William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (retired), visited the University of Oregon for a public lecture on organizing for social justice during troubling times in democracy. Dr. Ayers is well known for his anti-war activism in the 1960’s as well as work in education reform and curriculum studies.
Dr. Ayers is the founder of both the Small Schools Workshop and the Center for Youth and Society, and has taught courses in interpretive and qualitative research, urban school change, and teaching and the modern predicament. A graduate of the University of Michigan, the Bank Street College of Education, Bennington College, and Teachers College, Columbia University, Ayers has written extensively about social justice, democracy and education, the cultural contexts of schooling, and teaching as an essentially intellectual, ethical, and political enterprise. He is currently the vice-president of the curriculum studies division of the American Educational Research Association. He lives in Chicago, IL with his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, and is the father of three grown boys.