Beyond Metrics: Advancing Evaluation for Your Program's Meaningful Change

 

The Beyond Metrics: Advancing Evaluation for Your Program’s Meaningful Change virtual conference was hosted on May 15-16, 2025  by the Institute of Food and Agriculture, California State University, Fresno, with an agenda that included presentations by 12 faculty, practitioners, and leading evaluation experts. Themes included foundational evaluation models, language choice in grant-writing, leadership development, institutional sustainability, servingness, systemic transformation within Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and the evolving landscape of evaluation. Participation included faculty, evaluators, and grant administrators representing over 30 institutions

FUNDER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

This work is supported by the Hispanic-Serving Institutions Education Grants Program, project award no. 2022-77040-37628, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy.

PROJECT TEAM EXTENDS SINCERE GRATITUDE TO:

Dr. Irma Lawrence and Dr. Decatur Foster for their support and leadership at the inception of this project with USDA NIFA , Juan M. Alvarez, our USDA liaison in the Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement (OPPE), Maral Kismetian, MPA, CRA, Carmen T. Mendoza MSPH, MS and Dr. Susan M. Pheasant for their insights and inspirations in developing the original proposal and Dr. Nancy Van Leuven for enthusiastically joining to bring the conference to fruition.