Cathy N. Davidson | Distinguished scholar of the history of technology, appointed to the National Humanities Council by President Obama, leading innovator of new ideas and methods for learning and professional development in school, the workplace, and everyday life.

Senior Advisor on Transformation

Cathy N. Davidson has been appointed Senior Advisor on Transformation to the Chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY), the nation’s largest public urban university, with 25 campuses and nearly 500,000 students. Read more here.

The New College Classroom

The final installment in the “How We Know” Trilogy, The New College Classroom, co-authored with Dr. Christina Katopodis, is the “installation guide” that applies the big ideas of the earlier volumes. Combined with extensive research in active learning, radical pedagogy, and learning science, Davidson and Katopodis translate these ideas into ready-to-use strategies for instructors to incorporate into any course today.

“Bold, brilliant, and beautiful. Davidson and Katopodis challenge us to reimagine what happens in the classroom.”

—Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of Read Until You Understand and William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University

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In honor of the publication of The New Education, the author contributes to a scholarship fund created at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

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Cathy's Blog

Cathy Davidson introducing keynote speaker Sasha Costanza-Chock at HASTAC 2023. Photo credit: Margaret Rhee

Jun 13, 2023

20 Years Is a Long, Long Time (HASTAC2023 is a wrap!)

Dr. George Takei and Dr. Cathy N. Davidson, Graduate Center CUNY Commencement, June 2, 2023

Jun 07, 2023

Introducing Dr. George Takei

Sep 22, 2022

New College Classroom Visual Notes by Dr. Jojo Karlin

The New College Classroom

"In a book that is both inspirational and deeply practical, Davidson and Katopodis offer classroom instructors all the tools they need to transform traditional classrooms into learning environments that engage and empower twenty-first-century students. Grounded in cognitive science and classroom-tested examples from across the globe, The New College Classroom belongs in the hands of any educator—regardless of academic discipline—truly interested in changing students’ lives with effective teaching."

Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race

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The New Education (2022 Updated Paperback Edition)

"Davidson is one of the most thoughtful voices from within academia calling for a more student-centered university. The New Education is a welcome collection of stories detailing how professors, administrators and students are designing paths through higher education that are relevant to our changing culture and society... At her best, Davidson writes in the tradition of Du Bois and Dewey, a pragmatist tradition that puts inquiry first and sees learning through the potential of the full, complex human beings students can become."

The Washington Post

The New Education

"The New Education is an inspiring, well-researched, and compelling manifesto for a revolution in learning and teaching. It is a book for everyone who wants to understand why and how universities need to be reimagined for the 21st century—those who have been “educated” and those who aspire to be. It is the most important book I have read in many years."

Tony Wagner, author of The Global Achievement Gap and Creating Innovators

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Now You See It

“Starts where Malcolm Gladwell leaves off, showing how digital information will change our brains. We need this book.”

Daniel Levitin, author of the New York Times bestseller This Is Your Brain On Music »

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The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age

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MIT Press

Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory

"An unflinchingly fair analysis. Hard-edged and realistic. Closing...issues a bold challenge to 'business as usual."

New York Times Book Review

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Amazon

36 Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan

“Appealing...No one could have tried harder to fathom Japanese culture than Davidson. The result is a series of illuminations not unlike the sudden break in the clouds that finally lets her glimpse Mount Fuji from the window of a bullet train.”

Francine Prose, New York Times

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Amazon

Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America

"Drawing on recent work in social history, post-structuralist literary theory and feminist studies, (Davidson) argues persuasively that the genesis of American fiction was an integral part of a widespread crisis of authority in early modern America...A wonderful book."

The Nation

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Amazon

Structuring Equality: A Handbook for Student-Centered Learning and Teaching Practices

Cathy N. Davidson