SIGUCCS Hosts Hangout: Past, Present, and Future

While gathering in person wasn’t in the cards this year, having a virtual conference came with its unexpected benefits – allowing members past and present from all over the world to connect. 

After Zooming with fellow SIGUCCS emeritus members, Jennifer Fajman and Jane Caviness, Leila Lyons thought it would be nice to have a virtual get-together that included other SIGUCCS members. Leila, Jennifer, and Jane have a long volunteer history with SIGUCCS, including being past executive board chairs and Penny Crane award recipients. 

SIGUCCS members in Zoom hangout

Because SIGUCCS had been hosting hangouts periodically since September, Lisa Brown (current executive committee chair) set that plan in action as part of the 2021 conference, and Christine Vucinich (past board and HOF) helped promote the “past” session to former members. The hangout was also promoted through the conference marketing.

The “past” hangout event attracted emeritus members, SIGUCCS attendees who had moved out of higher education, and many who didn’t have travel funds from their campus to attend in recent past years.  Attendees included some of our newest Hall of Fame recipients, Kelly Wainwright (our most recent Penny Crane winner), Irene Frawley (our ACM program manager for the past 20 yrs), and Alex Nagorski (past board and HOF from the great white north)! Also, a bunch of current members popped in to say hi. There was no formal agenda – attendees used the time to catch up, share some of their favorite SIGUCCS memories, and walk down memory lane while looking through photos on the SIGUCCS Shutterfly site (link here: https://siguccs.shutterfly.com/).

At the same time, the ”future” hangout session included members talking about the future of the conference and the “present” hangout included members sharing thoughts about the current pandemic situation, and how their institutions might be returning to campus.

Contribution by Christine Vucinich

About SIGUCCS Editor

The Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS) is an association of professionals who support and manage the diverse aspects of information technology services at higher education institutions. SIGUCCS is one of 36 special interest groups of ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world's largest educational and scientific computing society. SIGUCCS focuses on issues surrounding the support, delivery, and management of those services, and provides professional development opportunities for its members and the other individuals in the field.