We’re working with College Unbound at the conference to provide new opportunities for connection, mentorship, and even college credit.
College Unbound is a nontraditional, student-driven institution of higher education for adult learners that serves as a model for imagining new forms of partnership, shared authority, care, and learning together.
At College Unbound, sitting down to eat together isn’t a break from the coursework. Conversation, relationship, the exchange of knowledge across a table: it’s built into the model rather than scheduled around it. So when we started planning what a CU partnership might look like in Chicago, the shape of it followed naturally: two dinners and a way to earn credit.
Thursday, October 22 from 6:00-8:30 pm
Adams Room, Palmer House Hotel
Tickets: $100 each; includes a three-course dinner, the Improvising Institutions program, and the celebration of this year’s ASA award and prize winners
We open the conference over a shared meal with a conversation about different interventions that are reimagining the landscape of higher education at this political moment.
How can we create educational institutions, spaces for deep learning and experiences that respond to the complexity, creativity, and aspirations of the communities they serve?
The setting over dinner is intentional. At College Unbound, shared meals are part of the structure of learning, creating space for conversation, relationship, and the exchange of knowledge.
Improvising Institutions brings together longtime ASA member Adam Bush, President of College Unbound; Bill Ayers, faculty at College Unbound; Cathy Cohen, D. Gale Johnson Distinguished Service Professor of Race, Diaspora and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago; and College Unbound students from Chicago to explore what higher education can become when those too often excluded from its institutions become co-creators of them.
We anchor our conversation with an exploration of College Unbound—a nontraditional, student-driven institution of higher education for adult learners that serves as a model for imagining new forms of partnership, shared authority, care, and learning together.
Bill Ayers will be in conversation with his students about the reciprocal nature of teaching and learning and the ways educational relationships can unsettle traditional hierarchies of expertise and authority.
Cathy Cohen will then offer reflections to inform a dinner conversation about how innovative interventions, such as Scholars for Social Justice’s “Open Universities” and other campus and community learning initiatives across our institutions help us all improvise new forms of teaching and learning in these times.
The conversation takes place as part of the ASA’s ticketed Opening Night Dinner, which also celebrates the Association’s annual award and prize winners.
Saturday, October 24 at 6:30 pm
Off-Site in Chicago, Illinois
Tickets: Free; cost generously subsidized by ASA President Tanisha C. Ford
Join us the evening of Saturday, October 24, for dinner, conversation, and mentoring in the homes of longtime ASA members and friends in Chicago. These small gatherings take inspiration from College Unbound, where shared meals are part of a model of learning that treats conversation, relationship, and community as essential to education.
Choose between two extraordinary host groups:
Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn: Ayers is a longtime educator, activist, and retired Distinguished Professor of Education at UIC who now teaches at College Unbound, where he continues his decades-long work exploring teaching, democracy, social justice, and education. Dohrn is a lawyer, educator, and longtime advocate for children and young people who founded Northwestern Law’s Children and Family Justice Center and spent more than two decades working in juvenile justice, law reform, and the mentoring of students and young advocates. Their dinner offers a rare opportunity for an intimate conversation about education, activism, scholarship, political commitment, and building a life around the work you care about.
Adam Bush and Lisa Yun Lee (NO TICKETS REMAINING): Bush is co-founder and President of College Unbound, an innovative, student-driven college built around the idea that learning is collective and rooted in people’s lives and communities. Lee is Executive Director of Chicago’s National Public Housing Museum and Associate Professor of Public Culture and Museum Studies at UIC, where she teaches in Art History, Museum and Exhibition Studies, and Gender and Women’s Studies. A scholar, cultural activist, and leader of public-facing institutions, she works at the intersection of museums, public history, arts and culture, housing justice, and democratic practice. Together, Bush and Lee offer a chance to talk about scholarship that moves beyond the university—and about building institutions that put ambitious ideas about education, culture, and social change into practice.
Program: There’s no formal program; just come ready to eat, talk, ask questions, hear stories, and have the kinds of conversations about scholarship, teaching, institutions, activism, careers, and life that rarely fit into a conference session.
Location: Dinner will be held in our hosts’ homes in the same apartment building near the Obama Presidential Center. Exact location and other details will be provided to registered participants. The apartment building is wheelchair accessible with entrance ramps and elevators.
The Fine Print: Space is limited to 20 graduate students per dinner, so sign up early. Because these gatherings take place in private homes and space is extremely limited, if you have a ticket but can’t make the dinner, please give your spot to another graduate student.
For the first time, conference attendees will have the opportunity to earn undergraduate academic credit for participating in the ASA Annual Meeting through College Unbound. College Unbound is a fully accredited institution, and its credits are transferable to other colleges and universities.
ASSESSMENT AND DOCUMENTATION METHODS
- A list of at least 10 ASA academic sessions attended (including date and time of sessions), with a 1-page reflection on each session
- A thorough blog post including the following content, to be posted on the ASA website once approved:
- Identify connections and themes across the attended sessions and in the conference experience as a whole
- Describe personal experience and/or lessons learned at the conference
STUDENT EXPECTATIONS & TIME COMMITMENTS
Conference Attendees wishing to earn CU Community Scholar credit are expected to spend a minimum of 45 hours total for the ASA Conference experience, including but not limited to:
- 15 hours of dedicated instruction time (i.e., attending 10 full academic sessions at the conference),
- At least 1 hour of reflection time per session (minimum 10 hours), and
- At least 5 hours of analysis and reflection over the conference experience, as described in the required blog post (above).
CONTACT INFORMATION
Students with questions should contact ASA staff at asastaff@theasa.net.
The submission form for completed course materials will open on October 26, 2026 and is due no later than November 9, 2026.
Once your materials are assessed by the ASA as satisfactory, you will be provided with a signed evaluation form to submit for credit with College Unbound.