Carlie and Gary Tartakov Honored For Service To The Community. Update: Zoom Link Added

Source: Amherst Media

Amherst Media will present the Jean Haggerty Award for Community Service to Drs. Carlie and Gary Tartakov at their 46th Annual Meeting, to be held remotely on Tuesday, December 7, 2021, at 7:00 p.m.

The meeting can be joined using the Zoom link that follows.

Amherst Media’s 46th Annual Meeting
Time: Dec 7, 2021 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83598190178

The Tartakovs are recognized as trailblazers in so many ways, as their years of knowledge and activism produced so many important institutions and organizations in the two places they have called home; Amherst, and Ames, Iowa. “So many people see them as a ‘dynamic duo,’ a couple that has for years worked together on so many causes important to the communities in which they have lived,” said Artie McCullom, the acting president of the Amherst Media Board of Directors.

Residents of Amherst since 1968, the Tartakovs returned permanently after retirement in 2009 from Ames, Iowa. Gary Tartakov, Professor Emeritus of Art and Design, and Carlie Tartakov, Emerita Professor in Curriculum and Instruction, taught at Iowa State University for over 20 years but never gave up their home in Amherst. Following retirement, the Tartakovs returned to activism and community service here, getting involved in town government and organizations dedicated to social justice.
 

Carlie Tartakov taught in the elementary schools of Amherst and California for a total of 23 years including Wildwood Elementary School, and while at Iowa State University she received the Virgil Lagomarcino Award for distinguished achievement in the field of education implementing the school’s Dialogues on Diversity program. She was inducted into the Iowa African American Hall of Fame in 2007. 

Two scholarships are named in their honor at Iowa State University, the Design Scholarship for Study Abroad, and the Promoting Equity in Education Scholarship. In the 1990s, Carlie and Gary helped to start the African American Studies Program at Iowa State, and Gary served as the Interim Director from 2001 to 2003. 

Shortly after they resettled in Amherst they joined the campaign “Justice for Charles” to free a wrongly convicted young man of murder. 

For years Carlie has taught courses at the Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership supporting the next generation of leaders. Before leaving for Ames, Iowa, Carlie was one of the founders of the 50-year-old program, A Better Chance, a national residential high school program that prepares academically talented young people of color from educationally underserved school districts for college and future leadership roles. Currently, Carlie helps to produce the award-winning segment, “Black in the Valley,” which broadcasts twice a month during the Bill Newman Show on WHMP. Along with her co-host Rev. Dr. Jacquelyn Smith-Crooks, Carlie has created multiple opportunities for people in the Valley to better understand issues impacting the African American communities in the Valley. Carlie’s current board experiences include the Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee, the Roger Wallace Excellence in Teaching Award Foundation, and Amherst Neighbors. 

Dr. Gary Tartakov is an historian of India’s Dalit art, connecting artistic expression to struggles for dignity and human rights in India. His book, Dalit Art and Visual Imagery (2013) is an examination of the Dalit’s modern response to caste oppression through the use of visual imagery, as Dalits — the people until recently known as “untouchables” — have used public sculpture and a variety of pictorial forms in their struggle for social and economic justice. 

Growing up with the Civil Rights and then the anti-Viet Nam war movements, Gary and Carlie joined with the late Dr. Randolph Bromery, former chancellor of UMASS-Amherst, and others to bring about the first chapter of the NAACP. In his retirement, Gary served as a Town Meeting member, and over the years has contributed editorials and several notable letters to the editor on race, education, and town priorities. 

Most recently Carlie and Gary joined others in the community in the creation of an ad-hoc committee to help put on display the marble Civil War plaques housed temporarily at the Bangs Center. The Tartakovs raised three children in Amherst and are blessed with 6 grandchildren between them. 

Created in 2009, the Amherst Media Annual Award honors the late Jean Haggerty, a beloved producer and board member dedicated to the betterment of the community and who advocated for those without a voice and in need. Each year, the Board of Directors recognizes an individual or organization that believes in and demonstrates the importance of community engagement to obtain social change. Like Jean Haggerty, the Tartakovs demonstrate a sense of community and service to others in all that they do together.