SIGARCH/SIGMICRO CARES is a joint subcommittee of SIGARCH and SIGMICRO, in existence since 2018, to have a presence at conferences sponsored by the two architecture SIGs. The purpose of CARES’ presence is threefold. (1) By shining a light on this issue, we wish to raise awareness so as to deter and prevent discrimination and harassment, violations of ACM’s Policy Against Harassment at ACM Activities. We encourage all attendees to uphold this policy. (2) If there are any alleged violations of the policy (which we hope won’t occur), CARES members serve as a support resource—to listen empathetically, be a helpful sounding board, and provide reporting options to anyone who raises concerns about alleged incidents—we do so without making a judgement call as adjudicating such matters is outside of our scope. (3) We wish to promote openness and inclusiveness. Our computer architecture conferences should be “safe places and courageous spaces” for the free exchange of research results and ideas, intellectual discourse, and scholarly interactions. As such, CARES members encourage everyone in attendance at our conferences to broaden their networks and be accessible to our diverse community of scholars, and be especially open and welcoming to our more junior colleagues (e.g., students). We CARE, and we hope the importance of this issue will inspire and encourage everyone in attendance at ASPLOS’21 also to care.
For this year’s ASPLOS, CARES will have a virtual presence hosting two live open sessions as well as “CARES table” hours at various times throughout the main conference where CARES members will be present virtually on the conference platform for attendees to visit and speak to us. The two open sessions and the virtual CARES table are intended to provide safe spaces for having open dialog and discourse, which may include topics related to ways of preventing racism, sexism, and social injustices more broadly as related to discrimination and harassment prevention (see, for instance, a joint statement by SIGARCH, SIGMICRO, TCCA, and TCuARCH on their stance and call to action against racism found here: https://www.sigarch.org/other-announcements/statement-about-recent-events/).
CARES Room: The two 30-minute live open sessions are scheduled to occur Monday, April 19th, from 9:15am – 9:45am PDT and 6:15pm – 6:45pm PDT. Please check the conference platform for the link to attend either or both sessions.
CARES table hours will be hosted by the following members on the following days and times:
| Monday, 4/19 | 4:00pm – 6:00pm PDT | Viji Srinivasan |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, 4/20 | 8:00am – 10:00am PDT | Diana Marculescu |
| 3:00pm – 5:00pm PDT | Shan Lu | |
| Wednesday, 4/21 | 9:30am – 11:30am PDT | Timothy Pinkston |
| 4:00pm – 6:00pm PDT | Dilma da Silva | |
| Thursday, 4/22 | 1:00pm – 3:00pm PDT | Joel Emer |
| 5:00pm – 6:00pm PDT | Kathryn McKinley | |
| Friday, 4/23 | 10:00am – 12 noon PDT | Yasuko Eckert |
| 3:00pm – 4:00pm PDT | Kathryn McKinley |
Again, all attendees are welcome to join either or both of the CARES live open sessions and any of the CARES table hours. We hope everyone will have an enjoyable ASPLOS’21 (virtual) conference experience!
Email contact info: viji@us.ibm.com, dianam@utexas.edu, shanlu@uchicago.edu, tpink@usc.edu, dilma@cse.tamu.edu, emer@csail.mit.edu, mckinley@cs.texas.edu, yasuko.eckert@gmail.com