Cathy Davidson: Education for the Gig Economy

For years, Cathy N. Davidson has been writing and thinking about how we learn in the contemporary world. The idea of education as a public good was a pillar of the American democratic experiment, peaking with the growth of the great state universities system after WWII. Since then, that vision has been in decline. Davidson, director of the Futures Initiative at CUNY, envisions a bold new concept for higher education—one in which creativity, collaboration, innovation, and improvisational adaptability replace traditional majors and minors as building blocks for success in the “gig economy.”