External Evaluators
Dr. Laura Kramer and Alice Hogan serve as co-external evaluators. Their life work has centered on working with professional organizations involved with the advancement of underrepresented groups, particularly in STEM. They both provided leadership to the National Science Foundation (NSF) as program directors of ADVANCE, Hogan from 2001-07 and Kramer from 2007-08. They served as co-external evaluators for ADVANCE projects at Rochester Institute of Technology, Iowa State University, Purdue University, Skidmore College, Union College, the University of Miami and North Carolina State University. Kramer is a member of the external advisory boards of the ADVANCE Institutional Transformation projects at Clemson University, the University of Houston and Seattle University.
For each year of the ASPIRE2 project, the external evaluators will confer quarterly with the internal evaluators to give feedback on planned measures and sampling for formative purposes and to discuss the analyses of data gathered by the internal evaluators. They will confer approximately bimonthly with the PI as well as other members of the Leadership Team as appropriate to provide an external perspective on the evolving programming and project management. Near the ends of years one and three, the external evaluators will visit campus for meetings with various stakeholders. In particular, meetings will be held with women faculty who have participated in some ASPIRE2 activities and who have not. Meetings will be held with people in academic leadership positions. One full day will be scheduled for year one and one-and-half days in year three. During year two, teleconferencing will be used for up to one day of meetings with people who are on the project team, are in targeted groups (e.g., academic unit leadership) and others identified as the project unfolds.
At the ends of years one and two, the external evaluators will prepare a short report based on visits, teleconferencing and review of materials prepared by the internal evaluators. These reports will be both summative and formative, with recommendations for the coming year. At the end of the ASPIRE2 project, based on interviews and reports, external evaluators will prepare an assessment of the impact of the project on the institution, with particular attention to progress toward the project goals and objectives identified in the proposal.