Hopson, Rodney

(b. 1965, Huntington Station, New York). Ph.D. Educational Evaluation, M.Ed. Educational Evaluation, M.A. Linguistics, B.A. English Literature, University of Virginia.

Hopson is Associate Professor of Foundations and Leadership and a member of the Center for Interpretive and Qualitative Research at Duquesne University.

His New Directions in Evaluation issue “How and Why Language Matters in Evaluation” has provided evaluators across disciplines with a comprehensive analysis of the relationship of language policies and politics to evaluation theory and practice. He has contributed to the practice of evaluation through his focus on developing appropriate evaluation strategies for oppressed and marginalized others, and he is committed to mentoring and encouraging evaluators of color. Hopson's work has been influenced by Dell Hymes and Carol Camp Leakey and, more specifically in evaluation, by Michael Q. Patton, Jennifer Greene, Robert Covert, and Stafford Hood.

He received a National Institute of Drug Abuse postdoctoral fellowship, which he spent at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1997 and 1998; the American Evaluation Association Marcia Guttentag Award for promising young evaluator in 2001; and a Fulbright scholarship to the Republic of Namibia in 2001. Hopson's research in Namibia followed an early period spent there as a missionary in [Page 188]South Africa through the Harvard Institute for International Development's WorldTeach program. He currently serves on the American Evaluation Association board of directors (2004–2006) and is Project Director for the AEA/Duquesne University Internship Program.