ACM CCECC

About

Our Global Mission

The ACM CCECC serves and supports community and technical college educators in all aspects of computing education.

Our Purpose

Officially chartered in 1991 as a standing committee of the ACM Education Board, the ACM Committee for Computing Education in Community Colleges (CCECC) is concerned with computing education at associate-degree granting colleges in the United States and similar post-secondary institutions throughout the world. The Committee engages in curriculum and assessment development, community building, as well as advises on public policy and advocacy in service to this sector of higher education.

A Brief History

Below is a brief history of the Committee's beginnings and its dedicated members. For a more in-depth read, see the December 2015 edition of ACM Inroads, Celebrating 40 Years of ACM's Commitment to Community Colleges.

Three people got together one evening during the SIGCSE symposium in Cincinnati in 1986, and the conversation among Joyce Currie Little, Dick Austing, and John Impagliazzo centered on the next phase of action to take in association with the continuing emergence of two-year colleges as a factor in the higher education landscape. You see, for nearly a decade a small but visionary group had pursued this matter by way of sessions and workshops at SIGCSE symposia, even formulating and publishing two initial sets of guidelines via funding from SIGCSE. Determined to continue acting on their insights, the group now organized as a task force chaired by Joyce Currie Little, and was awarded funding support from the ACM Optional Contribution Fund. This seed money successfully launched the second decade of activity, and enabled the group to refine and pursue their thoughts, which came to focus on the computing curricula and associated matters unique to the two-year college setting. To this day, this vision is the tenet of the Committee’s work.

Significant funding by the ACM SIG Board to the ad-hoc Two-Year College Education Committee soon supported this mission. Karl Klee and Helene Chlopan now joined the original group of three. John Impagliazzo chaired the Committee, which had the special purpose of producing a comprehensive set of curriculum guidelines. The Committee created the Two-Year College Computing Curricula Task Force, with the five members of the Committee constituting its Task Force Steering Committee. This Task Force created a far-reaching, forward-thinking, and extensive set of curricular materials. For the first time then, faculty and administrators in associate-degree granting institutions had computing curricula guidelines specific to their unique environment; the ACM Education Board produced and endorsed this effort.

In 1991, the Education Board, chaired by Joe Turner, chartered the Two-Year College Education Committee as a standing committee. Since John Impagliazzo was not a member of a two-year college, he relinquished his position as committee chair and Karl Klee became its new leader concurrent with the Committee’s new stature. The Committee began to pursue a breadth of activities in service to its mission, engaging many members of its constituency in a variety of initiatives. This established what would become a well-deserved reputation as one of the most prolific units of the Education Board. In 2011 the "Two-Year College Education Committee" revised its name to the "Committee for Computing Education in Community Colleges".

Through the years the Committee members have benefited from and appreciated the ongoing support of the Education Board, their many colleagues in SIGCSE, the ACM Headquarters staff and leadership, and of course the many two-year college faculty and administrators who constitute a vital and vibrant segment of higher education.

Across the years, the Committee membership has evolved: Helene Chlopan leaves (1993); Bob Campbell joins (1993); John Impagliazzo (Committee founder) leaves (1996); Clare Smith serves a six-month term (1996); Fay Cover joins (1996); Joyce Currie Little (Committee founder) leaves (1999); Elizabeth Hawthorne joins (2001); Dick Austing (Committee founder) leaves (2001); Fay Cover leaves (2005); Anita Wright joins (2007); Karl Klee (former chair) retires after 20 years of service (2011); Anita Wright leaves (2011); Jim Nichols joins (2013); Cara Tang joins (2013); Cindy Tucker joins (2013); Jim Nichols leaves (2014); Bob Campbell (former chair) retires after 21 years of service (2014); Teresa Moore joins (2016); Christian Servin joins (2016); Teresa Moore passes away (2016); Elizabeth Hawthorne (former chair) leaves after 16 years of service (2017); Markus Geissler joins (2017); Melissa Stange joins (2018); Melissa Stange leaves (2021); Pam Schmelz joins (2022); Koudjo Koumadi joins (2022).

The Committee's website was redesigned in 2015 by Ms. Ashley Wilson. Also in 2015, the Committee's logo was redesigned by Ms. Rebecca Wilkes, an Information Management and Design major at Bluegrass Community and Technical College in Lexington, KY.