Scheduled Hours

37.5

Position Summary

The Director of Communications envisions, executes, and evaluates communications for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. As the school completes and begins to implement a new 10-year strategic plan, there is an exciting opportunity to build on our established identity as a leader in architecture, art, and design education and research to build reputation around key areas including digital transformation, digital practices, and strengthening communities. In line with our plan, the Office of Communications will be charged with building and expanding our identity to market individual academic programs as well as building the larger school identity across print, digital collateral, and social media practices. The Director of Communications is a member of the schoolâ™s senior administrative team, reporting to the dean of the school, and works closely with directors, chairs, and communications groups across the University to lead strategic communications initiatives. The Director of Communications supervises and evaluates three team members: the Senior Graphic Designer, the Communications Strategist, and the Digital Content Specialist.

Job Description

Primary Duties & Responsibilities

Craft a visionary communication and design strategy to raise the profile of the school and build its reputation locally, nationally, and internationally.

• Develop innovative annual and long-range communications plans that do the following:
  • Articulates a vision for the school's messaging and graphic identity to build reputation. Ensures that the primary identity and sub identities are identified, differentiated, and consistently applied.
  • Ensures distinctive, strong design execution in alignment with the school's identity and leadership in the field.
  • Establishes key messages that promotes and supports the overall school as well as the individual goals of the undergraduate and graduate degree programs and majors within each academic programâ”art, architecture, communication design, urban design, landscape architecture, and fashion design.
  • Identifies and addresses the school's multiple audiences and wide range of communications platforms. 
  • Prioritizes communications initiatives and goals; establish timelines for implementation; meet key project deadlines.
• In concert with the dean and associate dean for finance, develop and oversee an annual budget for communications initiatives and projects. Tracks and evaluates costs and benefits to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the budget.
• Tracks and evaluates ongoing communications efforts and their effectiveness with key stakeholder groups. Prepare reports for senior administration annually to convey results.

Provides exceptional leadership and project management to serve the diverse communications needs of the school's many internal and external constituents:

• Oversees the content development, design, and production of the school's portfolio of print and digital publications, such as viewbooks, newsletters, e-news, and program brochures to support the strategic initiatives of the school, as well as the larger goals of the university.
• Establishes clear procedures for the operations of the Communications Office, ensuring strong, positive working relationships and successful outcomes for initiatives in partnership with diverse teams of faculty, staff, students, volunteers, and others.
• Oversees the school's social media content and strategies.
• Manages the annual development of content and design for the Schoolâ™s website, performing reviews of analytics and leading efforts for regular maintenance, updates, and redesigns/reorganization as necessary.
• Collaborates with the dean, associate dean, and University Advancement team to advance the schoolâ™s fundraising efforts through communications strategies and materials to support strong external relationships with stakeholders, including the schoolâ™s National Council, alumni, student families, and friends.
• Partners with the schoolâ™s admissions team and the universityâ™s undergraduate admissions office to develop and implement marketing and communications efforts to build an applicant pool of highly qualified and diverse undergraduate prospective students.
• Works closely with directors and chairs of graduate art and architecture programs to identify key target markets of prospective students and to develop messages and materials to reach those audiences nationally and internationally.
• Works collaboratively with the administrative team and the staff of the school to plan and support special events and exhibitions.
• Manages relationships with external vendors, including designers, coders, strategists and printers.

Positively represent the Sam Fox School internally and externally:

• Serves as the principal liaison with the universityâ™s Office of Public Affairs to ensure the public distribution of faculty research achievements, increase visibility of the schoolâ™s programs and accomplishments, and establishes the school as a leader in the fields of art, architecture, and design education.
• Serves on Sam Fox School university-wide committees as assigned. Represents the school in both internal and external capacities, maintaining positive and effective relationships with all audiences viewed as important to the school and the university.

Professionally manage the Communications Office staff:

• Completes annual performance evaluations.
• Gives ongoing coaching and feedback.
• Supports employee professional development.

Other duties as assigned.

Working Conditions

• Normal office environment.
• Alternative work schedules.
• Ability to move to on and off-campus locations.

Applicant Special Instructions

Applicant should submit a cover letter as well as two additional professional writing samples.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong record of successful implementation of communications, leadership, and strategic planning in a communications or marketing management role.
• Professional experience in an arts, education, or cultural institution.
• Brand management experience.
• Demonstrated superior writing and editing skills.
• Ability to set and meet deadlines.
• Visual acumen and background leading design projects.
• Digital media expertise.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to establish and maintain excellent relations with alumni, faculty, and university offices as required.
• Ability to think strategically, critically, and creatively.
• Exceptional judgment and discretion.
• Successful people/team management and development.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's degree with seven years of progressive management responsibility in the area of strategic communications, brand strategy, issues management, public/media relations, marketing or related field.

Grade

G13

Salary Range

$62,000.00 - $106,000.00 / Annually

The salary range reflects base salaries paid for positions in a given job grade across the University. Individual rates within the range will be determined by factors including one's qualifications and performance, equity with others in the department, market rates for positions within the same grade and department budget.

Pre-Employment Screening

All external candidates receiving an offer for employment will be required to submit to pre-employment screening for this position. The screenings will include criminal background check and, as applicable for the position, other background checks, drug screen, an employment and education or licensure/certification verification, physical examination, certain vaccinations and/or governmental registry checks. All offers are contingent upon successful completion of required screening.

Benefits Statement

Washington University in St. Louis is committed to providing a comprehensive and competitive benefits package to our employees. Benefits eligibility is subject to employment status, full-time equivalent (FTE) workload, and weekly standard hours. Please visit our website at https://hr.wustl.edu/benefits/ to view a summary of benefits.

EEO/AA Statement

Washington University is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to an individualâ™s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability status, protected veteran status, national or ethnic origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation. Women, minorities, protected veterans and the disabled are strongly encouraged to apply.

Diversity Statement

Washington University is dedicated to building a diverse community of individuals who are committed to contributing to an inclusive environment â“ fostering respect for all and welcoming individuals from diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. Individuals with a commitment to these values are encouraged to apply.

Applicant Instructions

When you are ready to apply, creating an account only takes a minute. Your account creates a candidate home page which we will use to communicate with you and allows you to apply for jobs and view your application statuses. The first page of the application offers two âœQuick Apply❠options. Quick Apply allows you to either use a previous application or create a new application using a resume to populate the work experience and education sections of your job application. If using a resume to populate your application, check to ensure the application fields populated accurately. You may skip the âœQuick Apply❠page by clicking âœNext❠at the bottom of the page. Documents may be uploaded in the My Experience section of the application. You also have the option to apply with a Linkedin feature, which allows you to apply by using your Linkedin profile to populate some of the job application fields.