Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Elaine Walker
Since August 2014, Dr. Elaine Walker has been hard at work as the Acting Chair of the Education Leadership, Management and Policy Department in Seton Hall University’s College of Education and Human Services. She candidly shares that she has been thankful for the opportunity to learn the importance of teamwork, transparency, and an inclusive approach to management. As Acting Department Chair, the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of students and faculty comes every day.
This comes as a bit of a change to Dr. Walker, who states that she is fulfilled by her faculty role and ongoing research. For her, part of being Chair this semester means “trying to maintain a delicate balance between departmental responsibilities while working on what brings me a lot of satisfaction.” Satisfaction, to Dr. Walker comes from immersion in her research. Her research specializations include evaluation studies, urban education reform, and equity.
Recently, Dr. Walker has been researching new approaches to evaluation. She passionately talks about how she has conceptualized issues with program evaluation in fields where it has not been previously done well. For example, in a forthcoming article to be published in the Journal of Evaluation and Program Planning, Dr. Walker discusses how to consider the evaluation of gender-based interventions. In addition, Dr. Walker is also examining how to build predictive models to explain retaining subjects in longitudinal evaluation studies by utilizing discriminant analysis.
Dr. Walker urges all students and professionals to follow one’s passions and never be afraid of taking on new challenges. She elaborates that commitment to their workplace and colleagues can usher you into roles you had not necessarily planned to take on. “When you work in Higher Education, it isn’t about you as an individual, but more about your students and colleagues; when you think about it like that, there is even more of an intrinsic value to the work that we do.”
Thank you Dr. Walker for your time as Acting Chair, and congratulations on all of your success! We look forward to continuing to follow your evaluation research.