SIGCHI Equity Talks #7: Future of SIGCHI
Stacy Branham, Assistant Professor, University of California Irvine
Neha Kumar, Associate Professor, Georgia Tech
Previous Equity Talk: Research and Practice
All Equity Talks (running March through August, 2021)
In the seventh of a series of roundtable dialogues on equity, we sought to center the voices of students and early-career researchers (ECRs) in HCI, to unpack what it means to promote equity and inclusivity among the more junior scholars in our community.
SIGCHI comprises students and junior scholars from a wide range of backgrounds — those who are first-generation college students, those who are returning learners, those studying in a country that is foreign to them, those working against racist and ableist institutional structures, just to name a few. Students and ECRs are the drivers of the research produced in our community — indeed, they are the future of SIGCHI — and yet they are often among the lowest paid and afforded the least institutional power. This dialogue was intended to create space to explore the challenges that arise as a result of this imbalance, and the role that SIGCHI could play toward producing greater equity and inclusivity for these junior members of our community.
Over the course of the hour, we addressed the following questions:
- Naming the Problem(s): What are the key challenges facing the diverse range of students and ECRs in the SIGCHI community today?
- Fostering Solidarity: What might a more inclusive, supportive infrastructure and culture within SIGCHI look like for students and ECRs?
- Identifying Nuance: What are some barriers to inclusion, participation, and career progression, and how do these vary for students and ECRs researchers with different positionalities and life circumstances?
- Actions Towards Change: Where does the responsibility for change lie (the university, the state, SIGCHI?), and what actions can and should SIGCHI take to effect this change?
As with previous sessions, we opened with an introduction from organizers — in this case, Neha Kumar and Stacy Branham — and a welcome from the moderator, Cale Passmore, about the format and code of conduct for the discussion. Below, we summarize the key points of the discussion with select quotes and light thematic organization.
Supporting Students Across Career and Life Stages
Roundtable participants raised concerns about providing support for non-traditional students––in particular, those who pursue a higher degree later in life, after a stint in industry — as well as supporting students as they transition into their industrial and academic careers.
Returning students
Regarding returning students, Elizabeth Buie shared her experience:
“As I said in my intro, I started my PhD at 60. And on top of that, I moved across the Atlantic to do it. And so I was like — I didn’t quite fit in socially with — I mean I enjoyed them, and they enjoyed me, I think. But the social aspects weren’t the same. We didn’t have the same likes and needs and all that stuff. … And one of the reasons that I went back into industry instead of staying in academia was that I knew that I was going to be competing with 25-year-olds who had 40 year careers ahead of them whereas my 35 years of experience in industry combined with a PhD would serve me better in industry than it would have in academia, although I was very attracted to research and wanted to continue.”— Elizabeth Buie
Elizabeth continued, proposing that SIGCHI might offer some support for older and returning students as they navigate doctoral student culture and seek research careers post-graduation.
Building on Elizabeth’s points, Marisol Wong-Villacres offered her own insights about how fellowship, internship, and collaboration opportunities are not often open to older students, despite the value they bring to the field:
“I started five years ago, was 40, just finished. … There are two things that I’ve noticed can help is for mentors to recognize the experience and value the experience that we’re bringing because that’s not necessarily always the case. But also, … [when I] look for postdocs, I don’t fit the profile. I’ve never fit the profile of like applying for fellowships or internships. People are expecting a different type of person. And I’ve noticed that there are some people in academia who have a better understanding or are more open to see, OK, she’s faculty in Ecuador, wants to do a postdoc. Maybe there’s an opportunity for collaboration there, transnationally. Some people are willing to see that. Others are like, you have kids, you’re not even — you don’t have the — it’s hard for the visa thing. And then you are older.” — Marisol Wong-Villacres
Marisol urged the field to be more open to not only older students who may have children, but also to transnational collaborators. Stacy suggested in the chat that SIGCHI might “help organize a cross-institution group of people who identify as late-career PhD earners,” a suggestion that Elizabeth agreed could be useful.
Transitioning to a career in industry
Many agreed that, generally, SIGCHI is predominantly oriented toward academics as opposed to HCI practitioners:
“I’ve heard over the years, a lot of industry people say they came to CHI once and that was it. And they didn’t feel that it offered them anything except some cool toys. … I find people come and look for practical things that they can go off and use in their work and it’s not so easy to translate.” — Elizabeth Buie
This is a perennial issue that has been documented and discussed in many fora, including a recent workshop and SIG at CHI, but which organizer Elizabeth Buie says has yielded little action. When it comes to student needs, the theory-practice gap can “intimidate” students, make it difficult to translate their research into strong industry job applications, and offer little to tempt them to return to SIGCHI events once they land a position in industry:
“Organisations like SIGCHI seem highly academical, which intimidates students and there is little to no practical benefits for them.” — Sarper Seydioglu
“I just wanted to lean into this question of industry, because I think a lot of students attending CHI will go into industry and then don’t necessarily come back to CHI afterwards. And, I’m wondering what are students’ thoughts on what SIGCHI looks like for them in their career post grad school, whether they’re going into academia or industry, whether… ACM feels relevant even if they go into industry, whether or not in a research position?” — Melissa Densmore
Transitioning to a career in academia
Building on this thread, Richmond Wong added his perspective as a postdoctoral researcher who sees a need for more support in the transition from student to faculty roles:
“In moving from a student role into this postdoc position, I’m starting to confront having to make some of my own decisions about things like funding and collaborations. And I think that there’s a lot of reasons––whether it’s in solidarity or safety or ethics––that people might not pursue or turn down certain types of funding or certain types of collaborations. And, I don’t really know how to navigate that… I would like to try to find more systematic ways where I track my own funding policy or something like that. But I don’t know where to turn to for resources like that. I’ve talked to colleagues who are interested. And none of us really know how to do that or how to go about doing that.”––Richmond Wong
Richmond offered that SIGCHI might be able to provide resources to facilitate decision-making and policy tracking as students move from carrying out research to managing a research lab, collaborations, and fundraising.
Regional Barriers to Participation
Students reported challenges to accessing funding and collaborations as a product of regional (e.g., Latin America, South Asia, the UK) and institutional (e.g., first- versus second- or third-tier universities) differences in recognition of HCI as a legitimate area of study. While some resources are already in place, questions arose about how accessible they are.
Global reputation of HCI
Anupriya Tuli initiated the conversation on regional barriers, explaining that HCI is seen as subordinate to Computer Science:
“I would like to share one experience from India, and I can talk about South Asian countries, particularly. So HCI is still not accepted as well as it is in Global North. And, that has a lot of challenges associated with it. It is still taught as a part of computer science engineering course, where there is no open acceptance of research students pursuing HCI… So, at every juncture, I had to defend that this is legit research. Even if there are no algorithms or even if there is no quote computer science there, it is a legit research.” — Anupriya Tuli
Anupriya went on to explain that these struggles are heightened at lower-tier research institutions, leading to significant barriers to funding for students:
“My institute is a really good institute, a very reputed one. It is in the capital of the country. And, still, I face these challenges. I can’t even start commenting on the second tier or third tier institutes and the status there. So, why I am sharing this is because this hampers the scholarship opportunities. There are very limited funding opportunities to fund this kind of research. … So I was wondering, can SIGCHI offer funding for PhDs in HCI…?” — Anupriya Tuli
Others amplified Anupriya’s contribution:
“Adding to Anupriya, In India HCI is sadly considered as part of design education not Computer Science.” — Shashank Ahire
“I can add to Anupriya’s issue… and say that even in industry in the UK, HCI is often seen as a soft principle.” — Vinoba Vinayagamoorthy
Resources for the global student population
In response to the concerns raised above, some participants shared ACM / SIGCHI resources that may help defend the reputation of HCI and provide much-needed funding:
“Re: visibility of HCI: I have three slides on “how is this computer science” that I used for committees etc. at my CS department — and what really helped me making the argument was the ACM CS Curriculum to explain HCI to my colleagues.” — Chris Frauenberger
“There are a few things that are available for research [through the GDI initiative], such as funding to travel to conferences. But funding to — for example, fund research, I think, is a great idea.”- Rina Wehbe
The resource Chris was referring to, the ACM CS Curriculum, includes modules on Human-Computer Interaction as an integral part of Computer Science studies. Rina referred to the GDI (Global Communities, Diversity, and Inclusion) blog post about resources available to global audiences attending CHI 2021, as well as opportunities for funding through SIGCHI directly (i.e., the Gary Marsden Travel Awards and the SIGCHI Development Fund).
Regional groups, like SIGCHI student chapters and self-organized collaborators, were also identified as a source of strength:
“SIGCHI student chapters are a great way to engage student researchers in HCI. My city student chapter is not active or maybe there is not enough outreach and I have observed that the activities somehow get limited to the individual university. Now that there is a scope of virtual meetups and activities, how can student chapters be made more accessible to other University students. This would play a huge role in helping students who belong to universities that might not have HCI research strength?”— Kartik Joshi
“In the case of Latin America, through some other people that I met, I arrived to a group that already existed that I didn’t know of. And in that group, it’s been super good. It’s Latin American researchers.” — Marisol Wong-Villacres
However, even cross-university or cross-country organizing within a cultural identity (e.g., Latin American researchers) was seen as a challenge. First, chapters simply may not exist. Second, the incentive structures and motivations across regions may be too disjoint to sustain group cohesion:
“Note: there are no SIGCHI student chapters in my continent, just 3 professional chapters, which include the students.”––Melissa Densmore
“Most people in [the Latin American researchers] group are … Latin Americans in the Global North. And, sometimes I see the disconnect. People in the Latin American Global South, they are — the problems and the incentives and motivations that we have are not the same. And so they are not participating as much…. So I think one thing that I like to see more and I think we’re thinking of doing that more is to understand what are the local groups that are actually in Latin America on the ground, in the region, so that we can reach out, connect, and let them know that we are here. And try to see if we can shift our research motivations. … Sadly is that the usual binary global North / South that even exists when you are working with people who are from the same region.” — Marisol Wong-Villacres
Access to Mentorship
Mentorship and the need for better ways to establish mentor-mentee relationships with appropriate boundaries was a topic that struck a chord among students in our roundtable discussion. Cayley MacArthur’s question on Sli.do initiated the thread: “What is a good way to approach asking someone to be a mentor? What should we be sensitive to?” An anonymous question on Sli.do hinted that the challenge of accessing mentors is acute for minority PhD students at the outset of their doctoral studies: “How can “whisper networks” and the type of mentorship/holding space for minority students be more accessible to early PhD students just entering the field?”
Informal mentorship
One of the greatest hindrances to accessing informal mentorship is that it requires students and junior scholars to “find courage” to request support from senior scholars. In response to Melissa Densmore’s question––“how do we create an environment where people find courage to approach one another and to form groups?”––Karthik Bhat shared his experience in chat:
“+1 re: ‘finding courage to seek one another.’ That’s been my biggest problem with meeting people in this era of virtual conferences, when there’s no easy way ‘blend into’ conversations so to speak that require lesser courage. :/” — Karthik Bhat
Indeed, as a first time-attendee of a large scholarly gathering like CHI, networking can be “terrifying:”
“CHI is fine if you already know people, but terrifying if you don’t know anybody — yes, smaller conferences do help. One thing I used to do with larger conferences was to try to get into any workshops so that I’d get to know a couple of folks beforehand.” — Eva Hornecker
Building on Melissa’s question, David Karger suggested that digital tools like the Confer app (note: SIGCHI now officially uses the Progressive Web App for conference schedule management) could “help new grad students and other newcomers meet people at CHI.” He went on to propose one possibility:
“Just starting with the really facetious idea of having a ‘friendly’ badge at the conferences. We’ve gotten all of these questions about how do I approach somebody to ask them about mentoring me. I mean, I’d like the answer to be that, well, you just approach them and ask them about mentoring you because they’re nice and they’ll respond in a friendly way to that inquiry. If we can somehow figure out ways to reduce that fear that all of us introverts who are in academia feel, I think that would make our community so much healthier.” — David Karger
Ruolin Wang reminded us that, whatever digital networking tools we use, accessibility has to be a priority:
People feel excited about using interactive platforms such as GatherTown, however, it pains me to say that most of them are not accessible enough. I’d be happy to collect more ideas on conducting novel, fun but also accessible virtual activities! — Ruolin Wang
While Gather.Town can promote remote networking, the platform is currently rated as “potentially usable with workarounds” (previously “not recommended”) according to the Virtual Conference Accessibility guide, co-authored by SIGCHI members who are also leaders in ACM SIGACCESS, AccessSIGCHI, and SIGCHI Operations.
This discussion revealed the need to scaffold peer communities as well as the benefits of smaller conferences and gatherings, themes which were of significant interest and will be returned to later in the post.
Formal mentorship
Formal mentorship programs, where junior scholars are explicitly paired with senior mentors by an intermediary, can overcome some of the challenges associated with having to identify a mentor oneself. However, as Rina noted, it can be difficult to find enough volunteers:
“As part of the GDI initiative, … there were a lot of limitations in mentorship because we had like only a limited amount of people who volunteered to be mentors, and more mentees always than mentors. And, I think that’s probably because people are worried that their experience at CHI is not enough to be a mentor or maybe the mentor requirements are high….” — Rina Wehbe
Rina posed a question to the students in the audience: could near-peers (i.e., mentors with just one or two years more experience) be acceptable mentor matches? Related to this, Sarah Coppola pointed out that career stage is just one of many considerations:
“My adviser didn’t share any of my identities, and I faced a situation as a student where I really needed to find a mentor who shared my gender that I could trust. Now, I don’t share some of my students’ identities and could see the same issue happen.”––Sarah Coppola
Rina’s and Sarah’s comments suggest the need for broader definitions and processes to identify mentor suitability and mentor-mentee matches in formal programs.
Finding mentorship in small communities
Many participants explained the important role of smaller communities — be they small conferences, student volunteer (SV) cohorts, workshops, doctoral consortia (DC), etc.––in creating onramps to mentorship (emphasis added):
“SVing provided a lot of these “cohort” type experiences to me. but I’ve never SVed at CHI because it’s terrifying, it was all at smaller conferences.” ––Cayley MacArthur
“I’d like to also note that there are smaller more focused conferences which are part of the SIGCHI set of conferences which have really good opportunities in the DC, with mentorship and access to senior researchers in their area… so perhaps inspiration can come from there as well.” — Vinoba Vinayagamoorthy
“I’ve found workshops at conferences as a useful place for making some of those connections with other ‘distributed cohort’ grad students, as well as more senior researchers doing similar work as me. (Though the additional workshop registration costs, especially at F2F conferences, could be an intimidating barrier to entry too).” — Richmond Wang
Cayley MacArthur and Adriana Vivacqua agreed with Vinoba in chat that small conferences generally offer access to senior mentors and can result in lifelong relationships. Vinoba responded to Richmond, offering that workshop fees are often included in registration for smaller conferences. Finally, Vinoba also noted that small conferences offer more opportunities to practice networking and organizing than larger conferences.
Fostering healthy mentorship cultures
Students indicated a need to foster a culture where more senior faculty are more accessible and students cannot be exploited. Regarding the former, Richmond noted that potential mentors often are overloaded with service already, making it difficult to approach them:
“There are some people who I might want to reach out to as potential mentors, but they seem to already have outsized service commitments and I’m not sure how to approach that conversation (or if I should even ask!).”––Richmond Wong
Anupriya offered a story and suggestion:
“I met my co-advisor for the first time at CHI 2017 and it took me some courage to reach out to her but things did work out :) I believe we have to normalise reaching out to seek mentorship! Maybe faculties/researchers can add this to their website that they are open to meet and chat during conferences?”––Anupriya Tuli
Regarding the latter, an anonymous post in Sli.do complicated the narrative around networking: “Also be aware of power dynamics and cultural norms around [‘friendly’] buttons [as suggested by David Karger] or approaching strangers. This has led to my physical boundaries being crossed at a diff conf.” The power relationships that are often inherent in mentor-mentee relationships can indeed lead to boundaries being crossed and labor exploitation:
“I would like us to understand that there are power dynamics. And from my personal experience, for the student who is applying for a PhD or Master’s, they need to have the recommendation letters, because of which, asking from the professor brings a power situation. And, that might be tricky….”––Pranjal Jain
“I come from a culture where there is a very — how should I put this — whatever a teacher says, it is right. Whatever teachers does, it is right. You’re not supposed to question. …. So if something wrong happens with me, if I find my boundaries are violated, I will not question them. I’ll question myself. That is my conditioning. So, I really don’t know what is right or what is wrong… how do I identify that? … So, that is also one important conversation that I think we should take up.”––Anupriya Tuli
Connecting to Resources
Perhaps one of the most consistent themes throughout our discussion was the lack of awareness of resources, both on the part of students and ECRs as well as their senior advisors.
Awareness among students and early career researchers
Several roundtable participants identified resources that they either wish they had known about as students or were discovering for the first time as a result of discussion. This included the SIGCHI Outstanding Dissertation Award, doctoral consortia at conferences, and even the SIGCHI organization itself:
“I had no idea about the Outstanding Dissertation Award, though, until it was too late. And I was by no means new to SIGCHI.”––Elizabeth Buie
“Re: DC — i missed out. i suddenly went from feeling like i wasn’t “together” enough to do a DC, and now all of a sudden i’m graduating. i never felt like i was the right audience or stage to apply.”––Cayley MacArthur
“It took me probably the first two years of my PhD to even become aware of SIGCHI and all of its different sort of branches and opportunities.”––Cale Passmore
This lack of visibility of opportunities available through SIGCHI comes as the organization is doing more than ever to connect to the community through multiple channels. As Cale noted:
I know Neha, Vino(ba), others have done a lot of work to try to create visibility for the opportunities that do exist via blog post and Twitter. We’ve brainstormed in the past about maybe having supervisors undertake a sort of mini tutorial or education about SIGCHI and what opportunities are available for their students and early career scholars.
Yet, as Anupriya noted (see the final section of this blog), even events like this Equity Talk series may not be visible to or practical for students whose advisors and peers are not also actively participating.
Awareness among advisors, mentors, and leaders
Successful connection to resources is a two-way street, such that advisors, mentors, and leaders also need to have and amplify awareness. As Eva noted in chat (emphasis added):
“Not all supervisors push their students to apply [to DCs] (many who are not ACM active might not even know what it is) — I’ve heard of a supervisor saying that he would be embarrassed if his students would apply as this would signify that they ‘need urgent help.’ So it may also be supervisors who need education…”––Eva Hornecker
This point was further demonstrated, as several of the more established scholars eagerly took advantage of the forum to ask students and early career scholars questions. For example:
“I would like to ask new members who are attending a conference for the first time how organizers can support them.”––Simone Kriglstein
“What allyship/equity initiatives do you want to see at conferences?”––Rina Wehbe
“[As one of the DC chairs for CHI next year], I want to know what you guys would like to see happen at a doctoral consortium or what conferences should be doing to better support doctoral students?”––Melissa Densmore
These questions suggest the value of forums like the Equity Talks, where junior and senior members of the research community can come together and share, towards increasing sensitivity and responsiveness of SIGCHI programming to community needs.
Continuing Discussion in Safe Spaces
The previous themes foreground a lack of access to resources for both students/ECRs as well as advisors, mentors, and leaders. Moreover, there can be thorny power dynamics at play, leading to instances of student/ECR exploitation. All point to the need for safe spaces to explore student and ECR perspectives, a need that was explicitly articulated by Anupriya:
“[Students] do not even know that they have that agency to raise their concerns [within SIGCHI]. Spaces like this, initiatives like this Equity Talk are new initiatives. And, I’m really thankful for that because it provides space for students like us who can come and speak their problems. But, again, I’m not sure how many students are aware of these spaces…. I am privileged enough, I’ll say, in that sense to know about a lot of these opportunities. But I’m not sure how many students know about that because, unless and until their advisors or their peers who are active in engaging on this platform, they do not know if such opportunities exist or not. So awareness is really important. And, I think that is something where we all, as a community, need to work a lot. And, it becomes really, really important when students are from the communities or regions where HCI is soft principle.”––Anupriya Tuli
Jasmine Lu voiced agreement in the chat: “+1 Anupriya, have been under the impression that all my interactions [with] the community would be via my advisor/PI.” In these comments, we see concerns about regional barriers to participation, the need for courage to self-advocate, and the general disconnect between junior and senior community members eloquently synthesized.
As for the role of SIGCHI in bridging these gaps, Melissa and Kartik offered promising directions:
“If you really want strong communities, it’s not going to be SIGCHI-wide. You need to find smaller communities. Building an environment where students can make those connections, maybe is what we should strive to do.…”––Melissa Densmore
“I totally agree with Melissa and Anupriya … since now everything is virtual, it is a great way to kind of increase the effort. I see this as an opportunity. It does not have to start with huge things. It can just start with small reading groups and it can — such minute actions could go a long way, especially to young students.”––Kartik Joshi
As we concluded the recorded portion of our discussion, it became clear that there is more SIGCHI can do to foster connection, capitalizing on the shift toward virtual and remote events. Perhaps the first step in that direction, as the original slate of Equity Talks in the series nears its end, is to find ways to sustainably maintain the series going forward:
“I just wanted to highlight that the need for safe spaces like today — this [Equity Talk] is a safe space where students can come and voice their opinions. So, I was just curious to know, are we going to have this channel open? Are we going to have similar talks for students to come up and raise their voice?”––Anupriya Tuli
As the new Executive Committee steps into position, we will look to their leadership to identify ways forward to continue the conversation. In the meantime, we encourage students and ECRs to participate in the remaining Equity Talks, running through July 2021.
