Abstract
Back in 2009 I received a (paper) letter in my then-work at the ASU School of Public Affairs mailbox (…paper!) from Thomas A. Schwandt. He had written to invite me to be an Associate Editor for the American Evaluation Association's American Journal of Evaluation (AJE). Tom was the fifth Editor-in-Chief of AJE, serving between 2010 and 2013. It was not so long ago that we did not have email, so I found the letter curious. I did not even know him. Did he mean to invite me? I followed up by phone to sort it out. It turns out that he did, indeed, intend to invite me. He explained that the journal's reviewer records showed that I had conducted timely and relevant reviews—most importantly in an area of inquiry that was not his expertise—making me potentially valuable on his team. Both nervous and excited, I agreed to take on the role. I appreciate that Tom referred to “when people actually wrote letters to each other” in this issue’s Oral History (Mark et al., 2026, p. 174). I imagine, then, that I am not the only one that Tom surprised with a written letter.
At the same time that Tom operated with the formality of written letters, he was also highly personable and accessible. A generation my senior, he treated me as a partner and peer, a wonderful way for me to kick off my experience in AJE’s editorial leadership team. During that time, Tom was a generous mentor to me and a thoughtful leader of our journal. He took on the lion’s share of manuscript reviewing and ushering himself, delegating to me only those manuscripts that were in my wheelhouse, and he modeled how to provide feedback (sometimes intense). Doing so gave me the time to learn and develop my own voice and style as an editor. I am glad to have had chances to thank him for that over the years.
I like Tom’s view that “evaluation is right in front of us all the time” (Mark et al., 2026, p. 186). It is not just a theoretical endeavor or an academic practice but a way of viewing the world that everyone uses: “It goes on all the time” (p. 186). We use an evaluation paradigm to decide what restaurant to eat at or what car to buy, as well as to determine things like our direct reports’ professional development needs and the value of major public policies and nonprofits programs across the world. In my work with Tom, we evaluated the manuscripts that authors submitted to AJE in hopes to getting their work published. Tom embraced with care all those kinds of evaluation activities, large and small. Again, I am grateful that I got to thank Tom for what he did and modeled for me, for this opportunity to publicly express that gratitude here, and for the opportunity to participate in his legacy. I am hopeful that I can do justice to his legacy by taking what he did and modeled for me and passing it on.
