When evaluators from around the world gather in Chicago in October for the 9^th International Conference of the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA), they will celebrate a longtime UW–Madison School of Education leader whose work has helped shape the field for decades.

CREA has announced the creation of the Dr. Hazel Symonette Award for Leadership in Reflexive Evaluation Practice, a new award recognizing individuals whose careers reflect Symonette’s commitment to culturally responsive evaluation, ethical engagement, self-reflection, mentorship, and relationship-centered leadership. CREA will introduce the award at its international conference, taking place Oct. 6–9, 2026, in Chicago.

The award honors Symonette’s enduring contributions to evaluation theory and practice, particularly her work challenging evaluators to examine not only the methods they use, but also their own roles, perspectives, and relationships within evaluation contexts. CREA describes her scholarship on concepts such as “self-as-instrument,” “self-in-context,” and ethical boundary crossing as influential in helping evaluators navigate complex cultural and organizational settings with humility and intentionality.

A Program Development & Assessment Specialist Emerita who remains an active researcher and facilitator with the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) Clinical Program and the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative (WEC), Symonette has spent her career advancing participant-centered approaches to assessment and evaluation. Her work has focused on using evaluation as a resource for continuous improvement, organizational learning, equity-enabling transformation and social justice.

At UW–Madison, she helped create and cultivate communities of practice dedicated to diversity, equity, inclusive excellence, and student success through initiatives such as the Leadership Institute, the weekly Excellence Through Diversity Institute and the Student Success Institute. Beyond her formal leadership roles, Symonette’s career has been shaped by a commitment to making evaluation relevant and more accessible and using it as a tool for teaching, learning, equity, and social change.

“I am feeling profoundly blessed and joyful to witness my work be more broadly recognized after so many years of ‘coloring outside conventional canon lines,’” said Symonette. “My life’s work has involved boundary-spanning capacity-building that supports all of us in the lifelong journey of engaging evaluative thinking, doing, and being as life skills and natural resources for a socially just world. With heartfelt thanksgiving, I embrace this award as a powerfully affirming and encouraging generative harvest that will recognize committed ‘activist evaluators and evaluations’ while also encouraging others to actively engage reflective, relational, and culturally/contextually responsive and responsible praxes for the greater good, in spite of whatever.”

Symonette’s approach has also shaped the work of colleagues across WCER and the School of Education, including efforts to make evaluation a collaborative process that supports learning and improvement rather than simply measuring outcomes.

“[Symonette] has helped us understand evaluation as something we do with people, not to them,” said Annalee Good, co-director of WEC and co-director of the WCER Clinical Program. “She brings an extraordinary combination of rigor, humanity, and curiosity to this work, always asking us to reflect on who is at the table, whose voices we are hearing and how evaluation can contribute to meaningful change. That way of thinking is deeply embedded in our work today, and it is part of Hazel’s lasting influence on all of us who have had the opportunity to learn from her.”

The new award is one of two major recognitions CREA is introducing this year and reflects the organization’s view of Symonette’s lasting impact on culturally responsive evaluation. According to the award description, recipients will be recognized for advancing reflective and ethical evaluation practice, bridging cultures and communities, fostering authentic relationships, mentoring future evaluators, and making lasting contributions to the profession.

“[Symonette’s] work has challenged generations of evaluators to think more deeply about who they are in relation to the communities they serve,” said WCER Interim Director Mariana Castro. “Her commitment to equity, reflection, relationship-building, and learning has had a profound impact on WCER and on the field of evaluation. We are thrilled to see her legacy recognized through an award that will inspire future leaders for years to come.”

The conference recognition is not the only effort underway to celebrate Symonette’s contributions. A forthcoming video series highlighting her work and influence is currently in development, with plans for a community viewing event at the conference.

For colleagues, former students, and collaborators, the new award represents more than a professional honor. It reflects a career dedicated to facilitating and supporting individuals and organizations in lifelong learning and development, and to creating and sustaining more authentically inclusive environments through culturally responsive capacity-development and evaluation practices.

As CREA prepares to present the inaugural award in her name, Symonette’s influence continues to be felt across the field she helped shape, and through the many evaluators, educators, and leaders who carry forward the principles that have defined her life’s work.