Theme, Goals & Strands 

Co-Creating a Liberatory Future

Strengthening Student Success Conference is CELEBRATING! It’s our 20th anniversary and we hope you will join us this year as we explore together Co-Creating a Liberatory Future for our students and our communities. Paulo Freire, one of the most well-known and influential educational theorists of the 20th Century, states, “Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information.” Highlighting transformational approaches to teaching and learning is the heart and soul of the Strengthening Student Success Conference, and this year is no different. In fact, now more than ever, there is a strong sense of urgency to frame our teaching and learning in a way that co-creates with students a more just and equitable institution where students are given agency and leadership in their own learning; where learning environments are actively inclusive and honor the differences among people; and where campuses value and actively advocate for equitable treatment of all who come to learn.

For twenty years, the Strengthening Student Success Conference has focused on providing faculty, staff, and administrators from California community colleges with strategies, ideas, and research to support transformational change at the individual, classroom, and institutional levels. The conference has challenged us to become better than we thought was possible so our students could become more than they ever dreamed was possible. Our focus on race-conscious, equity-minded, student-focused transformation is embedded throughout the conference. However, our work is far from finished as we continue to navigate what it means to not just say our institutions are focused on equity but to actually make changes that show results. We hope you’ll join us this year as we celebrate 20 years of progress, look forward to many more, and engage together in Co-Creating a Liberatory Future for our students, our communities, and ourselves.

By attending Strengthening Student Success Conference 2025 (SSSC25), attendees will

• Learn ways to navigate changing landscapes, funding, and other challenges in order to create caring institutions for faculty, staff, and students;

• Understand how colleges are scaling practical, equitable, race-conscious, and evidence-based practices to advance student success;

• Learn and commit to strategies that engage students as partners in designing race-conscious and equitable student experiences; and

• Exchange ideas with colleagues and other stakeholders and feel empowered to lead change.

• Race-Conscious Partnerships and Networks

• Redressing Structural Inequities

• Achieving Equity in the Classroom

• The Compassionate Campus: Creating Support Systems for Students and Employees

• Professional Learning and Leadership Development: Building Culturally Relevant, Humanizing Practices

• Strategic Planning to Create Caring, Equitable, and Race-Conscious Campuses

A Note on Terminology

You may notice that we are using the term “race conscious” or “race consciousness” in our goals and strand descriptions for this year’s conference. We believe we should continue to evolve in our use of vocabulary and focus on equity, diversity, inclusion, and antiracism. After robust consultation with colleagues who are deeply and actively engaged in this work, we agreed that race consciousness better explains our work.

The term “race conscious” considers the historical and systematic implications that race contributes to educational outcomes and disparities. Embracing a race-conscious approach transcends the mere inclusion of antiracist statements. Engaging in race consciousness acknowledges the barriers that have historically and continue to exist within our system and involves the deliberate creation and implementation of policies, curricula, practices, and processes geared toward affirming the well-being of all racial groups acknowledges the barriers that have historically and continue to exist within our system and involves the deliberate creation and implementation of policies, curricula, practices, and processes geared toward affirming the well-being of all racial groups.