College Unbound

06/10/2026

College Unbound has some new faces for the 2026-2027 academic year. We’re excited to welcome our new Assistant Provost for Transformational Teaching & Learning, Ijeoma Njaka! 🎊

In her role, Ijeoma will provide leadership for the development, implementation, and evaluation of best practices in transformational teaching and learning approaches, faculty support, and learning technologies. She will also collaborate with CU’s faculty and the Lifelong Learning Team to enhance faculty development programs and foster innovation in teaching and assessment of student learning.

Ijeoma previously served at Georgetown University as a Senior Learning Designer for Transformational and Inclusive Initiatives. In that role, she advanced transformative learning design interventions in order to promote inclusive and innovative teaching, curriculum, and faculty development. Additionally, she has supported faculty and inclusive excellence through previous roles at Howard University and Bunker Hill Community College. Ijeoma holds an MA in Learning, Design & Technology from Georgetown University as well as an AB from Brown University. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in design at NC State University.

Ijeoma joined CU in August, and we’re excited to have her! 💚

02/10/2026

There are just two days left to complete our community survey! Take the time to reflect on our mission, vision, and values. Your voice, together with what we’ve learned through community conversations, will help inform the Board of Trustees as it considers CU’s future direction. 🧭

Take the survey here: https://forms.gle/2Rd7sUbGit39MXif6 📋

Thank you for helping shape CU’s future!

01/10/2026

For over 36 million Americans, Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) provides a pathway back to higher education that recognizes their diverse experiences. But what can CPL look like for justice-impacted learners? And how might colleges recognize and award credit for the learning that takes place in nontraditional settings, whether through formal training or work assignments in prison?

With support from the Ichigo Foundation, College Unbound has been exploring these important questions in partnership with Ithaka S+R.

This time next week, we'll be sharing a virtual space with partners, collaborators, and members of our CU community for "From Experience to Credit: Learning and Opportunity Within and Beyond Incarceration".

This collaborative webinar will highlight findings from student and faculty interviews, preview new approaches for awarding CPL to justice-impacted students, and showcase achievements of current and former students at College Unbound.

Full details, including how to register, have been shared via email. Let's dive into this work together next week.

29/09/2026

College Unbound has some new faces for the 2026-2027 academic year, and we’re excited to welcome our new Regional Director of Mid-Atlantic, Virgil Sheppard! 🎉

As a Regional Director, Virgil will be responsible for increasing the footprint of College Unbound in the Mid-Atlantic Region and supporting the development of a regional operational model that will inform expansion across the college. Additionally, Virgil will bring his passion, experience, strategic thinking, and desire to make the world a better place to the CU community.

Virgil previously served as President/CEO of Hope Partnership for Education in Philadelphia, where he executed a mission to provide a high-quality values-based education that supports and challenges students from adolescence to adulthood. Before that, he was the Senior National School Partnerships Director for City Year, where he developed a partnership strategy that maximized student and school outcomes. We’re honored to have Virgil bring the insights he gained from these experiences to help CU advance its mission to support adult learners.

Virgil officially started his role in July, and we’re honored to welcome him! 💚

25/09/2026

Over the past five years, College Unbound has experienced extraordinary growth and transformation that has strengthened our institution, expanded opportunities for adult learners, deepened our commitment to equity, and continued to re-imagine what higher education can be.

We are excited to share our reflections on these accomplishments and collective work that has shaped CU in Celebrating Our Journey: Strategic Plan Highlights from the Past Five Years. 📖🎊

Read the highlights here:https://collegeunbound.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Strategic-Plan-2022-2027-Highlights.pdf

Now we invite you to shape our next chapter. Please take a brief community survey, reflecting on our mission, vision, and values. Your voice, together with what we’ve learned through community conversations, will help inform the Board of Trustees as it considers CU’s future direction.

Take the survey here: https://forms.gle/2Rd7sUbGit39MXif6 📋

Please share your thoughts by Sunday, October 4, 2026. Thank you!

22/09/2026

Did you know that College Unbound started out as an idea at Big Picture Learning, an organization established in 1995 to develop a student-centered learning model? The model envisions students spending time in their communities under the tutelage of their mentors, and then students are assessed on exhibitions of learning and demonstration of achievement. This model reshapes learning as something connected to students’ own interests, and makes it that much more meaningful. 📖🏙️

This model was initially realized at The Met, Big Picture’s first school, where College Unbound board member Andrew Frishman mentored several students from 2002-2006, and where CU’s Providence classes still meet today, due to the shared commitment to student-driven real-world learning.

Join Andrew as he reconnects with students he mentored at The Met High School in Providence, Rhode Island 20 years after they graduated, including CU alum Natasha Luigui, in the new podcast “The Advisory: Class of 2006.” Listen to the first episode and learn from the graduates how The Met’s student-centered and Andrew’s mentorship shaped their lives: https://www.classof2006.org/episode1 🎙️

21/09/2026

We’re so excited about our partnership with Google for Education and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) to help educators and paraprofessionals access AI learning in a flexible manner! 🧑‍💻

For all educators who are earning their bachelor’s degrees at CU, this is a great opportunity to earn experiential credits! 🎓

Learn more about this partnership on our website: https://collegeunbound.edu/college-unbound-partners-with-google-to-expand-access-to-ai-learning-for-educators/

18/09/2026

Happening tomorrow, September 19: Google AI Educator Series (GES) Badge-a-thon: Day of AI Learning!

Full details on this fast-paced, drop-in learning festival (and how to register) below.

HUGE NEWS: You can now turn your Google AI Educator Series badges into college and continuing education credits! 🤯

We’ve partnered with College Unbound, IDEA, ISTE, and Dominican University to help K12 and Higher Ed educators earn credits towards future development through flexible, ISTE-aligned sessions that are snackable and stackable.

Learn more ➡️ https://goo.gle/4AlCeUs
Sign up for the Google AI Educator Series ➡️ goo.gle/GES-15

17/09/2026

The United States Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787 by delegates to the constitutional convention. In doing so, the delegates established the national government of the United States and its fundamental laws. They also established the three branches of government as a system of checks and balances with the goal of ensuring that no single branch would have too much power. Today, many of us are questioning whether that system is effective in ensuring an appropriate “balance of power.”

In 1956, President Eisenhower signed into law Constitution Week, which runs September 17-23, to commemorate the ratification of the Constitution. In 2004, the federal government designated September 17 as Constitution and Citizenship Day. The federal government now requires any educational institution that receives federal funding to make information and education about the U.S. Constitution available to its students.

As I sit with the task of providing information to the CU community about Constitution Day, I feel compelled to question, perhaps even interrogate, how the Constitution came into being, for whom it was designed, what was and was not included in it, who is and is not protected by the Constitution, what do we do when some constitutional provisions are not upheld, and most importantly, what is our individual and collective responsibility for the preservation of democracy.

Despite the protections outlined in the Constitution, we, as a nation, struggle with the provision of justice for all and the blessings of freedom for the many. We continue to struggle to form “a more perfect Union.”

What can you do to contribute toward a more perfect Union?
• Understand what the Constitution is and isn’t.
• Interrogate the history that you have been told.
• Create change within your circle of influence.
• Hold elected officials accountable for the preservation of democracy.

Click on the links below to access the resources:
• Get a Free Copy of the Constitution:https://www.aclu-in.org/app/uploads/2017/05/PocketConstitution.pdf
• Learn About What’s Not in the Constitution: https://time.com/4433907/constitution-khizr-khan/
• Read A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn: https://www.howardzinn.org/collection/peoples-history/
• Learn About the Engagement of Indigenous People in Debates about the Constitution: https://columbialawreview.org/content/we-the-native-people-how-indigenous-peoples-debated-the-u-s-constitution/
• Understand why Democracy Matters: http://freedomhouse.org/article/what-democracy-and-why-does-defending-it-matter

11/09/2026

We’re proud of CU student Jasmine Alves, who was just named a 2026-2027 Imagining America/Joy of Giving Something Fellow. 👩🏾‍🎨

The IA / JGS Fellows are a group of eight students chosen from IA Member campuses, chosen for their creative use of art to uplift diverse stories, create connection, and build community.

Jasmine will receive a $2,000 scholarship and financial support for a community project; have the opportunity to attend the IA National Gathering in Davis, California next month; participate in regular virtual learning exchanges; and connect to a national network of scholars, artists, and community organizers.

Learn more about the IA / JGS program and this year’s honorees at: https://imaginingamerica.org/2026-2027-imagining-america-joy-of-giving-something-jgs-fellows/

Congratulations, Jasmine! We’re excited to see what you’ll do for your community. 👏