Daemen College has flagged the Associate Vice President for Marketing and Communications job as unavailable. Let’s keep looking.

Director of Communications, Marketing, and Digital Media - College of Education (Hybrid Opportunity)

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Education
Benefits
Special Commitments

About UMass Amherst

UMass Amherst, the Commonwealth's flagship campus, is a nationally ranked public research university offering a full range of undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University sits on nearly 1,450-acres in the scenic Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, and offers a rich cultural environment in a bucolic setting close to major urban centers. In addition, the University is part of the Five Colleges (including Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College), which adds to the intellectual energy of the region.

Job Summary

The Director of Communications, Marketing, and Digital Media creates, develops, and implements a comprehensive communications plan for the College of Education, supporting its social justice mission. The Director develops a marketing strategy that increases the visibility of faculty and student achievements related to teaching, research, and service, and promotes these stories to a wide variety of communities using print, digital, multimedia, and social media platforms. The Director promotes the College's activities with constituents such as alumni, donors, foundations, legislators, prospective students, and faculty, interested friends, and the general public. 

Essential Functions

  • Independently develops, implements, and directs a comprehensive internal and external communications plan for the College of Education.
  • Responsible for developing executive-level communications and messaging across discrete audiences for the Dean’s Office and College.
  • Creates and manages an annual budget to support communications and marketing strategy.
  • Creates marketing and communication materials for use in print, web, multimedia, and social media. Directs the work of designers, photographers, and other resources when necessary to create website, video, and social media content that is engaging and appealing to the market area of the College. Maintains an archive of text, photo, and video content. Generates ideas for communications which create interest in, and effectively promote the College by proactively seeking out and highlighting the activities, accomplishments, and awards of faculty, students, staff, and alumni.
  • Conceptualizes the annual College magazine by identifying stories and news that will resonate with donors and alumni. Conducts interviews, writes stories, coordinates with editorial and photography freelance vendors, and communicates with design and print vendors (or staff) while managing the production timeline.
  • Responsible for the College of Education's overall web and social media presence. Ensures that the College of Education's online presence is dynamic, engaging, accurate, and appealing to prospective students, alumni, and friends of the College. Coordinates a comprehensive and decentralized content management strategy for content featured on the college website, including managing and uploading material for the main webpage.
  • Supports academic programs by developing materials that appeal to prospective students. Creates content for admissions-related events like Destination Days, Open Houses, and Orientation and creates content for, and documents, celebratory events like Scholarship Celebrations, End-of-Year Celebrations, and Commencement.
  • Oversees digital marketing activities, including use of analytics to assess effectiveness of online ads and social media strategies. Maintains a deep knowledge of current and evolving web and social networking technologies, trends, and best practices.
  • Collaborates with faculty, staff, students, the College leadership team, the Dean, Director of Development, program development team, external marketing agencies, and University administrative offices, including University Relations, Alumni Relations, and central IT. Serves as the College's representative to campus communications groups. Maintains knowledge of University communication and marketing policies, procedures, branding, and resources.
  • Researches, writes, and/or edits content to be used in development campaigns, promotion materials, and other communications projects, such as periodic reports and internal and external Dean's Office communications. Research and writing projects may include interviewing faculty, students, staff, alumni, administrators, and friends of the College.
  • Assists the Dean's office in planning, scheduling, and managing College events. Provides marketing expertise, attends meetings, sends invitations, attends events, and takes photographs and videos at events to be used for communications and marketing material.
  • Participates in discussions with senior leadership involving crisis communications and issue management. Develops key messages for internal and external audiences and provides expertise on communications strategies for disseminating information accordingly.
  • Coordinates with campus communications partners to promote College news and stories to broader audiences, using myriad internal communications channels available (Inside UMass, Revolutionary Research newsletter, UMass Magazine, pitches for stories featured on the umass.edu homepage, etc.
  • Ensures that College marketing and communications initiatives align with overall brand pillars for University. Educates staff and faculty in the College about macro-level marketing strategies implemented by the University and explains how the College can adjust its communications to support broader branding goals.

Other Functions

  • Perform other related duties as assigned.
  • Travel and attend meetings as requested.
  • Understands responsibilities with respect to Title IX, Clery, and other compliance requirements.

Minimum Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Education, Experience, Certifications, Licensure)

  • Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Communications, Public Relations, Business, English, Journalism, or a related field, and 7 years’ experience; or a Master’s Degree and 5 years’ experience.
  • Exceedingly strong creative, communication, organizational, writing, and editing skills.
  • Experience writing for and working with senior level leadership.
  • Works independently and effectively and manages multiple, complex projects simultaneously in a fast-paced, deadline driven environment. 
  • Demonstrated knowledge and experience in the maintenance of website content and website design, including content management systems such as Drupal. Experience with development of Drupal sites.
  • Demonstrated knowledge and experience designing press-ready print materials using MacOS-based publishing and photo-manipulation software.
  • Demonstrated knowledge and experience producing video and audio for posting and/or broadcast using video equipment and MacOS-based multimedia capture and editing software.
  • Demonstrated knowledge and experience with current media technology, social media strategies, and online marketing.
  • Ability to develop strong working relationships and work collaboratively with staff from central administrative departments as well as with vendors and outside service providers.

Preferred Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Education, Experience, Certifications, Licensure)

  • Experience working in higher education.
  • Experience in optimizing content for social media (closed captions, vertical video, creating hashtags, communicating with followers)
  • Experience in large and small event planning.

Physical Demands/Working Conditions

Typical office environment.

Work Schedule

  • Monday-Friday, 8:30am - 4:30pm.
  • Required to work occasional nights and weekends.
  • This position has the opportunity for a hybrid work schedule, which is defined by the University as an arrangement where an employee’s work is regularly performed at a location other than the campus workspace for a portion of the week. As this position falls within the Professional Staff Union, it is subject to the terms and conditions of the Professional Staff Union collective bargaining agreement.

Salary Information

Salary Level 28

PSU Hiring Ranges

Special Instructions to Applicants

Applicants should include their resume/CV, cover letter, diversity statement, and list of three professional references.

The College of Education is committed to an atmosphere of diversity and inclusion between faculty, staff, and students alike. To advance the College’s mission of furthering social justice, this position will require a diversity statement to be included with each candidate’s application materials. The diversity statement is intended to clarify how a candidate will support a culture of equality and fairness at all levels of the organization and may highlight prior advocacy efforts or intended contributions to the College of Education. Questions about this can be directed to educhr@educ.umass.edu.

UMass Amherst is committed to a policy of equal opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, caste, creed, sex, age, marital status, national origin, disability, political belief or affiliation, pregnancy and pregnancy-related condition(s), veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, genetic information, natural and protective hairstyle and any other class of individuals protected from discrimination in employment, admission to and participation in academic programs, activities, and services, and the selection of vendors who provide services or products to the University. To fulfill that policy, UMass Amherst is further committed to a program of affirmative action to eliminate or mitigate artificial barriers and to increase opportunities for the recruitment and advancement of qualified minorities, women, persons with disabilities, and covered veterans. It is the policy of UMass Amherst to comply with the applicable federal and state statutes, rules, and regulations concerning equal opportunity and affirmative action.

Read Full Description
Confirmed 18 hours ago. Posted 30+ days ago.

Discover Similar Jobs

Suggested Articles