Nationally renowned education leader Cathy N. Davidson will share powerful insights on how faculty can lead the charge in driving student success as a featured guest in University of the Pacific’s Presidential Speaker Series.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place Sept. 18 at 7 p.m. in Faye Spanos Concert Hall on Pacific’s Stockton Campus. Learn more about the event.

Davidson’s books, “The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux” and “The New College Classroom,” are widely acclaimed for their strategies to modernize teaching and help students become more active and creative learners.

Davidson is visiting Pacific at the invitation of President Christopher Callahan, who brought the higher education thought leader to Arizona State University when he served as dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“Cathy Davidson has had a huge influence on my thinking about the future of higher education,” the president said. “We are honored to host Dr. Davidson here at Pacific and look forward not only to the featured speaking event but also small workshops with our outstanding faculty.”

Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Gretchen Edwalds-Gilbert, who will interview the author at the keynote event, worked with the Academic Council to design faculty workshops and engagements during the visit.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for our faculty to work directly with Dr. Davidson and explore the research-driven strategies she champions,” she said. “Our faculty are always working to create inclusive, engaging learning environments, and I’m confident this visit will inspire conversations and innovations that benefit our students.”

Davidson currently serves as senior advisor on transformation to the chancellor of the City University of New York, a role in which she works with 25 college campuses serving more than 275,000 students.

She has also taught at a range of institutions—from community colleges to the Ivy League—and spent 25 years at Duke University, where she held two distinguished professorships and became the nation’s first vice provost for interdisciplinary studies.

Her work has earned numerous accolades, including from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and others. She was awarded the Ernest L. Boyer Award in 2016 for her contributions to higher education, the Educator of the Year Award in 2012 from the World Technology Network and the Arts and Sciences Advocacy Award from the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences in 2021.

She also is a two-time recipient of the Frederic W. Ness Book Prize from the American Association of Colleges and Universities. Davidson is the only person to win more than once since the award was first presented more than 40 years ago.

In 2011, President Barack Obama appointed her to the National Council on Humanities and she has served as keynote speaker twice for the Nobel Prize Committee’s Forum on the Future of Learning.

The Pacific Presidential Speaker Series began in 2024 to bring the nation’s top thought leaders to campus to speak on some of the most critical issues facing society today.

In October, Mónica Guzmán, author of “I Never Thought of it That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times,” shared thought-provoking insights on how to have difficult conversations on divisive issues.

Judy Woodruff, a long-time national correspondent for PBS NewsHour, joined Pacific in January to speak about the changing media landscape, the state of politics and her in-depth reporting on the division in America.

Watch recordings of previous guest speakers.