2025 College Changes Everything Conference - How do we build community?

2025 Media Release

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 15^th 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.

• Keynote Presentation – Teresa Ramos