7 February, 2013
Dr. Hallie Preskill to be Keynote Speaker at 2013 Evaluation Conference
Evaluation great Dr. Hallie Preskill, who has spent her life at the intersection of evaluation, learning and change, will be a keynote speaker at the 2013 Canadian Evaluation Conference.
Strategy goes hand in hand with evaluation. The most effective program in the world can’t be completely successful unless the results can be measured against a comprehensive performance management system. Putting the systems in place is the legacy of evaluation giants like Hallie Preskill (PhD), who has spent her life providing evaluation, learning and training workshops and services for a range of organizations. These include healthcare, nonprofit, education, foundation, government, and corporate entities. Dr. Preskill will be a keynote speaker at the 2013 evaluation conference presented by the Canadian Evaluation Society.
It’s Time, Says Hallie
“The time couldn’t be better for a conference devoted to Evaluation Across Boundaries,” says Dr. Preskill. “For evaluation to remain relevant, credible, and useful, it will have to adapt and change to new and emerging contexts and environments. This means that evaluators will need to think out of the box – we will need to expand our understandings and practices in ways that challenge conventional boundaries and the status quo. I am excited about what promises to be a thought provoking, stimulating, and boundary pushing event!”
Making a Difference
Hallie Preskill always wanted to make a difference. She believes in a world where evaluation is a social catalyst for change , where individuals, groups, communities and organizations learn constantly about and from evaluation. Dr. Preskill has held academic roles at three universities, where she shared her knowledge by teaching courses in programme evaluation, organizational learning, appreciative inquiry and training and organization development. It wasn’t enough, however, for Dr. Preskill. “While I always hoped I was making a difference through my teaching, research, and writing, I knew I wanted to make a different kind of difference,” she says.
Bringing Professionals Together
A member of the American Evaluation Association for many years, in 2007 Dr. Preskill became president of the organization. In her opening speech at that year’s conference in Baltimore, Maryland, she expressed the hope that the topic Evaluation and Learning would generate insights into the way evaluation facilitated learning and how capacity was developed. The conference brought together more than 2,500 evaluation practitioners, academics, and students, and represented a unique opportunity for attendees to meet with professional colleagues in a supportive, invigorating atmosphere.
Growing the Discipline
Two years later, in 2009, Dr. Preskill joined FSG (formerly the Foundation Strategy Group) as a member of the leadership team and managing director of the group’s strategic evaluation approach area. In this position, she leads a team of consultants in developing tools and resources to help grow the field of evaluation and provide expertise in healthcare, education, community engagement and human rights, among other topics.
“At FSG, I have the privilege of guiding our strategic learning and evaluation practice, through which we design and implement evaluations, evaluation systems, workshops, webinars, and organizational learning processes, in addition to building the field’s evaluation knowledge,” says Dr. Preskill.
Accolades
Dr. Preskill has authored and collaborated on a number of books, including:
- Becoming the Change (2011),
- Reframing Evaluation through Appreciative Inquiry (2006),
- Building Evaluation Capacity: 72 Activities for Teaching and Training (2005),
- Evaluation Strategies for Communicating and Reporting (1999, 2005), and
- Evaluation in Organizations: A Systematic Approach to Enhancing Learning, Performance & Change (2001, 2009).
Dr. Preskill has been awarded American Evaluation Association’s Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Award for Outstanding Professional Practice in 2002 and the University of Illinois Distinguished Alumni Award in 2004.
For more information about the 2013 Canadian evaluation conference, please click here to visit the website.
