I was born in Newark, NJ, graduated from St. Lawrence University, and received my Ph.D. from Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy which is part of the University at Albany, the State University of New York. I have been married to Joan Schram since 1973. Our two sons are Ryan, a professor of anthropology at the University of Sydney, and Jack, a filmmaker who lives in New York City. Over the years, we have lived in the Adirondacks of Northern New York, Madison, Wisconsin, the Twin Cities of Minnesota, Hawaii Kai on Oahu, and in Haverford, Pennsylvania, where from 1997 until 2013 I taught social theory and policy in the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College. I now teach political science and public policy at Hunter College in New York City, where my wife Joan and I reside.