Stonewall Center: Creating Change Conference

The Creating Change Conference, sponsored by the National LGBTQ Task Force, is the largest annual gathering of LGBTQIA people and supporters in the United States.  The 28th Creating Change Conference will be held in Chicago from January 21-24, 2016 and is expected to bring together more than 4,000 individuals, about a third of whom will be students.

For the past several years, the Stonewall Center, in collaboration with Residential Life and other campus partners, has sent 16 UMass students to the conference.  The cost to do so is $15-16,000.  We want to continue to send this many students, but cannot do so without outside funding.

We believe that the expense is well worth it, because the conference is a unique opportunity for students to learn, grow, and expand their skills as social justice leaders.  Students say that it is a life-changing experience to be amid so many activists, writers, artists, and scholars and to be able to benefit from their knowledge and experiences.