Rita Reinhardt is the new Director of Career Services and Experiential Learning. She is new to the Blackburn community, but she has many plans for the future, and she is excited to help Blackburn students.
Reinhardt attended Southwestern Illinois College for her associate’s degree, then Eastern Illinois University for her bachelor’s degree, then the University of Missouri Saint Louis for her masters and she is currently attending Indiana Wesleyan University for her doctoral degree. She was raised in Georgia and North Carolina, then she moved to the Saint Louis area.
Her goals for Blackburn are to “Find the foundations of career services, how the campus has been utilizing those foundations and how we can make them solid resources.” In the future, she would like to host more events and programs to help students transition into the workforce. However, with the pandemic, she is very limited on what events she can do. As soon as it is safe to have more people in one space, she intends to host and schedule programs to engage students and invite employers and speakers on campus. She also intends to expand career programming.
Reinhardt’s favorite thing about Blackburn is that the students still get the college experience, but in a smaller, more personal setting. Some of her hobbies include traveling, poetry, creative arts, interior decorating, watching movies and trying different kinds of food. Her favorite types of food are multicultural food and hybrid multicultural food.
She likes to read books and watch movies, especially if there is a great movie adaptation from a great book. Her favorite book and movie adaptation is “The Fault in Our Stars,” and some of her other favorite movies are “Girl Fight” and “Love and Basketball.” Her favorite TV show is “Insecure.”
Her favorite music genres are lo-fi hip hop, chill hip hop and neo soul hip hop, and her favorite artists are Jill Scott and John Mayer.
The most interesting places that she has visited are Cape Town, South Africa and Iceland, but she is also very proud to have made it to Paris, France with only a backpack and a few dollars with her.
Reinhardt’s message to the Blackburn community, particularly the students, is, “I am approachable, you can talk to me, especially get on my calendar so that we can have that time set aside especially for you. If you have questions, even if you think they seem silly, just come ask me.”