Dorie Klein
Albany, California

email: doriekcriminologist@yahoo.com

It seems to me it’s been a long time since our 40th reunion, since being 68 definitely feels older than 58. Like so many of us, I’ve had to go through losing parents and other family elders, and, in my case, a serious health scare and becoming single again. But I feel lucky to be in good shape and enjoying myself: I live pretty much as I did a decade ago, though I am thinking about stopping my consulting work so as to have more time for other things. My small family and a few old friends still live nearby. I've continued to travel to different parts of the world, as well as New York a couple of times a year. I have a sled dog, my fourth in 45 years, and we spend a lot of time on the Sonoma Coast.

I will always remember our years at Hunter with joy. We went through the early-to-mid 1960s (in the then-center of the world, New York!) and our own early-to-mid teens at the same time — how great was that! We couldn’t have timed it more perfectly.

And although there was no organized feminism at that moment, Hunter was a pretty feminist place to be, for which I will always be grateful. It gave me the confidence to do what I wanted and say what I thought, while so many girls elsewhere had been taught to hold back or stay quiet. And, with a few other young women, I got to start the field of “feminist criminology” which I now know will outlive me.

I hope that Hunter will reach out more to bright city kids who haven’t had the advantages of a middle-class home, admitting them to the school and making sure they can succeed there. In an era of stark inequality among children, it is past time to acknowledge the school’s historic shortcomings and adapt it to the present need. (I’m still a child of the sixties!)