In 2025, many minority-serving higher education institutions (MSIs) found themselves navigating canceled federal grants and making rapid, consequential decisions—sometimes within weeks—about whether to scale back, pause, redesign, or absorb activities originally planned as grant-funded. Looking across these experiences, several operational lessons stand out.

Working across a wide range of clients and evaluation types offers a unique advantage—the opportunity to apply lessons learned in one context to another. Over time, certain principles and practices consistently emerge as key to meaningful, effective evaluation: 1. Engage Stakeholders Early—Especially Those Involved in Implementation and Data Collection; 2. Be Strategic and Selective with Data Collection; and 3. Prioritize Ongoing Communication Throughout the Project.

Key considerations for evaluating Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs include capturing the full range of program impacts and accounting for attrition in the evaluation design.

This blog post explores four strategies for training STEM faculty to be effective mentors.