AlumniSpotlight By Christine Reedy Herb Reichlin ’53 has an Antiochian story built in resilience. His education was interrupted by World War II and the after-effects of his wounds sustained in the war, but through three different stints, Reichlin received his Bachelor’s degree and lessons which have served him his whole life. Reichlin applied to Antioch because his brother, Si Reichlin ’45, had also attended the College. Despite having a very high IQ and being a Mensa member, Reichlin admits he has trouble with rote memory, and his high school grades weren’t good enough for admission to Antioch. That changed after an interview. “The Admission Director, Fressa Baker Inman, engaged me in an argument when I was being interviewed,” he recalls. “She asked me a question, I answered the question in a manner that surprised her, and we went on until all at once she said with alarm, ‘My God, I’ve got two more people waiting. I’ve used up all their time.’ And when I was graduating, Ms. Inman told me that the reason I was accepted was because of the argument I made.” Not long after, he left to enlist in the Army to fight in WWII, where he was wounded fighting in Europe. Reichlin came back to Antioch in 1946, but had to leave again in 1948 for more surgery due to the wounds he sustained. After marrying in 1951, he returned the next year to complete his degree. Throughout this time, Reichlin’s Coop and classroom experiences help steer him to what would become his lifelong working passion. Co-op Lessons “Antioch Co-op was enormously important because I thought I wanted to 52 THE ANTIOCHIAN FALL 2020
Herb Reichin in 1952
get into advertising. My first Co-op job was in New York City with an ad agency and I discovered how much I disliked it,” Reichlin explains. Following that disastrous Co-op, he took a Co-op in St. Louis doing market research. “I found out how much lying goes on in market research reports.” In his market research Co-op, Reichlin had to go door-to-door to do surveys. “It was such an education speaking directly, door-to-door, finding out how lonesome people were. I was a nice-looking young man, and looked safe, and the number of people who were lonesome and just wanted to extend the visit, just invite me in for coffee, and the amount of screw-ups I could make without
knowing it,” Reichlin explains about some of what he still carries with him from the experience. “So from then on, since I use data, it caused me to be aware of the limitations of data. It all depends on how legitimate the company and how legitimate the survey people are, and if they are paid very little money, no one checks what they turned in.” While working in coding for the research, he found out that if something didn’t look clear, they just decided what code to use. “So, that stayed with me, so that when I read survey results, I’m pretty suspicious.” Another Co-op also happened to be in St. Louis. “I came to St. Louis for surgery and then got a Co-op job at Famous-Barr for Christmas. And
Classroom Lessons “I would have been awful,” Reichlin replies when asked whether he would have had the same trajectory at a different institution. “Antioch had small classes and a completely different approach.” This included a particular grading system in a sociology class, where the professor “graded on how many pages you read. He had an entire list of books and if you read 5,000 pages, you got an A. If you read 4,000 pages you got a B. 3,000 you got a C. And it was all Antioch Honor System. I remember arguing with one of the kids in my dorm about Henry Ford, and I came in, and told the professor about it. He immediately assigned me two different books to read, and one book was extolling Ford and the other book was damning Ford. And both of them were completely correct. That memory stayed with me the rest of my life, realizing there aren’t any absolutes. It taught me what prejudice was too, in that you could make a blanket damnation without being able to examine what you’re damning and find out what else is there.” Another lesson Reichlin learned was while he was a teaching assistant. “I remember being told by Billy Goetz
AXEL BAHNSEN ’30
Lessons in Work for a Lifetime
learned a lot about Christmas sales.” That wasn’t all he learned, though. Reichlin explains, “You have no idea how ignorant you are until you find out how much you don’t know. One of the greatest ways to find out is to get out into the real world and a Coop job that takes you out into the real world will make you head and shoulders above about just about any other graduating senior from any other college in the country. For example, that simple sales job at Famous-Barr department store watching the other people, how they sold, how they approached people, and the variety of people who came in—you don’t realize how sheltered you can be as a teenager growing up and just going from high school to college. The Co-op job is an incredible way to expose you.”
