Chemistry Education Research (CER) is a growing field with dedicated journals and conferences, an increasing number of CER graduate programs, and a developing community of CER scholars worldwide. Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the teaching of chemistry, causing instructors to rethink teaching approaches that have been fairly stagnant for decades and challenging researchers to consider new questions. Furthermore, greater societal recognition of perpetuated systemic discrimination has put the chemistry education community at a crossroads; many questions about the teaching and learning of chemistry pre-COVID still need to be addressed, and now many new questions are emerging. This provides the chemistry education community with a unique opportunity to collectively identify the questions that will allow us to capitalize on this unprecedented time of change to increase the acceptance and impact of our work and more broadly influence the practice of chemistry education. This symposium aims to initiate and facilitate a discussion around these ideas at a critical crossroads in our field. It will focus on ways in which we can better define our community identity and work together to use CER and data to more broadly influence the teaching and learning of chemistry. Speakers will present their perspectives on topics such as creating standards for effective practice, research, and dissemination supported by the CER community, building bridges to other communities, and supporting diversity within our classrooms and community. Additionally, this symposium will elicit feedback from the CER community to build on the ideas presented by the speakers during structured discussion sessions.