Selecting a General Chair

The General Chair of the main ACL conference should have:

• experience from at least one (preferably two) of the following conference chair roles:
  • Program Chair of a major international conference in Computational Linguistics or a related area
  • Local Arrangements Chair of an international conference in Computational Linguistics or a related area
  • General Chair of an international conference in Computational Linguistics or a related area
• a proven capacity for leadership, including good organizational, collaborative and communicative skills.

When appointing a General Chair, the coordinating committee should in addition consider the following:

• ACL wants to promote equality and diversity in the selection of conference chairs.
• The General Chair should normally have an affiliation in the geographical region where the conference takes place.
• Candidates who have already been General Chair of the main ACL conference should normally not be considered again.
• Candidates with experience only from conferences in related areas, not Computational Linguistics, should normally not be considered.

NB: As major CL conferences are counted ACL, NAACL, EACL, IJCNLP, COLING, LREC and EMNLP.

• To aid in the selection process, see this list of past conference chairs

Conferences in related areas include, for example, IJCAI, AAAI, NIPS, ICML, ICWSM, CHI, and CSCW.

For information about roles and responsibilities, see General Chair duties.

NB: ACL is committed to promoting equity and diversity at all levels of the organization. Everyone involved in nomination and selection procedures is therefore encouraged to consult our page with resources for Promoting Diversity and Avoiding Bias.

Author: Joakim Nivre, 2016