Michael Haedicke

Education: Ph.D. and M.A., University of California, San Diego; B.A. (Sociology), Kalamazoo College

Michael Haedicke earned his B.A. from Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan and completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego. He began his teaching career at Drake University, a midsized private institution in Des Moines, Iowa, before joining the faculty at UMaine in 2020.

As a sociologist, Michael has studied the strategies of cooperative businesses in the organic foods marketplace, the work of environmental advocates in coastal Louisiana, and the experiences of small-scale farmers impacted by PFAS contamination in Maine. He has offered courses in food systems and social change, social inequalities and sociological theory, social movements and policing, and environmental sociology to students at UMaine. The thread that connects his diverse work is an enduring interest in how ordinary people challenge dominant social norms and create communities around alternative values and visions of the future, often in difficult social circumstances.

Michael’s writing has appeared in academic journals and edited volumes, as well as in local and national news and opinion sources. He is also the author of the book Organizing Organic: Conflict and Compromise in an Emerging Market (Stanford University Press, 2016). Michael is active in several professional associations, including as the President of the Midwest Sociological Society (2026-2027) and as the Secretary of the Environmental Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (2024-2027).

 

I have the great honor of serving as the inaugural Dr. Bernard S. Lown Honors College Professor (2025-2027). Through my work with the Honors College, I have become part of a supportive community of students and faculty who are devoted to rigorous thinking, the pursuit of insight, and meaningful social engagement. Honors College teaching can be intense, but it nourishes both mind and soul in profound ways. I feel privileged to share in the learning journeys of Honors College students and to contribute to the life of this vibrant community.