Chair’s Message
Welcome to the second edition of our new ACM-W Connections! This month I want to mostly use my spot to address the two questions: who should join ACM-W and why? But before I do that, I have just a few quick announcements!
I’m very happy to announce that ArabWIC (Arab Women in Computing) is now affiliating with ACM-W, and their annual conference in May will be an ACM-W Celebration of Women in Computing.
In additional conference news, ACM-W is a sponsor of the first Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS, http://www.csc.tntech.edu/wicys/) conference, being held April 11-12. Interest is so high that the organizers have had to find more hotel rooms!
Who should join ACM-W and why?
What does someone have to do to join ACM-W? It’s really quite simple. When joining ACM or doing a membership renewal, there’s a box to check for ACM-W. Everyone who checks that box goes onto our ACM-W distribution list and gets counted as part of ACM-W.
So who should join, who should check that box on their ACM membership? In our view, everyone who cares about women in computing should join ACM-W. We welcome all ACM members, women and men, who are interested in helping us support, celebrate, and advocate for women in computing. We all have work to do in order to achieve a “level playing field”, so that the path into computing for girls and women is as smooth as (or at least no bumpier than) the path for boys and men.
Of course, someone might say “Gee, another women in computing organization? Don’t we have plenty of those?” ACM-W works closely with our sister organizations, but each serves a slightly different purpose and reaches a different audience. ACM-W has the distinction of being the only organization that is based on individual membership. Through student and professional chapters, small-scale celebrations of women in computing, student scholarships to attend research conferences, and the Athena Lecturer Award, we carry out our mission internationally. Through ACM-W Connections and social media we promote news about women in computing, doing our part to insure that women’s contributions to computing are recognized and publicized. We believe that, through this combination of efforts, through the support of our more than 20,000 ACM-W members, we are helping to create an environment in which women’s contributions to computing are recognized and women in the field can thrive. I hope you will keep active your membership in ACM-W and encourage your computing friends and colleagues to also “check the box” when they join ACM or renew their membership. We welcome your participation in our celebrations, your contributions of news about the accomplishments of women in computing, your role as mentor, program committee chair, and all opportunities you seize to support women in computing.
Finally, feel like a monthly newsletter isn’t enough? We can’t give you ACM-W news more often than that, but if you want more news about women in computing and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), Like our Facebook page for pointers to 5-7 new stories each week, gleaned from around the Web, https://www.facebook.com/women.acm.org. Thanks for your support.
– Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair