Margaret Mead’s Evaluation of the First Salzburg Seminar

Abstract

Over the years, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation has provided funding to the Salzburg Seminar. The Seminar is one of the world’s foremost international educational centers committed to global understanding through broadening the perspectives of tomorrow’s leaders. The first Seminar was held immediately after WWII and was evaluated by Margaret Mead. Mead is a major figure in the field of anthropology whose work as an evaluator has previously been unknown. Mead’s actual report is included in the appendix of this article. Of course, the report would be meaningless out of context. Therefore, we provide an extensive description of the evaluand (the first Seminar). Also included is a discussion of the methods used by Mead to conduct the evaluation. We believe that this article, and the accompanying evaluation report by Margaret Mead, will help us evaluators realize that the history of our profession is even richer than we might once have believed. Perhaps we can better appreciate some aspects of our field as we gain familiarity with some part-time, past evaluators such as Mead.