Mike Rotkin
Encyclopedia
Mike Rotkin is a former lecturer in community studies
at the University of California, Santa Cruz
, long-term city council member and the ex-mayor of Santa Cruz, California
(mayor as of November 2009, the mayoral post of Santa Cruz passing yearly to a councilmember selected by a majority of other councilmembers). A former motorcycle mechanic with a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness
, he first ran for city council on a protest campaign as a "socialist-feminist" in 1979, taking first place among voters at a time when Santa Cruz was more Republican than Democrat. He has taught Marxist theory at UC Santa Cruz for over 38 years, while serving six terms as city councilman, including four terms as mayor, longer than anyone in the city's history. During his more than 20 years in city government, city spending on social services and programs increased from $80,000 a year in 1979 to $1.5 million by 1990. While he has also served as president of the UCSC teachers' union, he has recently been criticized by some as taking conservative positions on various issues affecting the economic development of the city, including labor issues.
Community studies
Community studies is an academic field drawing on both sociology and anthropology and the social research methods of ethnography and participant observation in the study of community. In academic settings around the world, community studies is variously a sub-discipline of anthropology or...
at the University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
, long-term city council member and the ex-mayor of Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...
(mayor as of November 2009, the mayoral post of Santa Cruz passing yearly to a councilmember selected by a majority of other councilmembers). A former motorcycle mechanic with a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness
History of Consciousness
The History of Consciousness program is an interdisciplinary graduate program in the humanities with links to the sciences, social sciences, and arts at the University of California at Santa Cruz....
, he first ran for city council on a protest campaign as a "socialist-feminist" in 1979, taking first place among voters at a time when Santa Cruz was more Republican than Democrat. He has taught Marxist theory at UC Santa Cruz for over 38 years, while serving six terms as city councilman, including four terms as mayor, longer than anyone in the city's history. During his more than 20 years in city government, city spending on social services and programs increased from $80,000 a year in 1979 to $1.5 million by 1990. While he has also served as president of the UCSC teachers' union, he has recently been criticized by some as taking conservative positions on various issues affecting the economic development of the city, including labor issues.