July 17, 2025
Tinley Park Convention Center
Tinley Park, Illinois
2025 CCE – How do we build community?
The 2025 College Changes Everything® (CCE) conference theme was: How do we build community? In uncertain and changing times, hope becomes a vital anchor that enables people to navigate challenges with resilience and purpose and with a sense of belonging and community. The 15th annual CCE conference brought together change makers and equity designers from across the state to leverage and share their knowledge, expertise, and personal experiences to explore new ideas and strategies and to actively build community that sparks inspiration and action.
By engaging in meaningful dialogue and sharing best practices informed by experience, participants actively contributed to building a network of mutual support and understanding. Together, we embodied the powerful notion that hope is not just a feeling, but a shared commitment to shaping a brighter future for our students because we know education matters.
As we’ve come together at CCE conferences over the years, we’ve learned how students are not isolated individuals; they are interconnected, actively participating in a rich tapestry of communities that include their peers, families, academic institutions, and the broader society. As we examined this year’s conference question in greater depth, we can also looked at these questions:
- How can our community better understand and meet the needs of our students? Answers to this question can help us build a shared understanding as to why they don’t have what they need.
- How can we strengthen and expand our community? As we explored last year, community can have different meanings. One way to answer this question might be leveraging and making connections between different communities in order to strengthen each of them through those connections and explore ways to provide mutual aid.
- How can our community work together to marshal resources for our most vulnerable students? We can explore new ways for participatory problem solving through collective action, rather than waiting for others to do it for us and our students.
Morning Keynote Speaker
The conference’s morning plenary session showcased a presentation from Dr. Teresa Ramos, the Inaugural Secretary of the Illinois Department of Early Childhood (IDEC). She provided an overview of the new department and the vision and goals of their work to make early childhood education and care services simpler, better, and fairer for families with young children. In June 2024, the Department of Early Childhood Act was signed into law establishing IDEC to unite the majority of early childhood services into one place. This will make it easier for families to access critical services and for stronger coordination between the various early childhood programs and services provided by the state. IDEC will officially launch as a fully functioning state agency starting July 1, 2026.
Interest Session Presentations and Materials
Round 1 Sessions
- Direct Admission Illinois - A Collaborative Effort with a Statewide Impact
- Building an Illinois Minority Serving Institutions Network
- Transforming Transfer: Improving Pathways for Student Success
- Trends in Financial Aid Application Completion in Illinois and What They Tell Us
- Community as Catalyst: Aligning Networks of Support for First-Generation Students
- Starting Early, Going Far: Leveraging Middle Grades for Equitable Postsecondary Pathways
- Innovations and Frameworks in Credit for Prior Learning(North Pavilion 2)
- Centering Wellness, Building Community: Strengthening Student Success Through Lessons Learned from WOW Program
Round 2 Sessions
- Supporting Dreamers' College Access via Multilingual Supports: The Case of the City Colleges of Chicago
- Creating Community: Support Strategies for Aspiring Educators
- Building Community with the PaCE Career Plan Framework
- Designing for Connection: Cohorts, Community, and College & Career Readiness
- Disrupting Conventions: Community and Success in Cohort-Based Online Degree Programs
- Building Bridges through Dual-Credit and Intercampus Collaboration
- By Us, For Us: Youth at the Center of Civic Engagement
Round 3 Sessions
- Building Community through CCPE Partnerships
- An Introduction to the Illinois PaCE Curriculum for 6th-8th Grade
- A Guide to Crisis Leadership
- Ignite: Defying Opposition
- Expanding Access AND Success While Improving Systems: Learning from Hope Chicago
- Building Community Across Systems to Strengthen the Transfer Pathway
- Creating Accessible Programs for Non-Traditional Students: Two Examples from Chicago Area Colleges
- Connected Communities: Merging Asset-Based Engagement with Innovative Tech for Student Success
- IPP in 2025 - Maximize the Power of Local Data as a Hedge Against the Instability of Federal Systems
- Unseen, Not Unsupported: Advancing Inclusive Excellence for Students with Invisible Differences
Round 4 Sessions
- Leadership Coaching, Data, and Advising: A District Community Approach to College and Career Readiness and Success
- The Power of Intentional Connections: Building Community to Enhance Student Success
- From Self-Doubt to Self-Empowerment: Combating Imposter Syndrome in Higher Education
- Redefining Career Readiness: Social Capital, Paid Experience, and Equitable Access?
- Building Community Through Design Thinking
- What do you require and to what do you aspire? The educational power and fundamental practice of a coach, mentor or sponsor
- Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Cross-Campus Collaboration for First-Gen Student Success
- Making Sense and Making Plans: Supports and Barriers to Post-Secondary Computer Science Success
2025 College Changes Everything Conference Planning Committee
- Illinois Student Assistance Commission
- Illinois Board of Higher Education
- Illinois Community College Board
- Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity
- Illinois Department of Employment Security
- Illinois State Board of Education
- Illinois College Access Network
- Federation of Independent Illinois Colleges and Universities
- Advance Illinois
- Education Systems Center at Northern Illinois University
- ACT Now
- Women Employed
- iCan Dream Center
The College Changes Everything® Conference is sponsored
by the Illinois Student Assistance Commission.
Helping Illinois reach its Goal 2025: to increase the proportion of adults in Illinois with high-quality college degrees and postsecondary credentials to 60% by the year 2025