Innovations and Opportunitiesin Liberal Arts Computing Education

Innovations and Opportunities
in Liberal Arts Computing Education

A SIGCSE 2026 affiliated event organized by members of the SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in Liberal Arts Colleges.

This event builds on directions and priorities identified at our prior SIGCSE events:

This full-day event, scheduled for Wednesday, February 18th, 2026 in St. Louis will promote connection and collaboration within the liberal arts computing community. It will be split into an opening half-day session of presentations and panels followed by a half-day unconference session. Submissions are invited for both sessions.

The opening session will focus on topics covering the breadth of opportunities and challenges faced by liberal arts computing educators. These topics may include innovative courses, curricula, co-curricular programs, academic and career advising, faculty recruiting and retention, and other issues as identified to have a specific liberal arts perspective. Selected submissions will be presented, with additional opportunities for discussion in breakout sessions. Updates from working groups formed at the 2025 Affiliated Event will also be shared.

The second session will be held in an “unconference” format, with proposals accepted for working group topics from the community as a whole. This will allow the community time to connect and collaborate on projects of shared interest. Participants will select between topics within this session, which can be organized in a workshop, working group, or discussion group style. Examples of possible topics are provided below, but we welcome any proposal that may be of interest to liberal arts computing educators.

Throughout the event, sessions will give participants an opportunity to learn about work already taking place within the liberal arts computing community as well as to engage in Q&A and breakout discussions. Opportunities for networking with others in the liberal arts CS community will be emphasized.

Submissions are not required to attend; all interested faculty and students are welcome. Registration will be through the SIGCSE Technical Symposium registration system with no additional fee to attend.

This is a SIGCSE 2026 affiliated event organized by members of the SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in Liberal Arts Colleges. Full details about this event including this Call for Participation and links to information about our previous annual events are available at the Committee’s SIGCSE 2026 Affiliated Event site.

Important Dates

Category Date
Submissions Accepted Until November 14th, 2025
Publication of Full Agenda December 1st, 2025
In-Person Event at SIGCSE February 18th, 2026

Submissions should follow the templates provided below. The program committee will lightly screen all submissions for suitability. All suitable submissions will be made available to the community through the Committee site, and all authors of accepted submissions will receive an invitation to participate in the event.

Unconference Session

The program committee invites proposals to lead groups during the afternoon “unconference”. Proposals should describe the topic, desired outcomes or products from the session, and a format for organizing the discussion or collaborative work (e.g., workshop, working group, discussion group). Possible topics may include but are not limited to the role of CS faculty in coordinating computing across an institution, cross-institutional collaboration to support student job searches, community efforts to advocate for the value of CS education research within tenure and promotion review, and course-specific topics such as incorporating the use of AI tools, implementing specifications grading, or implementing inclusive teaching practices. Information about both the topics and the format of the group collaboration will be shared in advance; participants will be encouraged to select a single group for the afternoon.

Submissions should follow the template provided below. Submissions will be reviewed for their relevance to the intended audience as well as breadth of topics across the event as a whole. The program committee may recommend that some submitters merge topics if overlapping submissions are received.

## Submission Requirements

The program committee invites submissions following the provided templates indicating the information requested in a submission. All submissions may be made through email or GitHub pull request following the process described below. Submissions, and questions about submissions, can be sent to Jakob Barnard (Jakob.Barnard@uj.edu).

  1. Morning Session (Pick one template):
  2. Afternoon Session - Unconference Submissions: A brief (1 to 2-page) description of the topic proposed for discussion, intended format for the session, and desired outcomes or products. The Unconference session has been scheduled to run for three hours, with a half-hour break in the middle. Please see the template below.

## Submission Process

Submissions may be made in one of two ways:

https://computing-in-the-liberal-arts.github.io/SIGCSE2026-Affiliated-Event/

  1. Create a branch for your submission.
  2. Add a sub-directory for your submission to the appropriate directory (curricula, or opportunities).
  3. Populate your sub-directory with the materials for your submission. Please use a file named index.md for the text of your submission and copy any images or other supporting materials into your sub-directory. Format your submission using the appropriate markdown template from above.
  4. Push your branch to your fork.
  5. Create a pull request for your branch.
  6. If you wish to make more than one submission, please create a separate pull request for each submission.

## Program Committee

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Unless otherwise noted on an individual resource, all materials in this repository are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License