Evalpalooza I: Evaluation Failures with Kylie Hutchinson and Thought Leaders

Welcome to a new virtual evaluation learning experience. Evalpalooza is a 4 hour long focused, interactive, small, virtual session facilitated by evaluation thought leaders around a key topic. Sessions are limited to only 100 individuals (including presenters), are conducted via Zoom, and are interactive. (Yes, you are expected to interact!) The September event will be led by Kylie Hutchinson. Sheila B. Robinson will head up our November session.
Let’s talk about…failure.The theme of this first Evalpalooza is failure. Seriously? Of course! We all experience some form of failure in our careers as evaluators; it’s practically unavoidable. Failure is perhaps the best teacher out there. Join us on September 24th, 12 p.m. CDT for an engaging and inspiring learning event and leave with practical tools and techniques for a more reflective practice.
Learn from your colleagues. We’ve lined up five great panelists to share their evaluation failures and what they learned. We’ll also break into small groups where you can voluntarily share your own experiences and lessons learned with other evaluators.

Learn from experts. We’ve asked Libby Smith to share two evidence-based reflective practices for processing failure to ensure the maximum amount of personal and professional learning, and then give you the opportunity to practice. You don’t want to miss this!
Space is limited. We’re limiting the registration to keep this event small and intimate, all the better for sharing and learning!
Presenters:

Kylie Hutchinson is an external evaluator with Community Solutions Planning & Evaluation. She is the author of Evaluation Failures: 22 Tales of Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned, and two books on evaluation and program planning: A Short Primer on Innovative Reporting, and Survive and Thrive: Three Steps to Securing Your Program’s Sustainability. Her passion is developing practical tools and training for evaluators. Most recently she is the recipient of the Canadian Evaluation Society’s Contribution to Evaluation in Canada award for 2020.
Libby Smith (she/they) is an organizational healing facilitator. As an experienced and holistic evaluator and educator she excels at the human component of research and evaluation. Their work focuses on building equity and accessibility through personal growth and embodiment practices. Libby uses all of these skills to provide intersectional and liberation-forward guidance to organizations and clients seeking transformative change. They sit on the Board of Directors of the American Evaluation Association and is auntie to 10 year old twin girls.
Panelists:
Lisa Aponte-Soto, PhD, MHA is the President/CEO and founder of Tanoma Consulting LLC, a non-profit firm providing transformative research, evaluation, and training services to advance health, education, and workforce equity. She specializes in asset-based community-driven models using mix methods research and evaluation approaches.
Click here for a bio.
Jeri Levesque, Ed.D, Principal Evaluator and owner of Center of Effort LLC (CoE) has evaluated over 132 million dollars’ worth of federal, state, and privately funded projects.  She leads the external evaluation of two US Dept. of Ed. sponsored Statewide Family Engagement Centers and a family literacy program on the Pine Ridge, Lakota Sioux Reservation. Click here for a bio.
Leah Q. Peoples, PhD, is the Assistant Director of Research to Practice and Community Initiatives at the NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools. She utilizes transformative and critical approaches to inform her work on Metro’s evaluation and research projects. Click here for a bio.
Sheila Rodriguez, an evaluator and researcher, has more than 12 years of extensive evaluation and research expertise working with state education agencies, districts, and schools. She has conducted evaluations and evaluation trainings focused on after-school programming, continuous improvement and logic modeling. Click here for a bio.