorous
evaluation designs for
community interventions.
Reminder: 9th Annual Summer Evaluation Institute, June 15-17, 2009
Cosponsored by CDC and the
American Evaluation Associa-
tion (AEA), the institute wel-
comes all who commission or
perform
program evaluations or use
evaluation results. This year's
institute features 3 days of
intensive sessions, which
include the following:
Reminder: Professional Development Workshop Series, August 21-26
Claremont Graduate University
offers its annual line-up of ac-
claimed workshops for those
seeking to hone their research
and evaluation skills. This year's
series offers several new work-
shops as well as long-standing
favorites.
•Collaborate with residents, community interventions. As with
other AaEA sessions,
community-based
participants shared their
organizations, universities.
experiences with community
•Evaluate community
interventions through change models and lessons
learned on how to overcome
other institutions.
potential challenges. The
session highlighted how difficult it
Dr. Ohmer concluded her
presentation with hands on is to provide a rigorous answer to
the question “Am I making a
exercises for the group in
developing a logic model difference?” with community
interventions evaluations. This
for a community interven-
tion, developing a theory of session provided many useful
tools to help answer that
change for a community
intervention, question.
developing more
rigorous methods
to evaluate
community
interventions, or
developing
capacity building
strategies for
evaluating
• plenary keynote sessions Sheraton Atlanta Hotel
with specialists on
165 Courtland Street,
evaluation like
Michael Patton! Atlanta
• two days of interactive
group sessions with
nationally known Visit http://www.eval.org/
evaluation specialists SummerInstitute09/
• sessions for all levels of default.asp for information on
expertise. institute sessions, presenters,
and registration instructions.
Each workshop lasts one full Registration is available for
day. Workshops in this both on-site and online work-
shops. http://www.cgu.edu/
series have consistently sold pages/465.asp
out in previous years, so
save your seat in the work-
shops of your choice by reg-
istering online today.
 The Atlanta-area Evaluation Association (AaEA)
was formed in 2000 to support the broad and di-
verse group of evaluators in our area. Our mis-
sion is to:

Atlanta Area Evaluation • Promote the science and practice of evaluation in

Association
both the public and private sectors.
Visit us on the web!!!
http://evalatl..org • Improve the quality of evaluation by promoting
Email: info@evalatl.org professional evaluation practices and stimulating
new evaluation ideas and opportunities.
Newsletter Contributors:
• Enhance the professional life of evaluators by
Bina Jayapaul-Philip, President
providing networking opportunities and providing
Kate Julian, Professional Development Committee
a forum for cross-fertilization of ideas.
Karen Kun, Communications Committee
Mesfin Mulatu, Communications Committee
• Add credibility and visibility to the evaluation
Dana Rickman, Communications Committee
field by bringing students into the field and men-
Maureen Wilce, Professional Development
toring their development.
Committee

Learn, Participate, Share, Network and Evaluate

Professional Development Workshops: The 2009 Claremont Evaluation Debates

Keynote Luncheons:
The 2009 Claremont
Evaluation Debates
August 23 & 24, 2009
Claremont Graduate
University
Major voices in the living
history of Evaluation will go
head-to-head on key issues to
how the field is practiced
today. Watch them online for
free, or join ringside in
Claremont, California during
the Professional Development
Workshop Series.
Sunday, August 23, 12:00-1:30
pm (Pacific)
Michael Quinn Patton vs.
Michael Scriven
Utilization-Focused Evaluation:
Its Promise (Patton) and Pit-
falls (Scriven)
Monday, August 24, 12:00-
1:30 pm (Pacific)
David Fetterman vs. Michael
Scriven and Michael Quinn
Patton
Empowerment Evaluation: Its
Promise (Fetterman) and Pit-
falls (Scriven & Patton)
These debates are co-
sponsored by The Southern
California Evaluation Associa-
tion (an AEA local affiliate) and
Claremont Graduate Univer-
sity.
Space for the in-person event
is also limited, so register to-
day for the in-person debates.
Registration includes a buffet
luncheon for only $10 per
person.
http://www.cgu.edu/
pages/6494.asp