18451 Convention Center Dr
Tinley Park, IL 60477
United States
The 2024 College Changes Everything® (CCE) conference theme was Community Health. The 14th 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 examine the impact of community health on educational equity. Equity is always at the heart of the CCE conference as we strive to ensure all students have opportunities for college access and success and they are career ready. This year we considered the role of community health on educational equity with these guiding questions: Can you have educational equity without community health? Can you have community health without educational equity? Community health encompasses various aspects contributing to the well-being of a particular population. Community is a multifaceted concept allowing partners to define it based on who their work serves and how they do their work (e.g., geographic, social, cultural, virtual, professional, intentional/specific purpose, economic, interfaith, neighborhood, supportive, and more). Communities can be dynamic, evolving entities shaped by its members’ interactions and shared experiences. Partners should approach defining health as it relates to their work in a holistic way that includes: mental, physical, and environmental. We know from other initiatives supporting educational equity, collective efforts maximize impact and partnerships enhance sustainable solutions. Informed planning leads to effective policies, resource allocation, and tailored programs.
Morning Keynote Speaker
The conference’s morning plenary session highlighted a conversation with Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel, author of Design Social Change: Take Action, Work Toward Equity, and Challenge the Status Quo . Dr. Noel is Dean of the Faculty of Design at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD). She is a designer, researcher, and educator with research interests focusing on those traditionally excluded from research, design-based learning, and design thinking. She practices primarily in social innovation, entrepreneurship, education, and public health. In her research, she highlights the work of designers outside Europe and North America. She designed The Designer’s Critical Alphabet, a deck of cards to help introduce designers and design students to inclusive design concepts. She also designed Empathy Games for Children, a deck of cards with activities to help children empathize with each other. Dr. Noel is the co-founder and co-chair of the Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society, and she is a co-editor of The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression and Reflection.
General Session Presentations
Keynote: In Conversation with Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel, author of Design Social Change: Take Action, Work Toward Equity, and Challenge the Status Quo
Spotlight: College Changes Everything (CCE) Program Recipients
Interest Session Presentations and Materials
- Envisioning Educational Community Health
- Understanding the Impact of Secondary Trauma in Mentoring
- Creating Community for Black Scholars
- Addressing College Hunger
- Dual Credit in Illinois: Mapping Increased Participation and Persistent Participation Gaps
- Students Are Going Where?! Changing College Enrollment Trends Might not Be as Dire as We Feared
- Supporting Student Populations: Students in Foster Care, Unaccompanied Homeless Youth, and Undocumented Students
- What We Need to Succeed: Students’ Sense of Belonging on Campus
- Future Ready: The Importance of College and Career Programming in Middle School
- Unlocking Transfer Success: Navigating College Fit and Pathways
- Supporting Dreamers' College Access Through Adult Education: The Case of the City Colleges of Chicago
- Empowering College Students Through Mentorship & Peer-to-Peer Engagement
- What Students Want: Building More Holistic Supports for Postsecondary Success
- Understanding and Supporting First Gen Students
- Building Bridges: Fostering Belonging for Marginalized Learners
- Supporting Minority Serving Institutions – Illinois Roundtable
- An Introduction to the Illinois PaCE Curriculum for 6th-8th Grade
- Building Blocks for Equity… Literally
- Empowering Futures with the CS Starter Academy
- Building Pathways for Professional Development Opportunities for First-generation Students in College and Beyond
- Reducing the Disproportionate Representation of African American Children in Foster Care Advisory Commission – Higher Education Recommendations Presented to Governor JB Pritzker
- Motorcycles, Helicopters, and Sports Cars: What 80’s Action-adventure Television Taught Us About Technology, AI, and ChatGPT
- Community College Baccalaureates: An Equitable Solution to Post-Secondary Degree Attainment
- Illinois Equitable Higher Education Funding Formula Cost Factors and Accountability Framework
- Career Development – You Don't Know Until You Know
- If You Think We’re Just a Scholarship Program, You’re Missing the Point: Hope Chicago’s Approach to Promoting College Persistence and Beyond
- Becoming A Triple Threat: How One South Side Alternative High School Is Preparing Their Graduates to Be College-Ready, Work-Ready, and Entrepreneurship-Ready
- Trends in Financial Aid Application Completion and What it Tells Us
- Invest in Biliteracy: The Illinois State Seal of Biliteracy and the Pathway to Bilingualism
- Gentrification: Examining the Impact on Education
- Tailoring PaCE To Be the Right Fit
- Illinois State University’s PULSE: Helping Communities Develop Special Educators from Within
- Focus on Equity: Guidance for Supporting Students with Disabilities and Their Higher Education Transition
- 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