The Untold Story of... Carla Sofka, Ph.D.

1. I went to Hell (Michigan) and back during the pandemic with my daughter while she was in graduate school at the University of Michigan. The gift shop in Hell sells postcards and before you mail it out, they light a match and singe the corner for "special effect." I desperately wanted to bring back enough rubber ducks wearing graduation caps that said "Damn U" from this gift shop for all of the wonderful people in ITS, but they only had one left.
2. I "turn into someone else" during living history events, representing someone in mourning during the mid-to-late 1800s. I've participated in Living History Day at Siena, portrayed Mrs. Jessie Hamilton (not that Hamilton family) at Albany Rural Cemetery, and participated in the reenactment of Lincoln's funeral in 2015 in Springfield, IL. Wearing a corset and having a 108 inch cage hoop in the bottom of a dress makes getting into a car quite interesting!
3. My father was a band and choir director for 35 years before he retired, and I am musically inclined in several ways. In addition to playing the clarinet, the xylophone in the marching band, the piano, and having learned to use my voice pretty well, I played the chimes (one arm = one note) in the bell tower of Altgeld Hall during my four years at the University of Illinois. My favorite memories include locking someone in the bell tower after my concert (he went up the stairs behind my back into the tower while I was playing, so I locked up the tower without knowing he was up there), getting chastised by campus police on Halloween for forgetting to tell them we were playing a concert at midnight, and earning money for the purchase of new bells by playing requests. Happy Birthday was the most commonly requested song, with the strangest request being a dare to play "Wipe Out" (which I did including "dead air" where the drum solo was supposed to be). To nurture my love of music now, I play clarinet and percussion in the Colonie Town Band.
4. During the summer of 2024, I visited an elephant sanctuary in Hazy View, South Africa and got a "trunk to tail" tour of a 17.5 ton elephant named Tembo. He knows 150 commands, and I was one of the visitors who got to give him commands. After asking Tembo to pick up a baseball cap that I dropped on the ground and give it to the trainer on his back, I got to reward him by putting elephant treats in the openings in his trunk - pretty amazing!
5. I have coined two words - one through my academic work (thanatechnology), a word that I made up when I wrote the first article credited with starting a field of study within thanatology about the use of technology to deal with death, loss, and grief; and one just for fun after an experience in a photo booth at a Council on Social Work Education conference (photobailing). You can find the first word cited in academic journals; the second is defined in the Urban Dictionary.
6. Since I'm not very comfortable with heights and I don't consider myself to be an adrenaline junkie, I find it fascinating that I love zip lining! There's something special about sailing through the air in beautiful places. My first experience was during a vacation in Kauai many years ago. The most recent experience was in South Africa last summer. I was offered the opportunity to bungee jump off the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia near Victoria Falls this past summer but politely declined.
7. Since I've lived in NY since December of 1992, many people are surprised to learn that I am a St. Louis Cardinals fan. I grew up in southern IL about an hour east of St. Louis, and when I was a kid, the Cardinals gave us free tickets to baseball games if we got straight As in school. This was a great motivator to do well, and since I attribute my academic success to the Cardinals, I will be a lifelong fan.
8. I have a lifetime pass to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. How do you get one of those you ask? I did volunteer work at the NYS Museum with students from Siena to help catalog artifacts from 9/11. On a trip related to this work, we stopped in Cooperstown at the Baseball Hall of Fame since the curator at the museum knew the curator there. During our visit to their archives, I got to see artifacts from my favorite Cardinals Hall of Famers - Lou Brock and Ozzie Smith. I mentioned that I had a Harry Caray (sports announcer for the Cubs) memorial beanie baby that was a giveaway during a game between the Cardinals and the Cubs. When I learned that they didn't have one, I donated mine to their collection and received the lifetime pass as a "thank you."
9. I am the mother of a former international professional Quidditch player! My daughter played Quidditch at Cornell and when she studied abroad in Iceland during her senior year, she joined the Icelandic team that practiced in Reykjavik. When Iceland's team planned to go to the Quidditch World Cup in Florence, Italy in 2018, they asked Gwyn to play. This provided me with a great reason to go to Italy, and the team made me their "team mom."
10. I serve on the Board of Trustees at Albany Rural Cemetery. I was recruited to serve as a result of taking my students on field trips to the cemetery since 1993 when I first moved to Albany and started teaching my death and dying course at the University at Albany in their MSW program. As chair of the development committee, I have helped to raise over $70K each year for the past three years in their annual appeal campaign to raise money for repaving the roads, paying the grounds crew, and other expenses that are not covered by the $5 that people paid in for "perpetual care" when the cemetery was first opened in 1844.

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