Redesigning a University-Based Evaluator Education Program for Scholarship and Practice

This paper describes the process that the faculty at the University of Minnesota used to redesign its graduate programs in evaluation. We build from the premise that evaluator education programs undergo periodic review to remain consistent with program goals and maintain alignment with competency taxonomies. With the retirement of a senior faculty member and the addition of a new junior faculty member, we decided the time had come to examine closely the existing MA and PhD curriculum. We describe our process for conceptualizing the program’s ultimate goals, examining course content, cross-referencing the courses with the AEA Competencies, and aligning all courses and processes with our revised programmatic goals. The result is a redesigned and streamlined curriculum to support evaluation practice for master’s students and both scholarship and practice for doctoral students.