The SFU team, formed from mutual interest in evaluation as a professional skill, placed first out of 14 during . To prepare, they met several times to develop templates for evaluation and did a practice run before the qualifying heats. They also had additional guidance from their coach Dr. Beth Snow, the Head of Program Evaluation at the . Snow, who teaches evaluation methodology at several B.C. universities, helped them prepare for the competition.
Evaluation is 鈥渢he systematic assessment of the design, implementation or results of an initiative for the purposes of learning or decision-making.鈥� (source: ). Chen first learned about the discipline during an evaluation internship with Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada. He spent his summer co-op working on the evaluation of health and environment management programs in collaboration with advisory committees and indigenous communities. With his curiosity sparked, Chen started networking once back at SFU to find other opportunities in the evaluation field. This is where he first heard about the case competition. After reaching out to senior evaluators teaching courses in BC he connected with his SFU team mates in the Master of Public Health program.
Describing how the competition operates, Chen notes that teams work quickly and in isolation. They use only the tools and templates developed during preparation and have no prior knowledge of the case being presented.
鈥淚t was fast-past, engaging and dynamic," he says. "Once we open the case, we only have five hours to finish it."
鈥淲e felt very pressed for time. I think every team felt the same way as well. It's a lot of work and thinking to be done in just five hours.鈥�
Chen, who entered the SFU Philosophy MA program in fall 2016, values his philosophy training. He believes that it helps cultivate big picture thinking, which he considers important for evaluation or any sort of complex problem-solving.
鈥淚 think I developed this skill from writing philosophy papers where I have to design the whole project and consider how a specific point plays a role in the overall argument.鈥�
Bio: Damien Chen entered the MA program in fall 2016 after completing a Bachelor of Law degree at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law. Supervised by department chair, Dr. Evan Tiffany, Chen successfully defended his professional paper: 鈥�Cultural Diversity and the Demands of Non-Domination: An Internal Challenge to Phillip Pettit's Neo-Roman Republicanism鈥� in April 2019.
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