Recruiting a Chair for the Diversity Committee

Statement for Recruiting a Chair for the Diversity Committee:

ACM SIGGRAPH is recruiting for a Chair for the newly formed Diversity Committee.  This chair will join the ranks of the standing committee chairs who assist the Executive Committee in nurturing and supporting the community of computer graphics researchers and practitioners.   A listing of the current standing chairs and their roles can be found here: https://www.siggraph.org/about/acm-siggraph-committees

The Chair of the Diversity Committee will first form a Diversity Committee of five or more volunteers who are enthusiastic about creating and supporting a diverse community within SIGGRAPH.   The Committee should be comprised of racially, ethnically, and gender diverse researchers and practitioners from a broad range of careers and backgrounds. The committee will focus on activities in support of mentoring, inclusion, recruitment, retention, and professional development and training.

Activities of the committee may include:

• Lunches and other networking activities at both the main conferences and the specialized conferences
• Establishment of a year-round Mentoring Network with training for both mentors and mentees and a matchmaking process
• Assisting the volunteer organizers of SIGGRAPH by suggesting names of people qualified to serve as speakers for panels, members of program committees, and other roles that should represent the diverse community of SIGGRAPH.
• With EC financial support, administering travel grants and other mechanisms designed to support traditionally under-represented minorities in the field.
• Ensuring that conference events and the year-round activities of the organization are accessible 

This list of activities is not intended to be complete and we expect that the Diversity Chair and their committee will develop a much longer and more impactful set of activities over time.   We also recognize that no one individual can be expert in best practices in all of these forms of diversity and expect that the chair will rely heavily on their committee to supplement their own expertise.

Each fall, the Diversity Committee should establish measurable goals relating to SIGGRAPH’s diversity initiatives and evaluate the progress over the previous year in achieving the stated objectives.   A report of the activities and outcomes should be presented to the SIGGRAPH Executive Committee in the fall.

Note that there are a number of grass roots activities in this space already and we hope that the chair will be able to work with the current and past organizers of those activities to leverage and support their efforts.

For information and nominations please contact Nominations-chair@siggraph.org