Riding Shotgun Down Evaluations’ Highways: A Tribute to the Legacy of George Julnes

Abstract

George’s untimely passing this year was an earthquake in my world. Why George? He is the last colleague I would ever imagine leaving us this early. I was so fortunate to be working with him closer than ever this year as one of his Associate Editors for the American Journal Evaluation (AJE). He seemed so happy and healthy, and it is unbelievable I will only hear his voice in my head moving forward as I finish up the AJE editing we were working on together. However, the memories of our evaluation adventures and the many insights he generously shared with me about the field of evaluation will live with me until it is my time, and his legacy will inform evaluation theory and practice forever. George and I had numerous discussions and shared many meaningful evaluation adventures over the years. As I reflect, one of the themes that emerges is he mostly seemed to prefer the drivers’ seat, while I was happy to ride shotgun and support him as we navigated some of evaluations’ most challenging highways. Space limits prevent me from outlining and describing the plethora of major contributions George made to advancing evaluation theory and practice across his prolific career. I was thrilled when his impressive body of written work was honored by the American Evaluation Association (AEA) with the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Evaluation Theory Award in 2015. Instead, I will provide a few brief reflections related to working closely with George on topics such as “What counts as credible and actionable evidence in evaluation practice?” in our adventures when we served on the AEA Board together; and on riding shotgun with him as he was serving as Editor-in-Chief for AJE during a global pandemic. So what counts as credible and actionable evidence, Professor Julnes? It depends on the context you are working in, Professor Donaldson. George was not a fan of the raging debates in the field over the years about the superiority of paradigms, approaches, and methods for evaluating high stake evaluation questions. He seemed to believe most evaluation approaches and methods had their place in a large evaluation tent. A better question in his view was how do we choose methods in relation to the contexts we face in practice. He and his close friend and colleague, Debra Rog, emphasized that: