Date
Thursday, March 14
8:15am-11:30am
Presenter(s)
Nora Murphy Johnson & A. Rafael Johnson
TerraLuna Collaborative
With twenty years of experience supporting learning and social change, Dr. Nora Murphy Johnson has a broad set of experiences as an evaluator, researcher, and educator. Currently, Nora works internationally as an evaluator, coach, and facilitator with clients engaged in principles-focused developmental evaluation for systems change. Her primary approach to evaluation is to view programs, people, systems, and cultures as fundamentally interrelated. Her evaluations are utilization-focused, culturally-grounded, and seek to weave connections and support change at the intersection of learning, arts, and social justice. Murphy Johnson holds an MA in Research Methods, and Ph.D. in Evaluation Studies, won an international dissertation award in 2014 for her research on principles-focused developmental evaluation, and has published several chapters on developmental evaluation. Murphy Johnson is active nationally and internationally in evaluation communities and has co-founded TerraLuna Collaborative, the Developmental Evaluation Institute, and Creative Evaluation.
A. Rafael “Andy” Johnson works in arts-based evaluation and applied neuroaesthetics, using his background in the arts to transform what we find valuable, beautiful, and memorable into data useful for decision making. Andy brings 30+ years of experience in the arts, administration, and activism to TerraLuna. Andy began his career as a musician, then as stage manager and director. He advised graduate students and faculty in the Department of Sociology for seven years. Later, Andy became an aid worker in postwar Liberia under a USAID contract. In Liberia, Andy served as the nationwide coordinator of a Books for Africa initiative that reduced the national student-to-textbook ratio from an average of 26:1 to 4:1, connected former child soldiers with literacy and job training programs, and created the First-Year Writing Program at Cuttington University. Over the course of his career, Andy has developed skills in observation, textual analysis, interviewing, recruiting, positive behavior supports, and arts-based interventions, as well as writing and editing. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Drama from The University of Texas, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from The University of Alabama. A. Rafael Johnson’s was named a Kimbilio Fellow in African American Fiction in 2014. His first novel, The Through (Jaded Ibis Press, 2017), was a finalist for the 2018 Minnesota Book Award. Andy is finishing a collection of short stories called Okahika. He regularly appears at local literary events, and teaches creative writing at The Minneapolis College of Art and Design and The Loft Literary Center.
Description
Participants will learn the essential threads for creative evaluation (CE) through content delivery (30%), discussion (30%), practice exercises (30%), and individual reflection (10%).
Purpose
Participants will learn the essential threads for creative evaluation (CE). CE is a way of practicing developmental evaluation that is principles-focused, uses the methodologies of the arts throughout, and is committed to furthering justice and equity. CE is particularly suited for collaborative systems change work.