EC Meeting, July 22, 2024

The SIGCHI Executive Committee held its second meeting of the term to continue discussing goals for the rest of the calendar year. Meeting notes are below:

• 11 of 15 EC members are in attendance.

• We start with quick announcements from Neha. There will be a conferences town hall in October, with details to be figured out. New EC members should feel free to reach out to people who were on the last EC or in working groups to get oriented. We discuss a terms of engagement document for us to use internally to set shared expectations. 

• Neha leads a discussion on EC presence at CHI 25. Making these decisions early can be more cost effective and minimize overhead. There could be different events: chapters/regions breakfast, conferences meet-up. GCs are determining what space they can provide. Awards also need to be coordinated early to minimize stress. EC members should see the document laying out potential events/plans before it is shared with CHI 25 organizers.  

• Neha goes over EC Time, which is meant to be a hold on calendars which we can use when needed for discussion, questions, etc. It’s not mandatory. 

• Other things this week are that Neha and Pejman are meeting with the Ethics committee to determine how they want to move forward. On Wednesday, there’s a mentorship discussion session with Pejman and Ignacio. On Friday, there’s an awards talk by Gregory Abowd. 

• Open calls for VP and AC positions will be out soon. EC members and anyone is encouraged to make suggestions, nominate people, have people nominate themselves. 

• We then transition to going over each EC member’s charge for the next six months. 

  • Accessibility: Dragan will be meeting with key actors, including AccessSIGCHI and CHI 25 accessibility chairs. He will also work with the SIGCHI accessibility committee to figure out how to distribute the work of supporting all conferences with accessibility guidance. He is thinking about how to ensure PCS accessibility, which needs to go beyond basic guidelines. He is also planning on working with ACM to provide guidance across all SIG, but right now prioritizing accessible EC and SIGCHI practices. Neha suggests EC members join the accessibility Slack channel if needed. 

  • Awards: Neha shares that Niklas has been working on recruiting for the 2025 committee. There are three deadlines in a year when SIGs can propose new awards, and we can consider these. We are also considering if we want to make any changes to the amount of award honoraria. Award cycle for 2025 will begin in Nov/Dec. 

  • Membership: Adriana shares that she is meeting with the past VP Membership to discuss. Also meeting with VP Chapters to discuss membership value. Additionally, she’s trying to determine what to do with the Volunteer Articulation handbook and how to better support volunteer sign-up. 

  • Communications: Naveena shares that she is working on a strategy which covers daily operations and public-facing EC communications. It will have info on daily EC operations. It’ll also include public-facing comms issues, answering how we can be open, transparent, understandable in all we put out and how we can make sure info is accessible. She’ll be working on ideas for a bulletin/newsletter; many SIGs have one on the ACM DL. She will develop new workflows for website update and publicity requests and work with our web developer on long-term changes. 

  • Chapters: Jeni notes that she wants to work towards more synergy between regions/chapters. Also wants to ensure SDF is meeting chapters’ needs, especially with limited resources. Neha notes that we used to have small grants for chapters, especially with virtual/hybrid events, and we can consider that again. 

  • Global participation and practitioners: Susan has been thinking about how to continue global community-building, including with areas where we don’t have a regional committee, e.g., Africa. Regarding supporting practitioners, next steps are still being conceptualized. She is also interested in determining synergies between regions and chapters. 

  • Conferences: Ignacio says the team is figuring out budget approvals, talking to conferences leaders, keeping websites/lists up to date. Neha notes that within the team, Jerry focuses on the long view, Ignacio works on the day-to-day view. Sometimes they intersect, e.g., if a conference has lost a bunch of money and is sending a TMRF. We also discuss new conferences and how to ensure that communications and procedures are clear and timely. 

  • Publications and mentorship: Pejman shares that he has categorized pubs issues as immediate, medium-term, and meant for the next VP Pubs. He highlights that we need to create a new process for recommending SIGCHI papers to the CACM. He highlights the upcoming mentorship discussion to help figure out a framework for SIGCHI-wide mentorship. 

  • Finance: Hao-Chuan shares that a priority will be thinking about how to coordinate conference finances. There are 27 budgets within the SIGCHI budget (including the EC and 26 conferences). EC can absorb losses so he has been trying to figure out what costs can be minimized. He also will be providing periodic updates on budget and spending to EC. To help plan for the next fiscal year, we are also considering a model where EC members who need a budget could make proposals for it.