Pain Named KU's Director of Graduate Admissions

KUTZTOWN, Pa. - Kittie Pain has been named Kutztown University's director of Graduate Admissions. Pain comes to KU from McDaniel College, where she served as director of Graduate Enrollment Management. She began at KU Aug. 3.

As KU's new director of Graduate Admissions, Pain oversees recruitment and marketing for KU's graduate programs. There are currently more than 40 certificates, masters and doctoral degrees at KU.

Pain collaborates with Dr. Carole Wells, vice provost and dean of Graduate Studies, among other program directors across KU's four academic colleges to make sure they are enrolling students who will succeed within their chosen graduate degrees. This happens through a behind-the-scenes process in setting up a communication plan out of their inquiry system and includes Pain maintaining the graduate admissions website and marketing materials. Pain also evaluates demographics and data related to the current student population and tracks whether there are any new trends their department needs to follow when conducting the recruitment process. Pain then targets her outreach by contacting a potential recruit through an email, phone call, postal mail or an in-person meeting that will be conducted when it is available in the future.

"Graduate recruitment is about building and maintaining relationships; that's what I'm excited to do within the community and surrounding counties," Pain said.

At McDaniel College, with her role as director, Pain had formed the graduate student communications in addition to student services for the on-campus, off-campus and online student bodies. She collaborated with the director of public relations in developing radio, print and web advertising campaigns twice a year for open house events. Pain managed all vendor relations that included the application system, digital marketing and creative design. Pain collaborated with various offices to organize non-degree, professional development courses for credit. She had also worked with a graduate recruiter to assess regional travel for promotion of events, recruitment and its outcomes.

Before McDaniel, Pain worked as an associate director of adult and graduate admissions at Neumann University for eight years. She collaborated with the dean of Business to create a 4+1 program for sports management. Pain created consistent graduate student communications to improve retention for on and off-campus and online students. Pain had established an onboarding system for new students. She also attended annual budget planning meetings with vice presidents of finance, student affairs and enrollment, academic affairs, program directors and the registrar. She was also a member of the Neumann University Graduate Council and was in charge of student services, policies and procedures and participated in budget and enrollment planning meetings.

"The interesting part of starting this role during a global pandemic is that I can't just meet with people in their offices, over coffee, to get to know them further and to learn how we'll work together," Pain said. "It's been a different experience to become part of the community at KU. Luckily, everyone is wonderful and welcoming, even virtually."

Pain earned her bachelor's degree in English at McDaniel College in 2000. She later earned a Master of Letters at Drew University in 2004. She resides in Macungie, Pa., with her husband and son.