What Should ENet Be and Do?

Abstract

Evaluation Network began in 1975. It built membership very rapidly, from the initial group of less than 100 to nearly 1,000 in less than one year. ENet obviously touched a need, and dues were then only $4. However, ENet wasn't prepared to handle a membership of this size; it quite rapidly dropped to about 500 and then increased to around 1,000 by 1980.From the outset, the organization was very loose. Newsletters, although of excellent quality, were published somewhat sporadically. Membership was handled similarly. Some people who sent money never heard anything from ENet. Others would receive EN for several years despite failing to pay dues. The annual conference was small and informal. In comparison to other professional meetings, the fact that the submission deadline was only a couple of months ahead of the conference allowed last-minute decisions and probably fostered presentations that were more &dquo;this is what I am doing right now&dquo; than &dquo;this is a piece of research I have completed.&dquo; (Incidentally, I don't believe this is bad-AERA, APA, ERS, and others provide opportunities to present research.) All of this is probably natural for a new professional group, particularly one operating on a shoestring. In time, the initial problems were solved-Evaluation News became regular in its publication, membership problems were cleared up, and the annual meeting became more structured. Then three major events happened:1. Dues were raised to $ 10. In dollars it wasn't much of a raise, but it took ENet out of the division or SIG membership league in terms of cost.2. Sage took over publishing EN and volunteered to do our membership list as well. This means greater publishing costs, an attendant loss of flexibility in handling memberships, and endless problems with our membership list. Only the last was unexpected.3. ENet began to meet with ERS. The annual meeting changed from an operation that meant a few hundred dollars' profit or less to a major source of income. With the additional income has come a marked at Harvard Libraries on July 1, 2015 aje.sagepub.com Downloaded from

More Than 25 Years of the American Journal of Evaluation

“…The group consisted mostly of educational evaluators and met regularly (The Oral History Project Team, 2010, p. 270), and in spite of its exclusive beginnings eventually gave rise to ENet around 1974. (Sources disagree on the year- Davis (1981) puts it at 1974; Jerrell (1983) and Katzenmeyer (1984) put it at 1975).…”

“…For ENet to serve nonacademic practitioners, it could remain an informal organization with low dues, inclusive conferences, and practice-oriented publications. By the early 1980s, the organization was creeping toward greater formality in service to academic purposes, but this was not an explicit strategic decision and remained a source of debate and conflict (Katzenmeyer, 1984).…”