Creating, Building, and Sustaining Community in CS Departments

Broadening participation in Computer Science requires supporting individuals by helping them feel a sense of belonging to a larger community. In this BOF, we invite participants to brainstorm, to share strategies, and to explore possibilities for building and supporting intentional communities, particularly for underrepresented or marginalized groups. Whether these communities are spaces created by faculty for faculty, by students for students, or by faculty for students, we need to be thoughtful and deliberate about the ways in which we set up, build, and maintain supportive relationships. Indeed, we now increasingly need techniques and strategies that will work both virtually and in person and that can be sustained by both live and asynchronous discussions. During this virtual session, we invite you to grab a snack and a cup of tea and join us as we setup our own 'SIGCSE CommuniTEA' with the intention of supporting each other as we collectively work towards helping all individuals truly feel that CS is for them and towards increasing that sense of belonging to both smaller and larger computer science communities.