CREA: Leadership, Legacy & Looking Forward

Tamara Bertrand Jones can pinpoint exactly what—or whom—inspired her doctoral work two decades ago in evaluation and assessment. It’s also what now motivates her as the new director of the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment.

“One of my first pivotal exposures to the lack of representation, the lack of Black theorists appearing in our ‘evaluation canon’ of experts who pioneered assessment frameworks, was a piece by Stafford Hood called Nobody Knows My Name,” says Bertrand Jones. “His work was the first time that I had read about historical Black impact on the field of evaluation, and I said, ‘Yes! This is what I want to learn about! This is what I want to contribute to during my career.’”

Bertrand Jones, who is also associate dean for faculty affairs in the College of Education, was appointed CREA Director in August 2025.

But back in 2002—when terminology like “cultural competency” and “multicultural validity” were still widely used—Bertrand Jones attended her first American Evaluation Association conference as a doctoral student. And there, she met Stafford Hood in person.

“He was immediately welcoming and set out introducing me to his network of colleagues doing culturally responsive work,” says Bertrand Jones. “I had been reading Stafford’s work and other work and was excited to meet him. Several years later, he invited me to be part of the first group of affiliates involved with CREA.”

Leadership and Legacy Firmly in Place

The Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment is an interdisciplinary, international community dedicated to advancing research, evaluation, and assessment that foregrounds culture and context. CREA brings together scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to build capacity in designing, implementing, and evaluating social and educational interventions and programs.

Bertrand Jones takes on leadership of CREA from Denice Ward Hood, teaching professor emerita in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership. Hood, a distinguished scholar in her own right and part of Stafford’s culturally responsive evaluation work since their time at Arizona State University (ASU), stepped up and led CREA after her husband’s unexpected death in 2023.

The culmination of his lifelong work, after returning to the Illinois faculty from ASU, Stafford established CREA as a College center in 2011. In 2023, CREA was designated a permanent Center of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Denice Hood says it remains the ideal place for CREA to call home.

“Some of the greatest contributions to the field of assessment and evaluation have emerged from the College of Education at Illinois,” says Hood. “CREA is unique in that its history is embedded in the College, a national leader in the academic area of evaluation and assessment. I believe it’s critical that the Center stay connected to faculty who are continuing to grow the scholarship of theory and evaluation.”

For her part, Bertrand Jones never anticipated coming to Illinois but is honored with the opportunity to lead.

“When I became faculty at Florida State University, I continued my involvement with CREA as an affiliate,” she says. “It has shaped my approach to being director, given my knowledge of the Center’s history, of what Stafford intended CREA to be, and what CREA has come to mean to its community.

“Being named director is very meaningful for me because of that legacy that I've been a part of, but also, get to be a part of shaping and continuing for Stafford,” says Bertrand Jones.

More Than a Conference

“Everybody knows that CREA does the conference, so people go ‘oh CREA, it's a conference!’ Yes. And much more than a conference,” says Bertrand Jones.

Hood describes the conference as “just big enough to have a wide perspective of views and a vibrant intellectual community, but small enough for people to get to know each other and bond.”  She calls it a safe place for scholars and practitioners to get constructive feedback, be mentored and nurtured. “It gives people the energy to do the work,” she says.

Work that’s become increasingly difficult, says Bertrand Jones.

“Obviously, this work has “culturally responsive” in its name—words that are currently on the banned terms list,” she says. “One of the things I want us to talk about this year is what does this mean for us? How does this shape our approach to CREA's existence? We are a core part of the evaluation profession. But there are very real restrictions people who practice culturally responsive evaluation are facing right now.”

Over the next year, CREA will be leading conversations about these issues with program evaluators around the world.

“We want to know the perspectives from evaluators in the field. What are some of their suggestions about how they are navigating, and how CREA can support their efforts?” explains Bertrand Jones. “We want to find out how folks are feeling, what they need, and how we can continue to do this work.”