Unit: School of Education

Department: Dean's Suite

Duties & Responsibilities:

The School of Education’s (SOE) Director of Marketing Strategy and Communications is responsible for the overall development and implementation of the School’s integrated marketing, creative services, and communication strategies. This role is responsible for shaping and stewarding the School’s brand, ensuring consistent, compelling, and accessible messaging across digital, print, and experiential platforms. The incumbent will serve as a valued member of SOE’s leadership team and work closely with the Dean’s Office and the Director of Strategic Recruitment and Outreach to help plan, develop, and implement foundational marketing and communication strategies across the School. The position also supports the Dean’s Office with communication and event support needs as identified by the Dean.

Marketing Strategy Leadership and Planning

• Develops and drives the overall School of Education marketing and communication strategy aligned with the School of Education’s goals and VCU brand standards.
• Leads, implements, and monitors cross-channel, multi-year marketing campaigns for academic programs, events, research initiatives, fundraising efforts, and other initiatives to ensure strategy alignment, audience growth, and overall return on investment for the School of Education.
• Develops and leads the School’s narrative strategy to ensure that the School and its auxiliary programs are aligned across all platforms.
• Partners with School deans, administrators, chairs, and support staff to ensure marketing strategy efforts are aligned with stakeholder needs.
• Identifies and drafts faculty research highlights and student success stories to pitch to internal and external media outlets.
• Serves as a valued member of SOE’s leadership council.

Brand Strategy and Institutional Alignment

• Serves as the School’s brand steward, ensuring consistency in visual identity, tone, messaging, and accessibility across all platforms and materials while ensuring compliance with University standards and policies.
• Works closely with VCU’s Enterprise Marketing and Communications to elevate the School of Education’s priorities and other newsworthy initiatives.
• Leads speechwriting and presentation building initiatives and supports leadership communications as requested by the dean.
• Assists leadership in drafting internal memos and manages crisis communications messaging in coordination with VCU’s Enterprise Marketing and Communications.

Digital Content Strategy and Website Infrastructure

• Leads digital content creation across the organization
• Produces multimedia content, including copywriting, basic graphic design, and photography/videography for social media and web.
• Manages and oversees website development and maintenance efforts for the School of Education website and its auxiliary partnerships.
• Oversees the management of the School of Education directory and SOE listservs.
• Responsible for harnessing emerging AI technologies to support marketing and communication functions.

Operations and Organization Support:

• Liaises with the School Recruitment and Outreach Director to support and optimize recruitment efforts.
• Develops and manages a project intake system to prioritize communications requests based on school-wide strategic goals.
• Manages the Schools marketing and communications budget and makes recommendations on advertising allocations within budget.
• Ad-hoc event support..

Other Duties As Assigned

Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, journalism, or related field
• 3 + years experience in marketing and communication fields
• Demonstrated success in managing complex projects, timelines, and multiple stakeholders
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills
• Proficiency with digital content platforms, communications/marketing automation, and creative tools (e.g. CMS, Adobe Creative Suite, Slate, graphic design tools, email marketing tools, social media platforms, and Google Suite)
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously, balancing competing priorities and deadlines
• Experience in creating long-term, comprehensive communications plans appropriate to specific strategic target stakeholder audiences
• Experience in developing and scaling marketing infrastructure

Preferred Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in marketing/communications or related field
• Experience in marketing, creative services, and communications within higher education or other highly-matrixed environments
• Experience working as a solo communicator for an organization.
• Experience with T4 and other content management systems
• Proven ability to draft executive-level communications, presentations and speeches
• Practical industry-based experience using AI tools
• Familiarity with the experiences of educators, both as students and as teachers/administrators.
• Experience in higher education student recruitment and retention
• Experience directing work and/or managing others

Salary Range: $82,000 $90,000

Benefits: All full-time university staff are eligible for VCU’s robust benefits package that includes comprehensive health benefits, paid annual and holiday leave, generous tuition benefits, retirement planning and savings options, tax-deferred annuity and cash match programs, employee discounts, well-being resources, abundant opportunities for career development and advancement, and more.

FLSA Exemption Status: Exempt

Hours per Week: 40

Restricted Position: No

ORP Eligible: Yes

Flexible Work Arrangement: Hybrid

University Job Title: Director of Marketing Strategy and Communications

Contact Information: Scott Stech
Contact Email:smstech@vcu.edu