Dr. Alvin J. Sokolow grew up on the West Side of Chicago, immersed in discussions of big city politics. Using his undergraduate journalism training, and the realization that small communities allowed for fuller analysis, Sokolow engaged in extensive fieldwork interviews and became an expert in small community politics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. University of California, Davis hired Dr. Sokolow in 1965 to teach in both the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Political Science Department, positions he held for twenty-seven years. In 1989, he joined the Agricultural Issues Center in the College of Agriculture to direct an evaluation of the 1965 Williamson Act. Strongly driven by a desire to get off of campus and engage with research on the ground, Dr. Sokolow made the unusual move from Professor in the Political Science Department to Cooperative Extension Specialist in the College of Agriculture in 1992, where he taught, wrote, conducted field research, and worked in rural communities in the area until his retirement in 2004. Interview topics include: 1965 Williamson Act; UC Davis, 1960s-2000s; small community politics; field research; career mobility; cooperative extension; UC Davis College of Agriculture; Proposition 13; farmland protection policy.