Henry, Gary T.

(b. 1953, Clark County, Kentucky). Ph.D. Urban Social Institutions, University of Wisconsin, Knapp Dissertation Fellow; M.A. Political Science, B.A. Political Science and Latin American Studies, University of Kentucky.

Henry is Professor in the Departments of Public Administration and Urban Studies, Political Science, and Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University. During his time at Georgia State, he has also been Director of the Applied Research Center. Previously he held faculty positions at Virginia Commonwealth University, and he was also a visiting faculty member at the University of Liege, Belgium, and Huang He University, People's Republic of China. Henry was Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction for Policy, Assessment, Evaluation, Research, and Information Systems, Department of Education, Commonwealth of Virginia, and Deputy Secretary of Education, Commonwealth of Virginia.

His primary contributions to the field of evaluation have been generated by his interest in evaluation methods, evaluating state and federal programs, and understanding evaluation's influence in democratic societies. Often the evaluations he conducted have attempted to inform and influence policy as well as improve programs. Henry has evaluated preschool programs, public information campaigns, and merit-based [Page 183]financial aid programs and has developed performance indicators for schools. His evaluation practice has allowed him to stay involved in the day-to-day details of collecting and analyzing evaluation data, working with stakeholders and the policy community, and disseminating findings about policies and programs to parents, program staff, policy makers, and the public.

Three people he reported to in the formative stages of his career have been the primary influences on his work: Gordon Garner, Ray Pethtel, and Don Finley, who emphasized the social mission of public service and evaluation, the need to be accurate and concise in providing information, and the importance of looking at alternative interpretations of the data and who might push them in the policy process.

Henry is the author of numerous book chapters, journal articles, and evaluation reports, as well as the author or coauthor of several books:Evaluation: An Integrated Framework for Understanding, Guiding, and Improving Policies and Programs (with Melvin Mark and George Julnes); Graphing Data: Techniques for Display and Analysis; and Practical Sampling. He was also a coeditor (with George Julnes and Melvin Mark) of Realist Evaluation: An Emerging Theory in Support of Practice and the editor of Creating Effective Graphs: Solutions for a Variety of Evaluation Data. He was Coeditor with Jennifer C. Greene of New Directions for Evaluation (1996–2003) and is on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Evaluation.

Henry is the recipient of the 1998 Outstanding Evaluation of the Year Award from the American Evaluation Association and the 2000 Joseph Wholey Award for Outstanding Scholarship on Accountability from the American Society for Public Administration and the Center for Accountability and Performance.