In October 2020, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article called “The Staff are not OK” (see article) highlighting the health and well-being of the staff members whose work has helped move campuses through the pandemic. This session took a step beyond that and focused on issues that plagued staff pre-pandemic. Over 100 people logged in for this dual panel presentation about two different issues facing staff in higher education IT.
This year it was a BYOD Poster Session – Bring Your Own Desserts. Going virtual did not stop us from mingling over posters and having mini-presentations, but we did miss the great assortment of desserts we usually have!
Small chocolate and vanilla layered cakes in rows on candy buffet. Sweet paradise.
Our virtual poster session allowed attendees to visit breakout rooms on their own and meet with the various presenters.
This year we have two exhibitors – Okta (View Website) and Software2 (View Website) available to chat with to learn more about their products.
Over 100 people gathered on Zoom for the kickoff keynote session of SIGUCCS 2021. We were honored to have two distinguished guest speakers join us to share their work.
As part of our sponsorship with ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), SIGUCCS is responsible for contributing to scholarship in the computing sector. We are just one of a number of special interest groups associated with ACM (https://www.acm.org/special-interest-groups).
As we approach the start of the 2021 Annual Conference, presenters have prepared papers and abstracts to be included in the Digital Library under the anticipated title “Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGUCCS Annual Conference”. We will share this link with the community when it is published!
The ACM Digital Library (DL) (https://www.acm.org/publications/digital-library) is the world’s most comprehensive database of full-text articles and bibliographic literature covering computing and information technology. The DL is designed to facilitate information dissemination and sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration for computing professionals, practitioners, researchers, and educators. ACM also sponsors a number of publications (https://www.acm.org/publications/about-publications) and expects its membership to contribute.
Your SIGUCCS membership entitles you to access all SIGUCCS-submitted content! An ACM membership allows you access to all content submitted by other SIGs as well. Join SIGUCCS today.
If you have attended a SIGUCCS Annual Conference in person, chances are you have been “shot” by one of our talented photographers. These collections are a great way to capture our events – and revisit them each week in Throwback Thursday in our Facebook Group.
Yosemite. Half Dome Reflection by Allan Chen – February 2021
All of our photographers are volunteer, and many of them share their talents online on Facebook or Instagram. Here are some of my favorites. (If I missed your feed, let me know and I will update this article!
Parrish Nnambi (@sule2you) Parrish’s Instagram feed is a beautiful collection of wildlife and landscapes. I love the birds!
Allen Chen (@romosoho) Allan truly captures nature’s beauty, and has travelled to some fantastic locations. As a bonus, you may catch a glimpse of his beautiful family!
Kelly Wainwright (@kswainwright) lives in one of the most beautiful area of our country. She also frequently shares family pictures and cats.
Melissa Bauer (@mbauer1002) At SIGUCCS conferences, Melissa and I can frequently be found taking pictures of desserts. She is also a talented photographer of flowers.
Ella Tschopik (@ellatschopik) Ella finds beauty with her iPhone 12 Pro Max. Fortunately for us, she frequently turns the camera on herself and her daughters.
If you’re on Facebook, make sure you are friends with Terris Wolff. I always look forward to “No Tie Tuesday” (his retired version of the Bow Tie event) as he shares locations and history near his home in California.
I am grateful that so many of my SIGUCCS colleagues are also my social media friends, and I appreciate being able to glimpse their lives through photography! Thanks to all SIGUCCS photographers for sharing your talent at our conferences!
As we move into the second half of our first year as a new board, we are excited to share the following updates.
2021Conference
Preconference seminars have been announced and a full schedule for our conference seminar series will be published soon. The program will consist of both presentations and social activities spread out over 6 weeks. I hope you will plan to join us for some or all of these great events. Check out the conference information here.
Hangouts
Scenes from one of Lisa’s many fall & winter walks in Rochester, NY
Since September we have initiated a hangout in Zoom every month. For one hour SIGUCCS friends gather, just to gather. We have had conversations about the current remote work situation, how classes are going, funny and scary support stories… whatever people want to discuss. We plan to continue this over the coming year in order to remain connected. We invite you to join us. The next hangout is themed “New Beginnings” and will be held on January 21 at 3pm Eastern – Mark your calendar now and register here to get the Zoom link.
Awards
On behalf of the Awards Committee, the Executive Committee is proud to announce the new inductees into the SIGUCCS Hall of Fame. Please join me in congratulating the following: Mathew Felthousen, Chester Andrews, Dan Herrick, Rebekah Lineberry, and Chris King. Read more about these extraordinary SIGUCCS members.
We would also like to congratulate all of the winners of the Communication Awards. It is always exciting to see how other universities are sharing information with their constituents. The winning entries are recognized on our website. Additionally, there were 48 submissions from 18 different institutions this year and we would like to thank everyone that submitted! We hope that the feedback that you received was helpful for your future work.