The SIGCSE Liberal Arts Committee special session proposal was just accepted for SIGCSE 2018! For anyone interested, here is the notification email -- mainly interesting, I suspect, for the reviews at the end, which certainly suggest some ideas for how we run the session, and maybe for what we say in our final report. Hope to see many of you at the session, or at least at SIGCSE, and thanks to those who helped write this proposal (I'll lean on some of you again to help run it).

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: SIGCSE 2018 <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 1:14 PM
Subject: SIGCSE 2018 notification for special session 619
To: Doug Baldwin <[log in to unmask]>


Dear Doug:

Congratulations! We are delighted to inform you that your Special Session submission:

Submission # 619
Title: Draft Report of the SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in the Liberal Arts

has been accepted for inclusion in the SIGCSE 2018 program.

Each submission was carefully reviewed by members of the Program Committee (PC) and reviews were provided to the Special Session track chair. The track chair then provided a recommendation to the Program Co-Chairs. Our final decisions were made at a PC meeting this past weekend. We took into consideration reviewer scores, track chair recommendations, as well as available program space, balance of topic across the program (papers, workshops, panels, special sessions, etc), relevance to the conference theme, novelty, and timeliness.


REGISTRATION
============
In order for your Special Session to be offered at the conference, at least one presenter must register for the conference (deadline for registration TBA). Please let us know immediately if you or your co-authors are unable to present your submission at the conference so we can withdraw it.

CAMERA-READY: Sunday November 26th
==================================
Please carefully consider the reviews when preparing your final CAMERA-READY submission. You must upload your CAMERA-READY submission through EasyChair.org AND also submit it to Sheridan in order for it to be included in the conference proceedings.


1. This link contains preparation instructions for your camera ready copy. NOTE: THIS LINK might not be active yet, but will be available soon. http://www.sheridanprinting.com/typedept/sigcse2018.htm

2. Submission deadline for PDF Camera Ready: November 26th, 2017

3. Expect two emails:
a) One from ACM RightsReview for the ACM eform to be completed
b) One from Sheridan Communications with their submission id# with a link to submit your camera ready PDF.

Thank you for your excellent work. We are looking forward to a great conference this year.  See you in Baltimore, Maryland from February 21st-24th. The draft SIGCSE 2018 program will be posted on the conference website soon.

Best regards,

Elizabeth K. Hawthorne (Union County College)
Manuel Pérez-Quiñones (UNC Charlotte)
Program Chairs for SIGCSE 2018
[log in to unmask]


----------------------- REVIEW 1 ---------------------
PAPER: 619
TITLE: Draft Report of the SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in the Liberal Arts
AUTHORS: Doug Baldwin

Interest: 4 (Strong interest)
Overall Recommendation: 4 (I strongly support acceptance)

----------- Summary -----------
A session that focuses on computing programs in liberal arts institutions. The audience is CS college educators in liberal arts institutions. The main point is that CS has particular challenges at liberal arts institutions.

----------- Strengths and Weaknesses -----------
Strength: computing is become increasinly important in today's world. It can be argued that computational thinking is an essential "liberal art" in the 21st century.

I see no particularly weaknesses.

The authors of the proposal present strong evidence that there is high interest in this topic.

----------- Overall Recommendation -----------
The committee has put a lot of good work into this, and are dealing with some important topics. This is an excellent chance for them to dialog with the CS education community as a whole.


----------------------- REVIEW 2 ---------------------
PAPER: 619
TITLE: Draft Report of the SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in the Liberal Arts
AUTHORS: Doug Baldwin

Interest: 2 (Limited interest)
Overall Recommendation: 3 (I support acceptance)

----------- Summary -----------
This session proposes to be an informational session for CS educators. Findings from the SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in the liberal arts will be presented and discussed. The session is targeted for the entire SIGCSE community. It intends to raise awareness on the committees findings and recommendations. In particular, the session will look at how despite the fuzzy boundaries of "liberal arts computing education", it is still distinct. The outcome of the session will be a feedback report from liberal and non-liberal arts stakeholders.

----------- Strengths and Weaknesses -----------
The session is relatively well organized but appears to be too open ended. Would be nice to see more details on the agenda of the session broken down more. For instance, what is the nature of questions that will be asked; how will the session be made more engaging? It appears to be written from the perspective of a "committee" member, but the author has not stated his role in the committee explicitly. This session seems to hold more interest to the liberal arts community than the entire SIGCSE population.

----------- Overall Recommendation -----------
It would be nice to hear the findings of an official committee of SIGCSE. Also to be aware of the concerns of the liberal arts community and their struggles to find more widespread recognition.


----------------------- REVIEW 3 ---------------------
PAPER: 619
TITLE: Draft Report of the SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in the Liberal Arts
AUTHORS: Doug Baldwin

Interest: 4 (Strong interest)
Overall Recommendation: 4 (I strongly support acceptance)

----------- Summary -----------
This proposal describes using the special session to present the results of committee looking into the special needs/interests of CS ed in the realm of a liberal arts education. The main audience will be educators/administrator at institutions that focus primarily on a liberal arts education.

----------- Strengths and Weaknesses -----------
As CS education becomes more wide spread, and people from all fields of work/thought need some basic understanding of computing, this topic is becoming more & more important. No longer is CS ed just for the engineer/scientist/mathematician, but everyone needs some basic understanding. This session would present the current results of a committee, and then engage the audience to take it even further.

----------- Overall Recommendation -----------
This is an excellent proposal and is a perfect fit for a special session, as not only do they want to present their findings to date but they want to get feedback from the audience.

The proposal said that similar sessions at SIGCSE'16 and SIGCSE'17 were filled to room capacity. If that is true, then I would expect the same at SIGCSE'18. [Can someone on the program committee check attendance records at those similar sessions at prior SIGCSE's?]


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