Leadership and Public Service Course Highlights

What follows is one student’s reflection on how this course has helped her grow as a professional and elevate her practicum project.

"I took Advanced Program Evaluation, a course taught by Dr. Phillip Wagner. I anticipated that this class would contribute to my practicum work and also my professional career. The course would allow me to gain the skills necessary to objectively participate in future evaluation of the concurrent enrollment program that I direct for my university.
The readings ranged from a professional manual, videos, case studies, and in-class discussions provided constructive and practical methods for creating an evaluation plan. In particular, the Step-by-Step Guide to Evaluation: How to Become Savvy Evaluation Consumers by W.K. Kellogg Foundation was particularly useful in developing the framework for my project. I know that I can come back to the readings from this class later for guidance in my career when evaluating programs. Class readings and discussions about the political, interpersonal, and ethical issues in evaluation were especially helpful in developing the mindset and personal framework I needed to appropriately understand the wide array of motives behind program evaluation.

Through this class, I learned many of the different approaches to program evaluation and have realized that whether conducting a program-oriented evaluation or decision-oriented evaluation, there are many facets that need to be carefully considered."

-Denise Hancock (Class of 2021)