Berkeley Sociology mourns the loss of Michael Burawoy, a world-renowned sociologist and professor emeritus who died February 3. Professor Burawoy is famous for his contributions to theory, methods, analyses of labor processes in industrial worksites, and analyses of the university as a workplace..
As ASA President, Burawoy developed and advanced his call for “public sociology” a call that energized more diverse and younger generations of sociologists to practice sociology through proactive engagement with concerns and questions that emanate from communities beyond academia. As ISA President, Burawoy built infrastructure for sustained scholarly exchange between scholars of the “global south” and the “global north.”
Burawoy’s teaching and mentoring were legendary, as were his commitments to the improvement of pedagogy and sustaining accessible, high-quality public education. Read more about Professor Burawoy’s life and legacy as well as the memories and tribes from his students and colleagues..
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Departmental Colloquium Series
Nicole P. Marwell , "Mismeasuring Impact: How Randomized Controlled Trials Threaten the Nonprofit Sector"
Monday April 21st, 2025 at 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Blumer Room - 402 Social Sciences Building and via zoom
Abstract:
Most leaders in today’s nonprofit sector can tell you why nonprofits should do a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of their programs. In this talk, Nicole Marwell presents findings from her forthcoming co-authored book that explains why they probably shouldn’t. RCTs have been widely embraced as the “gold standard” for nonprofit evaluation, but there are serious problems with using RCTs in the nonprofit context. Interviews with key players involved in implementing RCTs in nonprofit organizations—nonprofit managers, professional program evaluators, and program officers in philanthropic foundations—demonstrate that the RCT method is fundamentally mismatched with the organizational needs and goals of nonprofits. RCTs are useful primarily to convey legitimacy on nonprofits, not to foster improvement in these organizations’ ability to meet their community-engaged missions and better serve their constituents. RCTs also privilege rigid program standardization over the key strengths of nonprofit organizations: flexible innovation and responsiveness to community needs. While RCTs may be a useful evaluation tool for nonprofits in very limited circumstances, most nonprofits would benefit far more from a different orientation to evaluation.