Humanities and sciences recruiter loves travel … and that’s a good thing

By Gary Robertson

Katherine Mangum, whose father pursued a career in the military, grew up living the kind of nomadic life familiar to many military dependents — traveling between states, between countries. And she liked it.

Good thing for her. Good thing for Virginia Commonwealth University.

Mangum, director of student recruitment for the College of Humanities & Sciences, lives much of her professional life on the road or in flight.

“My job involves traveling outside the state of Virginia seeing students, visiting high schools, spreading the good word about VCU,” Mangum said.

The presence of out-of-state students, including international students, enhances diversity at the university, Mangum said. Out-of-state tuition also helps support a wide range of programs.

Since the beginning of the decade, out-of-state enrollment at VCU has soared.

Out-of-state students represented 8.8 percent of the student body in the fall of 2000; by the fall of 2008, they represented more than 14 percent. During the same period, the number of international students has more than doubled, from 607 to 1,612.

During Mangum’s tenure — she joined the university in 2000 — the number of out-of-state students at the College of Humanities & Sciences has doubled.

“It’s been a pretty successful program, so far,” she said.

The good news keeps coming. For the 2007-2008 academic year, out-of-state applications for the freshman class were up 26 percent.

Mangum recruits both undergraduate and graduate students, and answers questions about departments across both campuses, not just those in the College of Humanities & Sciences.

“We’ll get questions about engineering, about the School of Medicine. So, I really need a basic knowledge about everything the university offers. Nobody wants to hear me say, ‘That’s not my department.’”

Samantha Hendel of Rockville Centre, N.Y., a senior majoring in Forensic Science and a member of the women’s cross-country and indoor track teams, said that when Mangum recruited her she liked nearly everything she heard about VCU.

But it was not so much what she heard that finally tipped the balance between several institutions and convinced her to attend VCU.

“It was the helpfulness,” Hendel said. “When I called down here, everyone was so friendly on the phone. They helped me find what I was looking for, the information I needed.”

On her first of several visits to campus, Hendel said that Mangum arranged for her to sit-in on several Forensic Science classes and talk to other students about their experiences.

New York is one of numerous states that Mangum visits on her recruiting tours.

“In the spring I always do a trip to California. I always go to Massachusetts and Florida. Sometimes we go to Texas. So, it’s a lot of hopping around,” she said.

New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are the source of many out-of-state students, Mangum said, but applications from Florida and North Carolina have been up sharply.

She noted that basketball player Eric Maynor’s last-second shot to beat Duke University in the first round of the 2007 NCAA tournament made VCU’s visibility red hot on the recruiting circuit.

“It was huge,” Mangum said.

Visiting foreign countries to recruit students can sound exotic in the telling, but Mangum said there’s a lot of hard work behind the glamour.

“The first year I visited Europe, I went to 13 countries and cities in three weeks,” she said. That meant a lot of long days and not much sleep.

As part of her job, Mangum has learned to take quick naps in airports and to talk non-stop for hours without losing her voice. She also has developed a tough skin to weather critical comments.

“Not everyone is going to love VCU. Not everyone is going to think this is the right place for them. So, I can’t take it personally if they say something negative. I just have to understand that we’re not the right place for that student,” she said.

Mangum doesn’t keep count of the thousands and thousands of miles she travels on VCU’s behalf every year — “That’s too much higher math,” she said with a laugh.

So, how does Mangum relax after a long year of recruiting?

“I usually celebrate the end of my travel season by going on a trip,” she said.

That’s the nomad in her.