Dr. Tiffany LS Tovey leads ERM Students to Build their Skills through CNNC Collaboration

Dr. Tiffany LS Tovey, the Director of the Office of Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Services (OAERS) here at UNC Greensboro, began a strong collaboration this Spring with the Center for New North Carolinians (CNNC) through a practicum project in which five masters and PhD evaluation students from the Educational Research Methodology (ERM) department facilitated 10 workshops with the CNNC to build their capacity for evaluating their center’s work. 

Evaluation students Xinru Yan, Stacy Huff, Charity Odetola, Joy Alcantara Chuquiruna, and Onyinyechukwu Onwuka worked closely with Dr. Tiffany LS Tovey, the director of OAERS, as well as the interim co-director of the CNNC, to establish and deliver contextually relevant workshop sessions with the center’s staff. They built the importance of thinking evaluatively, asking the right questions, establishing criteria, understanding the intended logic of programs, and using qualitative and quantitative methods to understand what’s working, what’s not working, what the impacts of the center’s work are, and how to use that information to continue to improve their efforts moving forward. 

We are very proud of their efforts this past Spring! Through the project, ERM students gained valuable experience in facilitating evaluation topics and establishing training materials to help build further staff understanding and value of evaluation at the CNNC.