Remembering Tom Schwandt: My Mentor and Colleague

I met Tom in 2011 at the University of Illinois, when he was department chair, and I visited as an applicant, interested in evaluation but unsure of myself in a PhD program.I don't remember what was said, but I remember feeling seen, heard, and valued.When I first spoke with Tom about evaluation, it felt like finding words for something I'd sensed for years.As an undergraduate, I'd interned in nonprofits and studied how leaders experienced evaluation, seeing a stark divide: groups with simple missions tolerated outcome measures, while those tackling entrenched problems were frustrated by having to reduce their efforts to what could be counted.Everyone felt evaluation was something done to them, for funders, and I knew we had to do better.I was passionate-probably too passionate-and Tom once joked it would take a horse tranquilizer to slow me down, which I took as his way of saying, "Bring it on."As a graduate student, I took every course Tom taught and two independent studies with him.What stayed with me was not just the material but the way he treated our work as an invitation to dialogue.Papers came back covered in handwritten questions toward clearer thinking, the grade almost an afterthought.My first publication began as a paper on causality for his qualitative course.What started as intimidating quickly became something I welcomed-an ongoing conversation in which he met me as a thinker, not just a student.His teaching carried the same spirit.Students packed his classes.His syllabi invited us into big ideas across the social sciences, with writing as a way to think, debate, and learn.He lectured, then opened space for real discussion.He rarely assigned his own work and often ended class, urging us to read more, think it through, and return ready to continue.When someone asked how an idea applied in the "real world," he'd look around and ask where we thought we were if not already there.Throughout his career, Tom pushed against the field's false choice between value neutrality and advocacy, arguing instead for a third path, a value-critical stance grounded in reflexivity, practical wisdom, and situated judgment.His collaboration with Bob Stake extended this argument, distinguishing between quality-as-measured, grounded in external standards, and quality-as-experienced, rooted in lived practice.By 2012, Tom warned of a "quality turn" in which evaluation became managerial, rendering quality statistical, detached, and morally indifferent.This was around the time I grew interested in systems science.When I brought this to him over long conversations, he joined me fully.Rather than narrowing my questions, he gave me space and companionship to explore a whole new (to us) field.As a mentor, Tom could have steered me toward a familiar, feasible topic within his expertise.