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Luther
College > Sociology > Careers
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careers
May 2007 - ALUMNI
He glances at her outfit—a red T-shirt and brown pants, with a water bottle and a multi-colored bag strewn across her shoulder—and clicks away for a bit before pausing to wonder aloud about the bag and bottle. Does she want to set them aside? “No,” Erickson replies, without hesitation. “These are very Bethel.” And she is exactly right. Just like her accessories, Erickson exudes not an ounce of pretense, but, instead, the friendly, free-spirit vibe you might expect of someone whose stated goal is to pursue “a life of simplicity, sustainability, and spirituality.” At age 22, just a few months removed from her studies at Luther, she is well on her way. A magna cum laude graduate with majors in social work and sociology, Erickson spent the last semester of her senior year interning at Woodlawn East Community and Neighbors (WECAN), a social-service agency on the south side of Chicago. Her responsibilities included working with ex-offenders to help them find jobs and secure affordable housing; researching grants for rehabbing old buildings in an environmentally friendly manner; and reclaiming vacant lots to use for community gardens—a project informed by her senior paper, “Assessing Community Food Security from the Perspective of Food Insecure Individuals.” “It was a learning experience, very much trial by fire,” says the Illinois native of the internship. “It was my first time being a minority, and I learned that even though I was uncomfortable in the community at first, I could find ways to relate to people who differed from me with regard to race or income.” Erickson returned to the Windy City after graduation, spending the summer with Jesus People USA, an intentional Christian community of about 500 people living together on Chicago’s north side. “It’s an interesting system for most people,” observes Erickson, whose job entailed serving as a case manager at a homeless shelter for families. “Everything is shared, so no one person has any needs—I drew no paycheck but lived for free and had all my meals provided for me.” In the fall Erickson moved to Delaware, where, now settled into a “wonderful little communal house complete with backyard garden, front porch with rocking chair, and a stereo system with more than 200 vinyl albums,” she is continuing her work with the homeless through the Lutheran Volunteer Corps. “I’m doing case management, street outreach, nutrition education, and housing assistance, with some gardening on the side,” she says of her work at the Samaritan Outreach, part of the nonprofit organization Ministry of Caring. It was at Luther, says Erickson, that she discovered the call to serve—though it didn’t happen immediately. The daughter of a Lutheran pastor (Steve Erickson ’73), she came to Luther to play volleyball, one of several sports in which she competed in high school. A solid contributor on the Norse’s front row for two years, she eventually realized that participating in varsity athletics wasn’t how she wanted to spend the remainder of her college career. “It wasn’t until my junior year, when I served on Student Senate, that I first started getting involved in organizations that really interested me and meeting people who had interests similar to mine,” says Erickson, whose diverse jobs on campus ranged from tutoring introductory classes in economics to working as a composter and recycler. “I really discovered myself at Luther.” Part of that discovery process involved more deeply exploring her faith—Erickson began reading the Bible, including passages about Jesus working with outcasts. “That struck a chord,” she recalls. “I thought, why can’t I live out that call in my own life?” And so she decided to do just that, choosing classes—like the sociology course “Nonviolent Social Action” and the J-term course “Religious and Economic Responses to the Paradox of Poverty in Brazil”—that helped her work toward her goal of service to others in need. In fact, two organizations that she helped found—Students Encouraging Economic Development through Solidarity (SEEDS) and Fair Trade Fest—had their roots in classes she took. “They started as ideas on paper, and I was not expecting them to see the light of day,” admits Erickson, also a member of the Environmental Concerns Group, a coordinator of Church Youth Fest, and a co-leader of the Student Diversity Action Coalition. “Bethel is an amazing student—intellectually and as an activist,” says Brett Johnson, assistant professor of sociology. “She worked in the poorest parts of Chicago in her internship at a social service agency. And she also helped found SEEDS—the economic justice group on campus—and Fair Trade Fest. Her example inspires and compels me to do more to improve the lives of the disadvantaged.” That’s Erickson’s goal as well. “I always expect to be serving God,” she says when asked what lies ahead. “But my work will be on the street, not behind a pulpit.” —article by Sara Friedl-Putnam, photo by Kyrl Henderson ’71; originally published in the Fall 2007 issue of the Luther Alumni Magazine
While most of her high-school friends were adjusting to college life, Sojka was packing her bags for an adventure of a different sort—10 months of service with an AmeriCorps team based far from her Fairfield, Iowa, home. Through the organization’s National Civilian Community Corps—a program devoted to community service—she headed south to provide help for a variety of projects, from mentoring middle-school students in Charleston, S.C., and constructing Habitat for Humanity homes in Ft. Myers, Fla., to creating trails in Carrollton, Ga., and destroying invasive plants in North Key Largo, Fla. “I really wanted to do something different before going to college,” says Sojka, who deferred admission to Luther for a year after her high school graduation so that she could complete the program. “It was a fantastic experience.” She is just as generous with superlatives when talking about her years at Luther. Long interested in attending a Lutheran college, Sojka enrolled at Luther because—hoping to eventually become a physician (like her grandfather and father before her)—she wanted to major in biology while still pursuing her passion for singing. And while she did participate fully in Luther’s choral program—singing, over the course of four years, with Pike Kor, Collegiate Chorale, Nordic Choir, and Collegium Musicum—she ultimately graduated magna cum laude with majors in sociology and women’s and gender studies. The turning point in her academic pursuits, says Sojka, was the “Introduction to Women’s Studies” class she took her sophomore year with Lea Pickard, assistant professor of anthropology and women’s studies. “It’s not that I didn’t like biology,” she explains of switching majors. “But when I began taking women’s studies classes, I became really passionate about them pretty quickly.” Her descriptions of those classes underscore her point. “Mind-blowing” is how Sojka describes the “Feminist Philosophy” class she took with Lissa Skitolsky, assistant professor of philosophy, while “Feminist Rhetorical Theories” with Kim Powell, professor of communication studies, was, she says, “absolutely amazing.” Sojka also gives the “God and Gender” class taught by Wanda Deifelt, associate professor of religion, very high marks. It was with Char Kunkel, associate professor of sociology, however, that she had the closest working relationship—in addition to taking “Sociology of Gender” and several other “very influential” classes with Kunkel, she conducted research with her on racial attitudes and actions, helping develop, send out, and analyze the results of a survey of Olmsted County, Minn., residents. Beyond using the data they gathered for her senior paper, “White Racial Progressives: Gender Effects on Racial Attitudes and Actions,” Sojka helped Kunkel present the study results at meetings of the Iowa Sociological Association, Midwest Sociological Society, and National Women’s Studies Association earlier this year—experiences she calls invaluable. “Carissa is an inspiration to work with,” says Kunkel. “She managed multiple projects at once; asked questions when needed; and made connections among academia, theory, data, and real life. She truly wants to make a difference in the world and sees academia as a way to do that.” Her desire to make a difference is what also drove Sojka’s involvement in a range of social-justice organizations and efforts on campus. A leader of the Luther College Feminists her junior and senior years, she also co-chaired PRIDE (People for Rights, Inclusion, and Diversity of Expression) as a senior; performed in, directed, and raised funds for the Vagina Monologues (a production staged annually on campus in an effort to end violence against women); served on Student Senate and as a peer mentor; and held jobs as the Peace and Justice House coordinator and the women’s and gender studies student coordinator. In the fall of her senior year, she also assisted Martin Klammer—professor of English and one of her instructors on the “Women’s Stories, Women’s Lives” J-term trip she took to South Africa—on a book he is writing on Blanche La Guma, a longtime anti-apartheid activist. As one might expect, Sojka hasn’t slowed down since leaving campus. After spending previous summers volunteering at a women’s shelter and working at a camp for homeless children, this summer she joined 19 other interns in Mobile, Ala., to study neighborhood poverty and its impact on adolescent behavior through a University of Alabama–Birmingham School of Public Health project. Upon completion of the internship in early August, she moved much farther north to begin graduate work in sociology (more specifically, gender and sexuality from a queer-theory perspective) at the State University of New York–Albany. Five to six years of studies await her, but Sojka, who is interested in a career in academia, already has a pretty good idea where she’ll land after she completes her doctorate. “I hope to teach and conduct research at a small liberal arts college like Luther,” she says. “I loved eating dinner with my professors and babysitting for their kids—and that’s exactly the kind of experience I look forward to having as a professor, too.” —article by Sara Friedl-Putnam, photo by Kyrl Henderson ’71; originally published in the Fall 2007 issue of the Luther Alumni Magazine
One summer a survey was sent to all Luther Sociology grads. Here is what a few of them are doing:
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With the morning light casting just the right glow on campus, photographer Kyrl Henderson ’71 pulls out his camera and prepares to begin the scheduled shoot of his subject, Bethel Erickson. 
Carissa Sojka has never been afraid to follow her own path.