Letter from the Executive Director
As I reflect on the 2023-24 fiscal year, it is with pride and gratitude that I share some of The Evaluation Center’s accomplishments and milestones. September 1, 2023, marked the center’s 50th anniversary at Western Michigan University, celebrating half a century of leading the evaluation field from our home in Kalamazoo (following eight years at Ohio State University). Our 50th year of operation at WMU coincided with multiple standout achievements:
- Securing $7 million in federal grants, contributing to over $18 million in the past five years.
- Opening the Evaluation Lab, an innovative initiative to serve the Kalamazoo community while providing hands-on training to WMU students.
- Launching Valeo, an online self-paced learning program designed to address a critical gap in online education about evaluation.
- Being honored with the Michigan Association for Evaluation’s Friend of Evaluation award.
We’re thrilled with these accomplishments. We’re just as proud of our decades-long track record of providing evaluation guidance, insights, and engagement opportunities through the Evaluation Checklists Project, Evaluation Cafe, Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation, and EvaluATE, all of which remain open-access.
These projects are worth more than $14 million over their total award periods. Projects active in this fiscal year are listed below. The award values reflect the overall value of these grants and contracts, not necessarily the amount received in 2023-24.
Title | Sponsor | Investigators | Start Date | End Date | Total Award |
Evaluation of American Heart Association of Michigan Social Responsibility Project | American Heart Association | Lori Wingate | 4/5/2024 | 6/30/2024 | $20,089 |
Evaluation of Electronic Case Report | Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists | Lori Wingate, and Brad Watts | 6/1/2023 | 7/31/2024 | $299,641 |
EvaluATE 4.0: Evaluation Resource Hub for Advanced Technological Education | National Science Foundation | Lyssa Wilson Becho and Lori Wingate | 1/15/2019 | 12/31/2024 | $4,973,312 |
EvaluATE 5.0: Evaluation Resource Hub for Advanced Technological Education | National Science Foundation | Lyssa Wilson Becho, Lori Wingate, and Megan Lopez | 1/1/2024 | 12/31/2028 | $6,211,812 |
Faculty Online Learning | National Science Foundation | Melissa Dancy | 10/15/2021 | 9/30/2026 | $256,319 |
Creating Statewide Community Partnerships: Spanning Boundaries between Public Health, Emergency Housing & Criminal Justice | National Institute of Health | Brad Watts | 9/22/2023 | 9/21/2024 | $209,734 |
Evaluation of Goodwill Lifeguides Program | Goodwill Industries of SW Michigan | Kelly Robertson and Lyssa Wilson Becho | 5/1/2022 | 7/31/2023 | $22,500 |
Evaluation of School Infrastructure Programs | Department of Education | Brad Watts | 10/1/2018 | 9/30/2023 | $350,000 |
Michigan Primary Care Association Health Center Careers Training Program | Michigan Primary Care Association | Brad Watts | 10/2/2023 | 10/31/2024 | $43,734 |
Advancing the Use of Oral Fluids to monitor Therapeutic and Illicit Drugs in Outpatient Clinical and Field Settings | U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | Steve Magura | 9/30/2019 | 2/29/2024 | $1,447,335 |
Evaluation of WMU's Professional Development Institute | Western Michigan University | Kelly Robertson | 8/1/2023 | 9/30/2024 | $9,000 |
Evaluation of Research University Alliance | University of Michigan | Brad Watts | 2/1/2021 | 3/31/2024 | $230,713 |
Evaluation of WeTalk | Western Michigan University | Brad Watts | 7/31/2023 | 5/31/2024 | $14,800 |