Debbie interviews veteran reporter and bestselling author Dale Russakoff, her Harvard classmate, about her surprising experience at Harvard as a woman from the South, her distinguished career as a journalist, and the importance of family.
Today, Debbie talks to Dale Russakoff, a veteran reporter for The Washington Post, a bestselling author, and a classmate from her Harvard/Radcliffe class of 1974.
They talk about her surprising experience at Harvard as a woman from the South, her distinguished career as a journalist, and the importance of family.
Debbie knew that Dale had been a reporter for The Washington Post for almost 30 years. And that she is the author of a best-selling book, THE PRIZE. But in this episode she told Debbie something she'd never heard before: what it was like to be a Southern girl at Harvard. Dale, who had a Southern accent then, said she was reluctant to open her mouth at first.
She'd grown up in Birmingham, AL and when she arrived in Cambridge she learned that the Radcliffe admissions committee hadn’t admitted a woman from the South in many years, unless she had gone to a Northern boarding school. The committee thought girls who grew up and went to school in the South wouldn't have “the values" Radcliffe wanted; i.e. they would be racist.
She and Debbie talk about what it was like to be a female student in the man's world of Harvard, how "ambition" fit into her college years and, later, how it related to Dale's career in journalism. They talk about the importance of family, including grandchildren. And how she feels AT. CAPACITY. (i.e. too busy) in semi-retirement, at age 71.
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Don't miss Debbie's Substack essay on the topic of being too busy or AT. CAPACITY.
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