My name is Dr. Thomas Jefferson (“Tom”) Hoban IV.  I have been a Professor of Sociology and Food Science for over 20 years.  Also been a musician and social activist for over 40 years. With all this education and experience I am here to entertain, educate, empower and engage you so that we can take back control of our lives and country. My goal is to help the world become a better place. Subscribe to my BLOG if you and your friends want to get and stay “Hip, Happy, High, and Healthy.”

My professional and personal passion is playing the music that I grew up with. One of my BLOGs here explains the HipHappy jams that I have created and would love to share with others. Also I am using music to help build creative communities. Happily I now live in the Paris of the Piedmont – Carrboro, NC – which is a “twin-town” with Chapel Hill.

I am a very progressive libertarian who is aiming to serve as a guiding light for young people. I have spent the last three years writing a popular BLOG on MySpace that is not that easily accessible to others. So I am going to start writing all my new stuff here and import many of the best from the past. I hope that you will form a community with me and we all learn together.

I also created a peer-reviewed website about the positive lessons and legacy of the sixties hippie counterculture. that you should visit called HipHappy.Com I modified Dr. Tim Leary’s mantra of “Turn on, Tune in, Drop out!!” To Get High, Hip and Happy.” That is why you are here. There are no accidents. As the Buddha explained: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

I am, in fact, a full professor of Sociology and Food Science at North Carolina State University. I have been there for over two decades and recently had a significant conflict with administration. You can read more about this whole dust-up from the NCSU student paper; and from our local paper The Independent. As far as the students were concerned, I was able to win their hearts and minds, as noted in the Cover Story from the NCSU Technician on the first day back in Spring semester of 2007. Another story reports on how my students designed and carried out a “Free Hugs Campaign” right before exams. In fact, here are all articles about me from The Technician.

For my first 15 years I had a different job description. I did research and training programs outside the university to help the agricultural community in my state and nationwide. During that time I became an expert on how consumers, food companies, and leaders were reacting to the new crops developed through biotechnology – which have now come to be called “Genetically modified organisms” or GMOs.

You can read about my professional career at NCSU prior to about 2002 at my out-of-date university website. There are a lot of articles that I wrote about agriculture, environment and biotechnology. You can also find my academic vita there. I should state that most of what I say in this BLOG is unlikely to reflect the views of NCSU administrators. They have learned to fully support my freedom of speech as a tenured full professor!!

About that time (2002) I also became reactivated as a an agent of widespread social change. This was great timing as I was leaving the sinking biotech ship that ran aground early in the Bush regime. I also had moved on to my study of the sixties counterculture as noted above and began teaching through the Internet. So please subscribe to my BLOG and tell all your friends!!

Speaking of friends, I created the following collage as a tribute to some of the modern prophets that I will honor through my writings.  I also channel their music (can you believe how eclectic this grouping is) and/or teachings. I find that they are always around me for insight and inspiration. Can you identify them all? For answers see the legend below …

• Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash
• Dr. Timothy (“Tim”) Leary
• Peter Tosh (Co-founder of Wailers)
• Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and John Lennon
• Robert Nesta (“Bob”) Marley
  
• George Harrison (Beatles)
• Joseph Hill (Culture)
• Ron McKernan (“Pig Pen”) and Janis Joplin
• Allan Ginsberg I-2-I with Jerry Garcia