This article is part of a series introducing the SIGUCS 2020 Conference Committee. Each Committee member submitted answers to questions created by the SIGUCCS Marketing Committee.

Scott Trimmer, Learning Commons Director at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland OH, is the SIGUCCS 2020 Conference Chair.

How many SIGUCCS conferences have you attended?
7

Which previous SIGUCCS conference was your favorite, and why?
Memphis, Peabody Ducks. First Conference Committee I served on.

How did you get involved as a volunteer in SIGUCCS?
Carol Rhodes mentioned at the 2011 conference they needed a volunteer to help with Vendors for the 2012 conference.

What’s an accomplishment that you are especially proud of (personal or work-related)?
Get back to me in mid-November, 2020. 🙂

You can always stop and talk to me about …
Personal Finance.

For fun, I like to …
Fish in my backyard.

SIGUCCS 2020 San Diego… what kind of hot sauce do you put on your tacos?
Maple wood Smoked Onion from Butterfly Bakery of Vermont (featured on Season 7 of Hot Ones)

I have been playing around with the “Shortcuts” app on my iPhone, and one of the first shortcuts I created was a countdown to SIGUCCS 2019. Would you like to know how many days until we gather in New Orleans? (hint: we are under 100) https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/db1a52f0f6f54a419e2df3a70057623c

In other fun techie SIGUCCS things, Beth Lynn Nolen recently created images that we can use as our Apple Watch face! They are included in this article, and I also took a screen shot of my 38mm series 3 watch sporting SIGUCCS pride. Here are the quick directions of how to change your own watch face:

1. Pick one of the images below (or both!) and save it to your iOS Photos app.
2. From the Photos app, navigate to your new SIGUCCS photo.
3. Tap the Share button (lower left corner).
4. From the share options on the bottom row, find Create Watch Face.
5. Tap Photos Watch Face.
6. Set the settings and complications and then tap Add to send the new Watch Face to your Apple Watch.

The SIGUCCS Executive Committee has been looking forward to our 2020 conference – our location is selected and the core conference committee is being formed. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements and perhaps a sneak peek of the venue as the committee makes their site visit!

Consider joining the Book Club in August to read 2019 Keynote speaker Audrey Watters’ book “The Monsters of Educational Technology”. The Book Club also hopes to get together in person at the conference to discuss our October Book “Crucial Conversations”.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions or suggestions – or would like to volunteer your talents and experience with us for SIGUCCS!

~ Laurie Fox

Laurie Fox and Dan Herrick recently travelled to Chicago to attend an ACM SIG Governing Board (SGB) meeting focused on planning and sponsoring a single annual conference. SGB leadership invited a group of SIG and conference leaders to discuss issues related to smaller conferences like ours.

The meeting agenda included:

• ACM Publications Board presentation
• Disability Inclusion Discussion
• SIG / Conference Interactions and Associations
• Best Practice Sharing
  • SIG Programs
  • Conference Practices

We always enjoy sharing the best practices of SIGUCCS and the SIGUCCS Conference. Here are the items we shared with other SIG leaders:

• SIGUCCS Programs
  • Professional Development (Mentoring Program, Webinars, Subsidized Pre-Conference Seminars)
  • Community Engagement (Marketing, Travel Grants, Book Club, Listserv/Slack/Social Media)
  • Community Recognition (Communication Awards)
• SIGUCCS Conference Practices
  • Lightning Talks as a presentation format
  • Conference planning procedures & documentation
  • Generating post-conference webinars with popular conference presentations

The meeting attendees were most impressed with our webinar series and our marketing / community engagement efforts. Our biggest takeaways are ideas to improve our disability inclusion efforts at future conferences. We were fortunate to spend time learning from other leaders (and with each other)!