Name William Smaldone | ||
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Books Rudolf Hilferding, Confronting Hitler, European Socialism: A Concis | ||
William "Bill" Smaldone (born 1958) is a professor of European history at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, United States.
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Education and career
Bill Smaldone received his Bachelor of Science (1980) and Master of Arts (1983) degrees from the State University of New York at Brockport.
He received his Ph.D. in Modern European History from Binghamton University. From 1989-1991, following the completion of his Ph.D., Smaldone took up an academic post as a visiting professor at Rampo College in New Jersey. In 1991, he moved to Salem, Oregon and joined the history department faculty at Willamette University.
Public service
In the mid-1990s, he initially became active in Oregon's local politics as a member of the Socialist Party of Oregon and in 1998 was elected to the Salem City Council where he served on the Budget Committee and numerous commissions. In 2001, Smaldone served as Council President until his re-election bid loss to Jim Randell in 2002. Smaldone attributes the defeat to old-fashioned "red-baiting" tactics reminiscent of Cold War America by stating, "Jim Randall and his allies knew that anti-socialist rhetoric still resonated with a large part of the populace. Using that theme, they succeeded in mobilizing their supporters more effectively than we did ours."