diff --git a/nbexchange/models/__init__.py b/nbexchange/models/__init__.py
index cb7c059..c62b37a 100644
--- a/nbexchange/models/__init__.py
+++ b/nbexchange/models/__init__.py
@@ -5,9 +5,10 @@
     must be imported below the declaration for `Alembic`
     autogenerate to work.
 """
-import sqlalchemy.orm as orm
+# import sqlalchemy.orm as orm
+from sqlalchemy.orm import declarative_base
 
-Base = orm.declarative_base()
+Base = declarative_base()
 
 # E402 : module level import not at top of file
 # F401 : module imported but unused
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 4b2ddcc..38b2a0d 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -32,16 +32,14 @@ classifiers = [
 ]
 
 # pyjwt limited due to djangorestframework-jwt dependencies
-# sqlalchemy spec is the same as nbgrader 0.8.4
+# sqlalchemy spec is whatever nbgrader uses!
 dependencies = [
   "alembic>=1.6.5",
   "jupyterhub>=1.4.1",
-  # "nbgrader==0.8.2", # From pypi dated March 28th 2023
-  "nbgrader==0.8.4", # From pypi dated 2023-06-16
+  "nbgrader==0.8.3", # 0.8.4 requires sqlalchemy 2, which breaks Jupyterhub
   "psycopg2-binary>=2.8.6",
   "pyjwt<2",
   "sentry-sdk==1.14.0",
-  "sqlalchemy>=1.4,<3",
   "tornado==6.1",
   "tornado-prometheus==0.1.1",
 ]