Each year the Canadian Evaluation Society [1] (CES) holds a national competition for students of evaluation called the “National Student Evaluation Case Competition”. It happens in two rounds and the first round was held on February 6, 2016.  In round one, 24 teams from Universities from across Canada received an evaluation problem and wrote a response to the problem. The 24 responses were reviewed by a team of judges and the top three were selected.  These three teams then proceed to the CES Annual Conference where another problem is tackled and the top team selected.

This year there were 24 teams in the first round of competition and the top three were Memorial University (St. John’s), University of Saskatchewan, and University of Guelph (SEDRD). These three teams are being invited, at the expense of CES, to the national conference in St. John’s, Newfoundland on June 5-8, 2016.  The conference provides a forum for the discussion of major theoretical, philosophical and practical issues in evaluation.

The University of Guelph, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development - Rural Planning and Development graduate program evaluation class have been involved in this competition for many years and have won on three previous occasions.

This year the University of Guelph team moving on to the finals is called “Hivemind Solutions” and includes:  Amanda Herbert, Brianne Labutte, Meaghan Luis, Luke Maloney, Josephine Bamanya and coach, Prof. Harry Cummings.