ACM Annual Awards Banquet

 

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has a long storied collection of award winners, for a wide variety of contributions within the computing world.  Lists abound, and fame accrues, especially for the Big Awards, but also for each of these prestigious categories.

If you've been privileged enough to attend one of their formal black-tie award dinners, you will have doubtless glanced at the Awards pamphlet carefully placed at every seat.  It lists all new winners, as well as the names of every previous awardee for each award given.

As each award is announced, a brief video vignette describes the winner and thc cited work on big screens located at each end of the stage.  The honoree is handed a Plaque, a certificate, usually a check (sometimes for substantial funds), and a handshake before the obligatory photo-op with the extant ACM leadership.

Subsequently, a two- or three-paragraph notation about the person, the work, and the award will be posted to the person's ACM webpage.  This is truly a career highpoint for many awardees!!!

The audience is appreciative, even enthusiastic for some winners.   Attendees, some four hundred strong, are composed of the honorees and their family and friends (usually including the honoree's major professor), plus a significant number of past winners and ACM officers and ACM emeriti.  As an ex-ACM President, I usually garner an invite, and it is an incredible pleasure for my wife Jenny and me each year, revisiting old friends and meeting new ones.

Not surprisingly, though, for events of this type, not everyone in attendance is enthralled.  Here's a tongue-in-cheek ribald post from the outspoken wife of an ACM stalwart:    

      "Excuse me," I hissed to my husband, an ACM Fellow whom I was expected to revere.  But I was irreverent.  I cannot change my stripes at 62, and so I continued.   "Hello, I believe these beans were brought from a local farm to this table."  My point was that "farm to table" does not necessarily mean directly from the farm to the table by skipping the kitchen.           My husband was not pleased.  "Eat.  Show some gratitude," he growled.   So I drove my fork into another raw green bean the length of my elbow and forklifted it onto my tongue, and turned politely to face the gentleman speaking at the podium.                                                                                                                                                                             Over the course of the last few decades, I've been invited, on and off, to the ACM awards.  I feel honored--seriously, I do--for having been invited to partake of the banter, the banquet, and the work of the brightest minds in computing.  I'm genuinely thankful because some of us ordinary mortals can get to celebrate the gifts of someone else who has earned some honors.  Still, I'm mildly peeved that no one has thought to institute some kind of an award for those who endure the eccentricities of those honored by the ACM.  Consider some of the struggles of spouses or partners who attend these: We must listen to our better halves talk shop for eons while remembering to look terribly excited by the latest buzzword.  We must strive to remember the names of people we met years ago, maybe once, in formal wear.  We must also grin and bare our teeth as our partners take photographs--and more photographs--and still more.

My own wife, a bona fide Berkeley computer science and computer education PhD herself, howled when she saw this post.   I'm not sure why I showed it to her; I certainly did not send it to ACM headquarters.

My concerns over the years about this banquet have taken a different tack.  I want to know more about the winners, plus previous winners.  And I'd like the information in context.   I can listen to the two-minute high-quality YouTube video about the current awardee, and I can expect to view it again later on the ACM website after the event.  I can peruse my iPhone during the ceremony to Google about the winner, to learn more about their schooling, their current career path, their achievements, and even what courses they are teaching this year.  I can do this for every nominee, and for every previous honoree.

But what is harder, much harder, to do is to find apt comparisons--how many colleagues from their school or department have similar awards?  Or how many awards have been given for analogous contributions?  I can find the ACM Digital Library radio button on their ACM website page, and assess their publishing history, including their favorite co-authors, but I cannot find much about the passion that led them down this path.

Nor do the acceptance speeches give much clue.   Gracious and gratuitous, they almost always thank their major professor, a small team of colleagues, and usually, their parents and spouse.  But only a few honorees are even allowed to ascend to the podium--time is limited, since with 24 awards and fifty or more newly anointed Fellows, the evening inevitably is overlong, especially for the geriatric attendees.

Is there a way to serve these longings?  Somewhat surprisingly, the answer is YES.   And outlining elements of that answer will be our purpose in the next few posts, as well as encouraging the Socratic Interviews described in the last post.