SIGARCH/SIGMICRO CARES is a joint subcommittee of SIGARCH and SIGMICRO, in existence since 2018, to support their sponsored conferences. The purpose of CARES' presence at conferences is threefold: (1) By shining a light, we wish to raise awareness, deter, and prevent discrimination and harassment that violate 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 MICRO 2020 also to care.
For this year's MICRO, CARES will have a presence virtually, hosting two live sessions. These sessions are intended to provide a brave yet safe space for 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. The two 30-minute live sessions will occur 15 minutes after the last technical sessions end on Sunday, October 18th, and on Tuesday, October 20th; please check the conference program to see the time for various time zones. The CARES member hosts for each session are the following:
Again, all attendees are welcome to join either or both of these CARES sessions, and we hope everyone will have an enjoyable MICRO 2020 (virtual) conference experience!