Riding Shotgun Down Evaluations’ Highways: A Tribute to the Legacy of George Julnes

IF 1.1 3区社会学 Q2 SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY

American Journal of Evaluation Pub Date : 2022-02-01 DOI:10.1177/10982140221077938

S. Donaldson

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Abstract

George’s untimely passing this year was an earthquake in my world. Why George? He is the last colleague I would ever imagine leaving us this early. I was so fortunate to be working with him closer than ever this year as one of his Associate Editors for the American Journal Evaluation (AJE). He seemed so happy and healthy, and it is unbelievable I will only hear his voice in my head moving forward as I finish up the AJE editing we were working on together. However, the memories of our evaluation adventures and the many insights he generously shared with me about the field of evaluation will live with me until it is my time, and his legacy will inform evaluation theory and practice forever. George and I had numerous discussions and shared many meaningful evaluation adventures over the years. As I reflect, one of the themes that emerges is he mostly seemed to prefer the drivers’ seat, while I was happy to ride shotgun and support him as we navigated some of evaluations’ most challenging highways. Space limits prevent me from outlining and describing the plethora of major contributions George made to advancing evaluation theory and practice across his prolific career. I was thrilled when his impressive body of written work was honored by the American Evaluation Association (AEA) with the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Evaluation Theory Award in 2015. Instead, I will provide a few brief reflections related to working closely with George on topics such as “What counts as credible and actionable evidence in evaluation practice?” in our adventures when we served on the AEA Board together; and on riding shotgun with him as he was serving as Editor-in-Chief for AJE during a global pandemic. So what counts as credible and actionable evidence, Professor Julnes? It depends on the context you are working in, Professor Donaldson. George was not a fan of the raging debates in the field over the years about the superiority of paradigms, approaches, and methods for evaluating high stake evaluation questions. He seemed to believe most evaluation approaches and methods had their place in a large evaluation tent. A better question in his view was how do we choose methods in relation to the contexts we face in practice. He and his close friend and colleague, Debra Rog, emphasized that:

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骑在评估的高速公路上:对乔治·朱尔斯遗产的致敬

乔治今年英年早逝，在我的世界里是一场地震。为什么是乔治？他是我想象中最后一个这么早就离开我们的同事。作为他在《美国期刊评估》（AJE）的副主编之一，我很幸运今年能比以往任何时候都更紧密地与他合作。他看起来如此快乐和健康，令人难以置信的是，当我完成我们一起进行的AJE编辑时，我只会在脑海中听到他的声音。然而，我们评估冒险的记忆，以及他慷慨地与我分享的关于评估领域的许多见解，将一直伴随着我，直到我的时代到来，他的遗产将永远影响评估理论和实践。这些年来，乔治和我进行了多次讨论，并分享了许多有意义的评估经历。正如我所想的，出现的主题之一是，他似乎更喜欢驾驶座，而我很高兴坐在猎枪上，在我们穿过一些评估中最具挑战性的高速公路时支持他。篇幅的限制使我无法概述和描述乔治在其多产的职业生涯中为推进评估理论和实践所做的大量重大贡献。2015年，当他令人印象深刻的书面作品被美国评估协会（AEA）授予保罗·F·拉扎斯菲尔德评估理论奖时，我非常激动。相反，我将提供一些与乔治密切合作相关的简短思考，例如“在评估实践中，什么是可信和可操作的证据？”；以及在全球疫情期间担任AJE主编时与他一起乘坐猎枪。那么，朱尔斯教授，什么才是可信和可操作的证据呢？这取决于你所处的环境，唐纳森教授。乔治并不喜欢多年来该领域关于评估高风险评估问题的范式、方法和方法的优越性的激烈辩论。他似乎相信，大多数评估方法和方法都在一个大的评估帐篷中占有一席之地。在他看来，一个更好的问题是，我们如何根据实践中面临的环境选择方法。他和他的密友兼同事Debra Rog强调：

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来源期刊

American Journal of Evaluation SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

4.40

自引率

11.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： The American Journal of Evaluation (AJE) publishes original papers about the methods, theory, practice, and findings of evaluation. The general goal of AJE is to present the best work in and about evaluation, in order to improve the knowledge base and practice of its readers. Because the field of evaluation is diverse, with different intellectual traditions, approaches to practice, and domains of application, the papers published in AJE will reflect this diversity. Nevertheless, preference is given to papers that are likely to be of interest to a wide range of evaluators and that are written to be accessible to most readers.