Regional History Project Oral Histories

On campus and in the Santa Cruz community, Michael [Mike] Rotkin has for several decades been a widely recognized public figure. He has served as a community organizer, a multi-term mayor and city councilmember, a board member for the Santa Cruz County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a local and statewide leader in the UC-AFT (the union representing lecturers and librarians in the UC system), and a teacher and field study coordinator in UCSC’s Department of Community Studies.  This oral history focuses on Rotkin’s experiences in community studies and his reflections on the evolution of that undergraduate major from its inception in 1969 to its suspension in 2010.