We’re excited to introduce two new staff members at Phi Kappa Phi: Elizabeth Kline, our first Director of Development, and Rebecca Schutte, Senior Director of Institutional Relations. Each brings unique expertise to cultivate our mission of celebrating and advancing the love of learning.

Elizabeth Kline

As a college student, Elizabeth Kline studied communication in all its forms, earning a degree in communication studies from Louisiana State University in 2012.

“I majored in talking,” joked Kline, who became Phi Kappa Phi’s first director of development in February. These days, Kline is talking up Phi Kappa Phi’s mission in advancing learning and service around the world, engaging stakeholders to strengthen support for the Society’s ongoing work.

“I’m excited to be in a national organization where I can connect with members and donors from different backgrounds,” Kline said. “It’s not often that you can walk into an organization with a strong donor base without a development director and be able to start from scratch.”

Thanks to previous donor support over the years, Phi Kappa Phi has been able to give about $1 million annually in grants and awards to ambitious scholars. That money has helped power scholarship and research around the globe.

Kline’s appointment reflects a key priority in Phi Kappa Phi’s new strategic plan: diversifying the mix of financial support that makes the Society’s work possible. The goal is to sustain and extend Phi Kapp Phi’s reach to empower even more scholars.

Kline comes to Phi Kappa Phi’s national office with extensive fundraising experience. Her previous jobs included work with Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where she helped build and maintain relationships with donors. In later work in marketing and fundraising at Baton Rouge’s Woman’s Hospital, Kline wrote a children’s book to mark the hospital’s 50^th anniversary. In The Best Birthday Ever, a mother goose recruits her friends to find the perfect place for her nest, which turns out to be Woman’s Hospital. The story chimes with the hospital’s key role in delivering babies, and it also gives a nod to the Canada geese who are a fixture on the hospital grounds.

“It was really, really fun,” Kline said of her gig as a children’s author. “Every child born at Woman’s that year got a copy of the book.”

Kline took special pleasure in writing her children’s story so that it rhymed. “I would speak in rhymes if I could,” she said.

As she and her husband parent two small children, Kline has a deep sense of how learning and growth go together. That’s why she’s excited about engaging support for Phi Kappa Phi. “I believe in the mission of lifelong learning,” Kline said. “There’s an abundance of knowledge out there just within our reach.”

“We are excited to have Elizabeth on board and look forward to her contributions to the team in many areas,” Phi Kappa Phi Executive Director and CEO Bradley Newcomer said.

Phi Kappa Phi members and supporters can reach Kline at ekline@kappaphi.org.

Rebecca Schutte

As an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, Rebecca Schutte had plans to become an Egyptologist. “I think I always had an interest in the art and symmetry of ancient Egypt,” she recalled.

Schutte’s ambitions slowly evolved to embrace leadership roles in various nonprofit institutions in many places. But her interest in world culture has remained a constant, and it’s led her to Phi Kappa Phi, which advances learning and scholarship across the globe.

Schutte joined Phi Kappa Phi’s national office in September in a new role as senior director of institutional relations. Her main job will be strengthening the Society’s relationships with its more than 300 chapters in the United States and beyond. “I like the idea of the scholarship that’s behind Phi Kappa Phi,” said Schutte, who wants to deepen Phi Kappa Phi’s engagement with the campus presidents, provosts, and deans who can champion the Society and extend its reach.

Schutte comes to Phi Kappa Phi with an extensive background in marshalling support for good causes in the United States and abroad.

After graduating from the University of Chicago with an anthropology degree, Schutte was a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina Faso, a West African nation challenged by systemic poverty. “I was an idealist,” she recalled. “I thought if you could do good while experiencing other cultures, that was important to me.”

Schutte later worked for the Center for Global Development, serving as a special adviser to the Liberian minister of finance. Her job connected her with key philanthropists, such as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who served as Liberia’s president and was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to bring women into the peacekeeping process.

After receiving a master of arts degree in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University, Schutte worked on various anti-poverty initiatives with The World Bank Group and Innovations for Poverty Action. Louisiana, where Schutte has family roots, beckoned her back in 2017. Leadership posts at the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and Pennington Biomedical Research Foundation allowed Schutte to apply lessons she’d learned on a global stage to help grow institutions closer to home.

With her husband, who hails from Brazil, Schutte is raising two small daughters. She’s excited about Phi Kappa Phi’s role in advancing a world powered by learning and service.

“We want to make sure all those achieving high academic standards, regardless of their backgrounds, can be a part of this organization,” Schutte said.

Phi Kappa Phi members and other stakeholders can reach Schutte at rschutte@phikappaphi.org.