I was a bit player in A3M (class of 67), but it was a transforming event for me. I was in grad school in early childhood education at Stanford at the time. Also the summer of 69, I and Halima Van Tuyl (with other helpers) started a free coop nursery school for female grad students who had children. It was meant to stimulate demand for child care at Stanford, which it did, and resulted in the Stanford sponsored child care program that I think lives today. After a one year away in Minneapolis, I returned with my then husband who started law school there. I worked with many others on a group pushing for child care as part of women’s liberation. We started Child Care Now, which Jim Shoch was a part of too. Again, we used the organizing tactic of creating models to provide concrete visions of what could be. We started a day care center on a shoestring and ended up with the city providing $200,000 of revenue sharing funds for the first time to start toddler level child care programs. I ran for Palo Alto city council on the “radical slate” in 1973, with the main themes being: anti-big development, peace in Vietnam, women’s rights and working class power (Venceremos). I guess we won half of those.

I’ve been in Minneapolis ever since doing a variety of things from “revolutionary” to “progressive”. Now I am at the Center for Victims of Torture which played a good role in the national Campaign to Ban Torture, which George Hunsinger (67) was also a leader of. One current project I find very gratifying is one where we are training Cambodian clinicians in Phnom Penh to help folks recovering from traumatic violence, both old and new. I am on my 10th trip there. Elia (67) and Halima Van Tuyl and I had dinner together in Phnom Penh last July.

Personal information: Married to Phil Deering 22 formal years. Two children, Louis (26) and Jesse (32). Formerly married to Jerod Peterson (Stanford Law School, Class of 73).