I recently have had the privilege of meeting a woman who attended Stanford the same year as I did, 1961. Which is also, of course, the year in which my new murder mystery novel is set. She is two years my senior, was a junior at the time, and we never met until now. She has enjoyed reading SINISTER SUGGESTIONS and realizing that, like myself, she had a general knowledge but not all of the specifics of what was occuring at that time in terms of racial injustice and sexual violence against women. Like me, she didn’t read the Stanford Daily regularly–both of us too busy and too centered on our own lives, both academically and socially to appreciate the top level national, local, and investigative reporting and searing OpEd pieces that the Daily offered. Although, she does recall the notorious reputation that the Full Moon Event had garnered around campus and remembers having no intention of attending an event that demeaned women in the first place (the campus “myth” that you were not a real woman until you had been kissed by a senior man under the full moon on that occasion), much less one that degenerated into sexual and physical violence against the women who did attend.
I learned that she left Stanford at the end of the year, just as did I, each for our own personal reasons. I did have to congratulate her, however, for returning to Stanford 16 years later to obtain her degree and go on to a stellar career in Fine Arts sales. There was no such redeeming return in my life–countered only, perhaps, by the fact that I did graduate from college after traipsing through four undergraduate schools and then settled down and obtained a Masters and PhD in psychology at the University of Illinois, going on to a 44 year career as a clinical psychologist.
Our new friendship has been very affirming that my “take” on social justice, or the lack thereof, at Stanford back in 1961 was shared by other women of the era. And, that in spite of detours in our academic journeys, that being accepted to Stanford in the Fifties and Sixties and even earlier as a woman and giving it the old college try, formed an important part of our adult character and left us with many memories–some painful, others quite wonderful, of our shared time on The Farm. Having made her acquaintance, it strikes me that other women of the era would enjoy SINISTER SUGGESTIONS as a link to their own college experiences at Stanford or elsewhere.
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The LOOK for the men on campus. Levi Jeans with rolled up cuffs, loafers, and an attitude for less than a latte now days.
The look for the women on campus. This author never was and never would be that thin! 
World politics at your fingertips if you weren’t busy trying to get a date (which would have been this author’s daily endeavor), trying out for Rally Club (my dormmates), or studying for your Chemistry exam (which should have been me!)
And the even scarier international news. The Russians STILL seem to be the problem! 
Stanford students were introduced to the classics with luminaries like Dame Judith Anderson coming to campus at bargain prices.
At the same time, students were encouraged to smoke with huge advertisements on almost every page of every issue of the Daily, including this very sexist series sponsored by Pall Mall. And, yes, this author smoked at the time.
And last, but not least, we have the new Dean of Women, who appears center stage in the novel with her sexist lectures on the role of women at Stanford. The very one who, in real life, sent this author a letter at the end of the year requiring me to get counseling if I was to return to Stanford the next fall (which I didn’t do). A novel excerpt taken from a Daily article on character Mattie Thorne’s reaction to the Dean’s speech to freshman women: 
Marietta and I were on the cusp, so to speak, graduating from high school in 1961. We entered puberty in 1955 along with a generation of kids who spent their formative years crouching in dirty hallways, sweaty fingers laced behind their well-scrubbed necks, waiting for the A-bomb. We graduated at the peak of the SAT scores. Our parents were afraid of Sputniks, and we were afraid of our parents. There were rumors about poodle skirts, but I never laid eyes on one. I felt out of kilter with my own generation. My mother insisted I wear sturdy brown oxfords instead of the saddle shoes and Capezios that graced the dainty feet of my peers. Of course, irradiating my toes under the shoe store fluoroscope negated the health benefit of good arch support. Actually, looking at the bare bones in my feet was the closest I ever got to obscenity. My political consciousness peaked at having two parakeets named “Ike” and a German shepherd with the same patriotic appellation. My family was not big on original thought.
There was a saying that went: “Nine out of ten California girls are beautiful and the tenth one goes to Stanford.” I went to Stanford. Now, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t break mirrors, but there were thousands of drop-dead gorgeous women in California, even in high school. I was tall and naturally blonde…well, almost. That brief stint in modeling school had served me well. I had outgrown my awkward pubescent years and could manage a graceful stride when I put my mind to it. Any shortfall I had in the looks department had been well compensated in the brain department. Those top grades paid off. Twenty-two of my classmates also applied to Stanford, but none of the others was admitted. The day my letter of acceptance came in the mail, I had more than a few envious friends. My ego was quickly deflated, however, when I arrived on campus, just another clueless freshman set loose in a seething mass of upperclassmen. I struggled through the maze of registration, jostled by the milling masses at Memorial Auditorium. I fretted as I watched the IBM cards, each printed with one class opening, disappear into the greedy hands of the students ahead of me in line. I breathed a sigh of relief when the precious card for Chemistry for Chem Majors fell into my possession. My relief was short-lived, however. After I collected the rest of my class cards, I realized that two required courses had been assigned to me on the same days at the same hour. I stared in dismay at the placards overhead that forbade any changes to the pre-assigned sections of either Freshman English or Western Civ. 
Dr. Karen Stephen aka Doc Flamingo 