The Heller School Faculty and Staff

Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Center for Youth and Communities

melchior@brandeis.edu Heller 343 781-736-3775

Expertise

Evaluation of youth development and education programs; special focus on service-learning, informal education

Scholarship

  • “Going Beyond Robotics: Robotics Competitions as a Means of Promoting Positive Youth Development and Helping Young People Prepare for Work.” Paper presented at the 2006 Robotics Education Symposium, sponsored by the Technology Student Association and the National Science Foundation (January, 2006).
  • “The Growth of Service-Learning in America.” In The Generator, Journal for Service-Learning and Youth Leadership. v. 23, no. 2 (Fall, 2005).
  • “Practical Issues in the Conduct of Large-Scale, Multi-Site Research and Evaluation” with Lawrence Neil Bailis, in Shelley Billig and Alan Waterman, Studying Service-Learning: Innovations in Educational Research (Mahwah, NJ: Earlbaum Publishing, 2003)
  • “Connecting Service-Learning and CYD.” Guest editorial for special service-learning issue of CYD Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Fall 2002).
  • “Impact of Service-Learning on Civic Attitudes and Behaviors of Middle and High School Youth: Findings from Three National Evaluations, with Lawrence Neil Bailis; in Shelley Billig and Andrews Furco, Service-Learning: The Essence of the Pedagogy (Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, 2002)
  • “Costs and Benefits of Service-Learning,” The School Administrator Magazine (American Association of School Administrators), August 2000.
  • National Evaluation of Learn and Serve America, Summary Report. Prepared for the Corporation for National Service (July, 1999).
  • "Toward Quality Programs for At-Risk Youth," with Susan Curnan and Alan Zuckerman, in Garth and Stephen Mangum, Eds., Of Heart and Mind: Social Policy Essays in Honor of Sar Levitan. (Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 1996).
  • "Assessing Telecommunications Technology as a Tool for Urban Community Building," with Teresa E. Anderson, Journal of Urban Technology, 3, 1 (Fall, 1995).
  • "Performance Standards and Performance Management” in Dilemmas in Youth Employment Programming: Findings from the Youth Research and Technical Assistance Project. U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. Research and Evaluation Report Series 92-C. (1992).
Alan Melchior

Profile

Alan Melchior is the Deputy Director and a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Youth and Communities. He brings nearly twenty years of experience in managing a wide variety of policy, evaluation, and technical assistance and training initiatives in the fields of youth, education, and workforce development. Since 1992, much of his work has focused on the evaluation of service-learning and community service-related initiatives, including the national evaluations of the /Serve-America/ and /Learn and Serve America/ programs for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS); studies of the institutionalization of service-learning for the CNCS and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; and evaluations of national and regional service-learning programs, including the Earth Force and KIDS Consortium programs. In 2005, he was presented with a Founders Award by the Corporation for National and Community Service in recognition of his contributions to the field of service-learning.

Beyond service-learning, his work includes evaluations of a variety of youth, education, and community development initiative. Current projects include the evaluations of a series of national middle and high school after-school robotics programs and a national college access initiative. Other projects have included evaluations of school-to-career programs and comprehensive community partnerships; and research on the use of technology in community-based organizations.

Mr. Melchior is a regular presenter at national and regional service-learning conferences. Publications include articles (co-authored with Lawrence Bailis) on the impacts of service-learning programs on civic attitudes and on practical issues in conducting large-scale, multi-site research and evaluation. He was also the guest editor for the Fall 2002 issue of /CYD Journal/, which focused on service-learning.

Degrees

Brandeis University
B.A.

Awards and Honors

  • Learn and Serve America Founders Award (2005)