Globe-Trotting Sociologist with a Humanitarian Twist

By Bob Lindquist    Photos by Dick Shelton

In 1981, Michael Smith was teaching American soldiers and civilians in West Germany for the University of Maryland. His courses included undergraduate classes in sociology plus American government and political theory, Middle East politics, and Russian political theory.

In 1982, Smith jumped at the chance to teach in Adana, Turkey. Instead of flying to his new assignment, he decided driving through the then-communist countries of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria would be a great opportunity. Having his own car would give him the freedom to live off the military base, and get to know the Turkish people and their culture.

Smith has since developed a deep affinity for the country, its history and culture, and its people, and has built many close friendships. A two-week trip this summer for the wedding of the son of his Turkish “brother,” Mehmet, is only the latest of the Saint Anselm professor’s many return visits for work, pleasure, and research.

Smith taught in Europe with the University of Maryland and later Boston University for more than a decade, in West Germany, Turkey, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Italy. He was in West Germany in 1989 for the fall of the Berlin Wall.

“It was a wild and crazy time,” he recalls. The 1980s were also turbulent and dangerous years in Europe. Terrorist activities aimed at United States military personnel and civilians were at an all-time high and included the bombing of a discotheque popular with American soldiers in West Berlin, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, and the kidnapping of an American army general. With the University of Maryland headquartered in West Germany, Smith was never very far from these threats.

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