Sigcse'19

Welcome to the 50th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (the 2019 Symposium), the premiere technical conference for computer science educators. The 2019 Symposium is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE).

SIGCSE has the third largest membership of any of ACM's Special Interest Groups (SIG), and is among the oldest SIGs. Only ten SIGs were founded prior to 1968 when SIGCSE was formed, and two other SIGs shared their 50th anniversary in 2018 with SIGCSE. The SIGCSE Board and many other SIGCSE volunteers celebrated the 50th anniversary last year, but I would like to give a special thanks to two people. Briana Morrison, who is on the SIGCSE Board, created a series of weekly postings about SIGCSE's anniversary. These postings were shared on the listserv and published on SIGCSE's web site, and I know that many of you, myself included, enjoyed them. I would also like to thank Jane Prey, who is a long-time SIGCSE volunteer and previous SIGCSE award winner, for her work as the guest editor of a special issue of ACM Inroads celebrating SIGCSE's anniversary.

However, the celebration for the SIG is far from over. This year marks the 50th Technical Symposium, an achievement that even fewer SIGs share, as only six ACM SIGs have conferences that have been held 50 or more times. Further, the SIGCSE Symposium is thriving. The past several years have seen large increases in attendance at the conference, and this year will be even better thanks in part to the 50th anniversary committee. Adrienne Decker, who is a SIGCSE Board member and chairing the committee, Carl Alphonce, and Kurt Eiselt have worked for more than a year to put together a series of special events at the 50th Symposium. There will be a track focused on anniversary content that includes peer-reviewed papers and panels and invited discussants. Previous conference co-chairs have been invited to attend the conference and will be recognized for their work. The Travel Grant program has been expanded to 50 people for the anniversary, which should bring a new group of educators to our community. There will be special ribbons, stickers, and mementos for all attendees, and there will be a 50th anniversary booth and signage throughout the conference providing information about the conference history. Finally, the committee has worked with a historian, the Charles Babbage Institute, and Computing Educator's Oral History Project to bring content to attendees and have attendees contribute to the organizations' initiatives. On behalf of the SIGCSE Board I would like to thank the 50th anniversary committee for all of their hard work