AEA’s DEI Journey Map

To connect seemingly isolated occurrences, this timeline presents events and movements around the world and in the United States of America, along with key moments in and around the field of evaluation. It allows us to see patterns—different milestones that occurred in the same period and similar milestones that occurred in different periods—not just within evaluation but also in relation to deeper currents.

A People’s History of Evaluation
Click here to put yourself on the map!

The timeline spans from 1972 to 2022 in five-year increments.

If you would like to view a specific increment, click on one of the following links. Or simply scroll down the page.

1972 – 1976

1972

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Campbell names evaluators as white and potentially profiting professionally from evaluating anti-poverty programs in the precursor of the American Journal of Evaluation

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1973

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

• The U.S.A. withdraws from the American war in Viet Nam

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Washington, DC: The Supreme Court of the U.S.A. decides Roe v. Wade
• Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota: The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1974

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Richard Nixon resigns, and Gerald Ford becomes the next U.S. President

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• With funding from Phi Delta Kappa, the education honorary society, 10 to 15 academics and nonacademic practitioners develop a network of evaluators that would become the Evaluation Network, one of the precursors of the American Evaluation Association

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1975

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1976

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Jimmy Carter is elected U.S. President

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Clark Abt, founder of Abt Associates—a large, privately-held contract research firm—establishes the Council for Applied Social Research (CFASR) to convene academics, professional consultants, and high-level governmental policy makers deeply involved with federally funded research
• In response to CFASR’s lack of diversity, Marcia Guttentag, Lois-ellin Datta, and Carol Weiss form the Evaluation Research Society to promote inclusiveness and social justice among policy makers, evaluation researchers in universities, evaluation practitioners, and human service providers

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• House publishes “Justice in Evaluation,” rooted in Rawlsian notions of distributive justice

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1977 – 1981

1977

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• The Combahee River Collective publishes its statement on collective, nonhierarchical distribution of power

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The Council for Applied Social Research convenes those engaged in large government contracts at its inaugural meeting

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1978

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Washington, DC: The Supreme Court of the U.S.A. upholds affirmative action, finding diversity in the classroom to be a compelling state interest, in California v. Bakke

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1979

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1980

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Ronald Reagan is elected U.S. President

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The Council for Applied Social Research and the Evaluation Research Society merge

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1981

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa publish This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Besag names eugenics as the origins of educational research and evaluation in Evaluation and Policy Analysis
• Wolfensberger reverses the gaze on disability in what is now New Directions for Evaluation

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1982 – 1986

1982

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Detroit, MI: Ronald Evens and Michael Nitz, two white autoworkers angry at Japan’s auto industry, murder Vincent Chin—a Chinese American engineer—days before his wedding

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1983

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Northern WI: The Walleye Wars lead to Lac Courte Oreilles v. Wisconsin (Voigt Decision), protecting the Ojibwe bands’ hunting, fishing, and gathering rights

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• As government funding for evaluation decreases dramatically with the change in administration, the Evaluation Network and Evaluation Research Society increasingly hold joint conferences and discuss merging into a single professional association

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1984

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1985

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• House challenges Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980 for its technical errors as well as its wide use in political decision making in what is now the American Journal of Evaluation
• Nick Smith laments the demise of government-funded evaluation—as part of neoliberalism’s devolution of government services—and concludes by instructing evaluators about how to court philanthropy in what is now the American Journal of Evaluation
• The Evaluation Network and Evaluation Research Society hold their last joint annual conference as a separate organizations

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Patton edits a New Directions for Program Evaluation (now New Directions for Evaluation) volume on culture and evaluation
• Merryfield draws parallels between indigeneity in present-day U.S.A. and colonization internationally in what is now New Directions for Evaluation

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1986

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Influenced by government’s move away from publicly funded—and evaluated—compensatory and redistributive social programs, the Evaluation Network and Evaluation Research Society merge to form the American Evaluation Association

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1987 – 1991

1987

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Sage Publications renews its contract with the Evaluation Network board and Evaluation News becomes Evaluation Practice (which later becomes the American Journal of Evaluation)
• Madison establishes the Minority Task Force, precursor to the Multi-ethnic Issues in Evaluation Topical Interest Group, within the American Evaluation Association

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• American Evaluation Association President Covert describes increased minority representation within the Association as an issue of fairness in opportunities to advance professionally

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1988

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• George H. W. Bush is elected U.S. President

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Under President Patton, Asa Hilliard delivers the American Evaluation Association annual conference keynote, which names enslavement, colonization, and deficit-based narratives

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Covert’s “Ethics in Evaluation: Beyond the Standards” names justice; harm; systematic bias; racist and sexist instrumentation; and white perspectives

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1989

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Kimberlé Crenshaw coins the term intersectionality

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• American Evaluation Association Conference Theme: International and Cross-Cultural Evaluation, under President Conner

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• The American Journal of Evaluation prints Hilliard’s conference keynote “Kemetic (Egyptian) historical revision”
• American Evaluation Association President Conner refers to “diversity” and “people of color” for the first time in evaluation, tracking the latter’s membership and representation in leadership relative to that of women

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1990

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Americans with Disabilities Act passes
• Patricia Hill Collins publishes Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Richardson problematizes the constructed nature of “at-risk” in New Directions for Evaluation

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1991

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Washington, DC: Anita Hill testifies that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her when they worked together
• Los Angeles, CA: A bystander films police officers beating Rodney King; the officers are acquitted, and a five-day uprising ensues

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1992 – 1996

1992

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Bill Clinton is elected U.S. President
• Elisabeth Schüssler coins kyriarchy to describe the interactions between layers of privilege and the interlocking structures of domination

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Dallas, Texas: In response to a historical lack of women elected to be president of the American Evaluation Association, the idea arises to form a Feminist Issues in Evaluation Topical Interest Group

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Madison edits a New Directions for Evaluation volume on Minority Issues in Evaluation
• McDowell connects racialized patterns in standardized test scores to individualism
• Madison uses “cultural dominance” and “primary inclusion” for the first time in the context of under-represented groups
• Davis problematizes the use of race as an explanatory variable

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1993

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1994

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Charles Murray & Richard Herrnstein publish The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, which attributes racial differences in test scores to natural differences in intelligence

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• American Evaluation Association Conference theme: Social Justice and Evaluation, under President Kirkhart
• Kirkhart’s Presidential Address introduces multicultural validity

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Mertens, Farley, Madison, and Singleton’s “Diverse Voices in Evaluation Practice: Feminists, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities” connects multiple forces of oppression 

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1995

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Los Angeles, CA: The O.J. Simpson trial begins

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1996

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, or “Welfare Reform,” passes

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• New Directions in Program Evaluation becomes New Directions in Evaluation

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1997 – 2001

1997

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Evaluation Practice becomes the American Journal of Evaluation
• The Feminist Issues in Evaluation Topical Interest Group forms within the American Evaluation Association
• Millett proposes to American Evaluation Association president-elect Mertens some effort to increase the pool of evaluators of color available for philanthropy to evaluate programs for communities of color

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1998

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Laramie, WY: Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson murder Matthew Shepard, a white, gay college student

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• American Evaluation Association Conference theme: Transforming Society through Evaluation, under President Mertens
• Under President Mertens, American Evaluation Association annual conference keynote speaker John Stanfield names white supremacy
• Hood delivers “Responsive Evaluation: Amistad Style” at symposium in honor of Robert Stake

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Davis proposes an ethic of care for evaluation

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

1999

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

• Linda Tuhiwai Smith publishes Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Washington, DC: A federal grand jury indicts Taiwanese American Wen Ho Lee as a spy for the People’s Republic of China; ultimately, the U.S. government cannot prove its claim

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Chavis, Kien Lee, and the Building Diversity Initiative Committee begin the W. K. Kellogg Foundation-funded Building Diversity Initiative study

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Gill publishes “Invisible Ubiquity: The Surprising Relevance of Disability Issues in Evaluation”
• Barbara Lee responds with “The Implications of Diversity and Disability for Evaluation Practice: Commentary on Gill”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2000

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• The Supreme Court of the U.S.A. confirms George W. Bush as President

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Hood launches Arizona State University’s annual national conference on the Relevance of Assessment and Culture in Evaluation (RACE)
• Cassaro & SenGupta propose an LGBTQ Topical Interest Group

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Hood quotes Frederick Douglas to question democracy for African Americans in his “Commentary on Deliberative Democratic Evaluation”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2001

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

• In response to the 9/11 attacks, the U.S.A. invades Afghanistan, with support from Australia, Canada, France, and Germany

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• New York, NY; Washington, DC; Shanksville, PA: The 9/11 attacks begin a new era in U.S. foreign policy and domestic immigration policy, including the War on Terror

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Chavis & Kien Lee complete the Building Diversity Initiative study, which includes 14 recommendations
• The American Evaluation Association board establishes a Diversity Committee 
• Duquesne University commits to the Graduate Education Diversity Internship program
• The LGBTQ Topical Interest Group forms within the American Evaluation Association
• The Relevance of Assessment and Culture in Evaluation (RACE) workshop takes place at Arizona State University

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Hood publishes “Nobody Knows My Name: In Praise of African American Evaluators who were Responsive”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2002 – 2006

2002

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Washington, DC: The Bush administration establishes the Department of Homeland Security

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The American Evaluation Association/ Duquesne University Internship (later renamed Graduate Education Diversity Initiative, or GEDI) founding and planning begins
• The Howard University Evaluation Training Institute takes place

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• The Feminist Issues in Evaluation Topical Interest Group edits a New Directions for Evaluation volume
• Ward Hood & Cassaro’s “Feminist Evaluation and the Inclusion of Difference” names white supremacy, heterosexism, and Black Feminist Thought for the first and still nearly only time in evaluation
• Frierson, Hood & Hughes publish the National Science Foundation “Guide to Conducting Culturally Responsive Evaluation”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2003

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

• The U.S.A. invades Iraq

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Washington, DC: The Supreme Court of the U.S.A. upholds affirmative action policies as serving the government’s interest in diversity in Grutter v. Bollinger

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The American Evaluation Association issues a public statement valuing methodological pluralism beyond experimental design and randomized control trials, losing some of its original members
• The idea arises to form an Indigenous Peoples in Evaluation Topical Interest Group
• The National Science Foundation funds the Relevance of Culture in Evaluation Institute at Arizona State University
• The Feminist Issues in Evaluation Topical Interest Group launches a website and blog

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2004

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The American Evaluation Association Diversity Committee conducts a Cultural Reading of The Program Evaluation Standards
• The inaugural American Evaluation Association/ Duquesne University Internship cohort launches
• The Feminist Issues in Evaluation Topical Interest Group starts administering a “What is Feminist Evaluation?” survey annually for the next 10 years
• The Minority Issues in Evaluation Topical Interest Group changes its name to the Multi-ethnic Issues in Evaluation Topical Interest Group

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Hood’s “A Journey to Understand the Role of Culture in Program Evaluation: Snapshots and Personal Reflections of One African American Evaluator” reflects on his experience of the conference and culture of the African Evaluation Association
• LaFrance’s “Culturally Competent Evaluation in Indian Country” raises questions about epistemology
• Thompson-Robinson, Hopson & SenGupta edit New Directions for Evaluation volume on cultural competence and evaluation
• Parker asks, “Can Critical Theories of or on Race be used in Educational Evaluation?”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2005

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Robin Lin Miller becomes Editor of the American Journal of Evaluation
• The American Evaluation Association revises the Guiding Principles
• Indigenous Peoples in Evaluation Topical Interest Group forms within the American Evaluation Association

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Hood, Frierson & Hopson edit The Role of Culture and Cultural Context in Evaluation

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2006

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Selma, AL: Tarana Burke founds the ‘Me Too’ movement against sexual violence

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Kerr publishes “First person, First Peoples: A Journey through Boundaries”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2007 – 2011

2007

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence publishes The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Peak, Peters & Fishman conduct Tracking Transformation evaluation of Building Diversity Initiative
• American Evaluation Association conference features Symonette keynote under AEA President Preskill

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Madison examines New Directions for Evaluation coverage of cultural issues and issues of significance to underrepresented groups
• Díaz-Puente, Cazorla & Dorrego call for a worldwide community across national, continental, and linguistic boundaries
• The American Journal of Evaluation publishes multiple articles on youth and evaluation

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2008

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Barack Obama is elected U.S. President

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Bertrand Jones creates opportunities for emerging evaluators and senior evaluators from marginalized groups to engage with each other
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Evaluation Fellowship begins

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Hood & Hopson publish “Evaluation Roots Reconsidered: Asa Hilliard, a Fallen Hero in the “Nobody Knows My Name” Project, and African Educational Excellence” in Review of Educational Research
• The American Evaluation Association launches the Minority Serving Institution fellowship program

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2009

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The American Evaluation Association/ Duquesne University Internship changes name to Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) and moves to the Universities of North and South Carolina

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Hood publishes ”Evaluation for and by Navajos: A Narrative Case of the Irrelevance of Globalization”
• Hopson publishes “Reclaiming Knowledge at the Margins: Culturally Responsive Evaluation in the Current Evaluation Moment”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2010

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The Feminist and International & Cross-Cultural Topical Interest Groups and UN Women collaborate to offer a pre-conference workshop on Gender Responsive Evaluation
• LaVelle & Kistler launch the AEA365 Blog series, democratizing knowledge production related to evaluation theory and practice

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• A New Directions for Evaluation volume on Critical Social Theory includes Critical Race Theory
• Frierson, Hood, Hughes & Thomas revise National Science Foundation guide to culturally responsive evaluation

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2011

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

• Iraq War ends

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The Joint Committee publishes the 3^rd edition of The Program Evaluation Standards, considerably revised from previous editions with respect to culture
• American Evaluation Association issues completed Cultural Competence Statement, five years in the making
• Hopson performs “The Revolution Will Not Be Evaluated” in honor of Scriven
• Graduate Education Diversity Internship moves to Claremont Graduate University

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Prado names characteristics of racialized capitalism and neoliberalism in schools, offering educational evaluation critical multiculturalism

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2012 – 2016

2012

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Oak Creek, WI: Wade Michael Page murders seven people and wounds four at Sikh Gurdwara
• Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang publish “Decolonization is not a Metaphor”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The American Evaluation Association elects President Rodney Hopson
• The American Evaluation Association conference features author of Decolonizing Methodologies, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, as keynote speaker
• Shanker and colleagues—unaware of Hopson’s similar performance in 2011—perform “The Revolution Will Not Be Culturally Competent”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Johnston-Goodstar publishes “Decolonizing evaluation: The necessity of evaluation advisory groups in Indigenous evaluation”
• Askew, Beverly & Jay publish “Aligning Collaborative and Culturally Responsive Evaluation Approaches”
• Frazier-Anderson, Hood & Hopson publish “Preliminary Consideration of an African American Culturally Responsive Evaluation System”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2013

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Washington, DC: Fisher v. University of Texas protects affirmative action policies

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment holds its first conference
• American Evaluation Association Conference Theme: Visionary Evaluation for a Sustainable, Equitable Future, under President Parsons

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Azzam & Baez publish “The Nature and Frequency of Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Program Evaluation”
• Cavino publishes “Across the Colonial Divide: Conversations about Evaluation in Indigenous Contexts”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2014

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Ferguson, MO: Police officer Darren Wilson murders Michael Brown; protests ensue and the Black Lives Matter movement gains national attention

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The Annie E. Casey Foundation launches the Expanding the Bench field-building effort

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Collins & Hopson edit a New Directions for Evaluation volume on the Graduate Education Diversity Internship
• Lee & Gilbert publish “Embedding the Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) Program within a Larger System”
• Hood quotes Malcolm X in reflecting on GEDI and evaluators of color
• The Feminist Topical Interest Group edits Feminist Evaluation and Research: Theory and Practice
• Hood, Hopson & Frierson publish Continuing the Journey to Reposition Culture and Cultural Context in Evaluation Theory and Practice
• Frazier-Anderson & Bertrand Jones publish on African American woman and culturally responsive evaluator Rose Butler Browne

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2015

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Washington, DC: Obergefell v. Hodges legalizes same-sex marriage
• Charleston, SC: Dylann Roof murders nine African Americans attending Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in an explicitly white supremacist attack

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• First Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity cohort forms
• The Advancing Culturally-Responsive and Equitable Evaluation (ACE) Network launches
• The Latine Responsive Evaluation Discourse (LA RED) Topical Interest Group forms within the American Evaluation Association

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Rosenstein & Desivilya Syna edit “Evaluation and Social Justice in Complex Sociopolitical Contexts” New Directions for Evaluation volume

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2016

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Donald J. Trump is elected U.S. President
• Orlando, FL: Omar Mateen murders 49 people and wounds 53 more at Pulse, a gay nightclub
• Duke University Press reprints The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• American Evaluation Association President Newcomer launches Dialogues on Race and Class

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Chouinard edits the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation volume on Decolonizing International Development Evaluation

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2017 – 2021

2017

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• #MuseumsAreNotNeutral starts as a conversation between La Tanya Autry and Mike Murawski

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• Graduate Education Diversity Internship alumnae form a Topical Interest Group within the American Evaluation Association
• The Equitable Evaluation Initiative publishes its Framing Paper

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Hood publishes “African Americans in the Early History of Evaluation in the USA: Contributions of Ambrose Caliver in the U.S. Office of Education”
• House publishes “Evaluation and the Framing of Race”
• Thomas & Parsons publish “Culturally Responsive Evaluation Meets Systems-Oriented Evaluation”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2018

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Pittsburgh, PA: Robert D. Bowers murders 11 congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue in an explicitly anti-Semitic terrorist attack

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The Expanding the Bench, Advancing Culturally-Responsive and Equitable Evaluation Network, and Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity field-building initiatives move from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to Change Matrix, where multiple foundations support them
• The American Evaluation Association annual conference plenary elicits a critical response from evaluators of color for featuring a white teacher acting the part of Black students
• Anisha Lewis becomes the American Evaluation Association’s Executive Director

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Cram, Tibbetts & LaFrance edit a New Directions for Evaluation volume on Indigenous Evaluation
• Waapalaneexkweew & Dodge-Francis publish “Culturally Responsive Indigenous Evaluation and Tribal Governments”
• Bledsoe introduces a new American Journal of Evaluation section devoted to “Race in Evaluation”
• Dean-Coffey publishes “What’s Race Got to Do With It? Equity and Philanthropic Evaluation Practice”
• Melvin Hall publishes “Evaluation’s Race Problem in the United States: A Call to Action for the Profession and the American Journal of Evaluation”
• Hood publishes “Reflections on the Journey of One Aspiring Culturally Responsive Evaluator—Thus Far”
• Thomas et al. publish “Racism, Social Programming, and Evaluation: Where Do We Go From Here?”
• Waapalaneexkweew Bowman-Farrell publishes “Looking Backward but Moving Forward: Honoring the Sacred and Asserting the Sovereign in Indigenous Evaluation”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2019

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• El Paso, TX: Patrick Crusius murders 22 Walmart shoppers with the intent to kill those perceived as being of Mexican heritage, having explicitly invoked an “invasion”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The American Evaluation Association releases a statement on the El Paso murders that makes no mention of its explicitly stated intent
• LaFrance conducts Foundations of Indigenous Evaluation workshop
• The first “Decolonizing Evaluation” American Evaluation Association 365 blog week takes place
• Noguez Mercado, Palotai & Ghanbarpour introduce language justice in evaluation through an AEA365 blog
• Shanker and colleagues reprise “The Revolution Will Not Be Culturally Competent” as part of a Beyond Diversity, Culture & Inclusion pre-conference workshop
• The Advocacy and Policy Change Topical Interest Group releases a Statement on White Nationalism in response to a direct request made on EvalTalk for the field to acknowledge it

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Thomas & Campbell publish first evaluation textbook to directly address race, Evaluation in Today’s World: Respecting Diversity, Improving Quality, and Promoting Usability
• Julnes edits New Directions for Evaluation volume on sustainability
• Caldwell & Bledsoe publish “Can Social Justice Live in a House of Structural Racism? A Question for the Field of Evaluation”
• Clark publishes “Building a Culturally Responsive Independent Consulting Practice”
• Stickl Haugen & Chouinard publish “Transparent, Translucent, Opaque: Exploring the Dimensions of Power in Culturally Responsive Evaluation Contexts”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2020

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

• The world faces the global pandemic of COVID-19

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Minneapolis, MN: Police officers Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao murder George Floyd, igniting a global uprising
• San Francisco, CA: Stop Asian American/ Pacific Islander Hate—a slogan, organization, and series of demonstrations—launches in response to a three- or four-fold increase in hate crimes against Asians and Asian Americans in 2020 and since

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The American Evaluation Association shuts down EvalTalk in response to racist, misogynist, abusive messages directed at women of color and indigenous women who raised concerns about an AEA panel on COVID and health equity (organized by women of color) that featured no representation from communities most adversely affected by COVID and no individuals actively engaged in health equity work
• The American Evaluation Association releases a statement on George Floyd’s murder
• The Feminist Evaluation Regenerative Network forms to develop an anthology and corresponding process committed to intersectionality in relation to evaluation
• Shanker begins an AEA365 blog series on the invisible labor of women of color and indigenous women
• The MN IBPOC in Evaluation Community of Praxis forms and delivers “Why is Evaluation So White?” webinar to Center for Evaluation Innovation’s Evaluation Roundtable

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Neubauer, McBride, Guajardo, Casillas & Melvin Hall edit New Directions for Evaluation volume on issues facing communities of color and evaluation’s role to incite change
• Guajardo, Robles-Schrader, Aponte-Soto & Neubauer introduce LatCrit theory as a framework for evaluation
• Jori Hall publishes “The Other Side of Inequality: Using Standpoint Theories to Examine the Privilege of the Evaluation Profession and Individual Evaluators”
• Mapitsa & Ngwato publish “Rooting Evaluation Guidelines in Relational Ethics: Lessons from Africa”
• Symonette, Miller & Barela publish “Power, Privilege, and Competence: Using the 2018 AEA Evaluator Competencies to Shape Socially Just Evaluation Practice”
• Wolfe, Long & Brown publish “Using a Principles-focused Evaluation Approach to Evaluate Coalitions and Collaboratives Working Toward Equity and Social Justice”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2021

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

• The U.S.A. withdraws from Afghanistan

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Washington, DC: A mob attacks the U.S. Capitol in the culmination of a seven-part plan to overturn the 2020 election results; five people died shortly before, during, or after and as a result of the insurrection
• Atlanta, GA: Robert Aaron Long murders Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Delaina Yaun, Suncha Kim, Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Young Ae Yue, and Paul Andre Michels, six of whom are Asian/Asian American women

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The American Evaluation Association releases a Statement on Structural Inequality in response to the Atlanta murders
• The American Evaluation Association resumes EvalTalk as a moderated list-serv with explicit guidelines for engagement
• The American Evaluation Association establishes the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Working Group through an application process, intentionally selecting a range of experience levels rather than hand-picking “the most qualified” volunteers
• Unearthing Evaluation’s Roots, an ad hoc petition, garners more than 600 signatures from 22 countries in protest of Guilford’s publication of yet another edition of Alkin & Christie’s Evaluation Roots that omits the contributions of women of color, particularly indigenous to the Americas
• The Advocacy and Policy Change Topical Interest Group launches cross-Topical Interest Group convenings on structural racism

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Chilisa & Mertens publish “Indigenous Made in Africa Evaluation Frameworks: Addressing Epistemic Violence and Contributing to Social Transformation”
• Curtis, Hurley & Farmer publish “Subjective Well-Being, Critical Race Theory, and the Assessment of Measurement Invariance Across Racial Groups”
• Hepi et al. publish “Enhancing Cross-cultural Evaluation Practice through Kaupapa Māori Evaluation and Boundary Critique: Insights from Aotearoa New Zealand”
• Maddox et al. publish “Reviewing Health Service and Program Evaluations in Indigenous Contexts: A Systematic Review”
• Mustonen publishes “Indigenous Ecological Reconstruction After Industrial Ruin in Two Iconic Sámi Catchments: Ethics of Comanagement?”
• Robinson publishes on racial capitalism, neo-slavery, neoliberalism, white supremacy, neofascism, neocolonialism, neo-feudalism, imperialism, corporatism, and radical imagination in New Directions for Evaluation

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

2022 and Beyond

2022

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the world?

• Russia responds to NATO’s expansion eastward by invading Ukraine

What DEI milestones marked or shaped U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

• Washington, DC: Roe v. Wade is overturned
• Colleyville, TX: Malik Akram holds four people as hostages at Beth Israel Temple
• Buffalo, NY: Payton Gendron murders 10 Black shoppers at Tops Supermarket, citing “the Great Replacement”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• The American Evaluation Association elects President Veronica Olazabal
• American Evaluation Association Conference theme: (re)shaping evaluation together, under President Olazabel
• The May 13 Group coalesces, joining with AEA’s DEI Working Group to initiate The Power of Perspective: Generations of Evaluators Generating Change!

What DEI milestones marked or shaped the evaluation literature?

• Phillips et al. publish “Transforming the Paradigm for LGBTQ+ Evaluation: Advancing a Praxis of LGBTQ+ Inclusion and Liberation in Evaluation”

What DEI milestones marked or shaped you and your people, including your ancestors?

Dreams—What do we dream of?

What DEI milestones will mark or shape the world?

What DEI milestones will mark or shape U.S. society—including related fields, sectors, and disciplines?

What DEI milestones will mark or shape the evaluation field and its professional associations and institutions?

• First American Evaluation Association President that identifies as transgender, gender non-conforming, nonbinary, or Two Spirit
• Every American Evaluation Association publication and website includes land acknowledgment with commitment to action of meaningful reciprocity/ giving back to Indigenous communities, especially those situated near American Evaluation Association’s Washington, DC headquarters
• Child and youth evaluators are full members of the evaluation community
• Evaluators work in pursuit of equity and justice regardless of program and populations involved

What DEI milestones will mark or shape the evaluation literature?

What DEI milestones will mark or shape you and your people, including your descendants?

---