We invite you to learn a little about the people in our community in our new, occasional series “Meet a Neighbor.” In each of these posts, we profile someone who lives or works in Amherst by sharing their responses to our 20-ish questions, both serious and fun. This week: meet Carlie Tartakov.

Carlie Tartakov first moved to Amherst in 1968 from San Francisco, California. She raised her children while teaching in the public schools for 23 years. She left Amherst in 1985 for Ames, Iowa where she taught Multicultural/International Education at Iowa State University for another 20 years and directed the University’s US Studies Dialogue on Diversity Program. She earned her Ph.D. while teaching at Iowa State, as well. She then retired a second time and returned to Amherst in 2009, where she has been a very active citizen.

Carlie has received numerous awards for her contributions to equity in education and in the university and the wider community, including the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women’s Commonwealth Heroines honor and the Jean Haggerty Award for Community Service in Amherst.

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Full Name?

Carlie Collins Tartakov

Nickname?

Don’t have one

Years living or working in Amherst?

35 years. Came here first in 1968.

Job/What keeps you busy most days?

Planning Social Justice events and activities for non-profit organizations

Hobbies?

Tending my house plants

Book you’d recommend to a friend?

Caste-The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson

Last show or movie you streamed?

The Zone of Interest

Five things you wouldn’t want to live without?

My life partner/husband, my children and grands, good neighbors, friends, a dishwasher!

Top of your bucket list?

Downsizing

Life-changing experience?

Living in India and Traveling to 8 African Countries

First job?

Worked in a children’s library in a lab school throughout my college years

A hidden talent or little-known fact about you?

I was born prematurely, over two and a half months early: “A miracle baby” in 1939.

Dumbest thing you ever did?

As a kid, I jumped from one roof top to another (Yes, there was a gap).

One trend you’d like to see return?

Letter writing

If you could have dinner with any 3 people, alive or dead, who would you invite?

My mom, my grandmother and my great-grandmother 

Best advice you ever got?

Become a teacher 

Most used emoji?

heart shaped

Favorite place to get a bite?

Mexcalito

3 favorite foods?

Indian, Vietnamese, Italian

What gives you the creeps?

Cockroaches

Who do you most admire?

People who sacrifice their own self interests for others. 

Are you sunrise, daylight, twilight, or night?

Daylight

What would you like to be known/remembered for?

Being a voice for positive change

Which song can you listen to all day long?

Respect by Aretha Franklin

What was your favorite game to play as a child?

Jump rope (double dutch), jacks, horsehoes, softball