Sociology Department

Michael Traugot

Michael Traugot Adjunct Lecturer in Sociology Ph.D. Candidate, University of California, Davis Social Change, Social Movements, Sociology of the Environment   Michael Traugot has been involved in both academia and social change movements for many years. At Harvard in the mid-1960s, he became involved in the movement to stop the Vietnam War, co-chairing the Harvard chapter of Students for a Democratic Society in 1966. He graduated in 1967 with a BA in Social Relations, and in 1968 he headed for San Francisco to check out the emerging social and cultural movements there. Searching for community, he became a founding member of The Farm, an intentional community in Tennessee that has become famous over the years for its innovations and contributions in the fields of midwifery and home birth, soy-based vegetarian diet, grass roots disaster relief and social development projects, and to the peace and environmental movements. He went back to school in 1996, earning an MA in Sociology from Fisk University in Nashville, TN, an African American university where he was the only white student. In 2000, after living in the Farm community for 29 years, Michael moved back to California to pursue a PhD in Sociology at UC Davis. Michael has taught at Tennessee State University, Fisk University, Columbia State Community College (TN), UC Davis, and Sonoma State University. He is currently writing his doctoral dissertation on the introduction of genetically engineered crops into our environment and food supply, and the resistance to that.