S1E5: Professor William Taubman | The CIA and the Pulitzer Prize

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William C. Taubman is currently the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science at Amherst College.

The son of a New York Times journalist who learned the importance of working hard and thinking carefully as well as to accept challenges, but not possible ones.

In this episode we learn how Professor Taubman entered Harvard at only the age of 16. In his early career it was unclear if he might pursue journalism instead of academia. Even after he entered academia he almost ended up leaving the halls of learning for the CIA.

As an academic, he considered how he could combine his interest in not only teaching but in research and writing. He worked long and hard to find a way to write scholarship that would be accessible to general readers.

His biography of Nikita Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2004 and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography in 2003.

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S1E4: Chet Harding | No Laughing Matter

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Chet Harding is the co-founder and owner of Improv Asylum – a nationally-acclaimed improvisation and sketch comedy theater based in Boston as well as stand-up sister theater Laugh Boston and Asylum Gaming and E-Sports production house.

As well as acting, writing, directing and producing, Chet has developed Improv Asylum’s global corporate training program, and has worked with companies such as Google, Harvard Business School, Red Bull and Fidelity.

In this episode Chet talks about his youthful dream of becoming a professional athlete, but recognizing he had more talent for making people laugh.

From his early career in advertising to the famed Improv mecca Second City in Chicago, Chet eventually landed in Boston to plant roots in both family and in comedy.

And no, Chet was never a member of Amherst College’s Mr. Gad’s House of Improv.

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S1E3: Judge Renée Cardwell Hughes | Here comes the Judge

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Judge Renée Cardwell Hughes is the outgoing CEO of the American Red Cross for the Eastern Pennsylvania region. Judge Hughes is also well known for her work with The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce as well as the contributions she has made towards the Beasly School of Law at Temple University.

In this podcast Judge Hughes talks about the risk and rewards of her career path and also how she earned her own set of pearls. Judge Hughes talks about what matters most to her and why it’s important to always love yourself.

Mentions:

Conqueror by Estelle and Jussie Smollet

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

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