Assistant Director of Communications

• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Standard Work Schedule:
• Building: Avery Hall
• Salary Range: $68,300 - $73,000

Position Summary

Reporting to the Creative Director of Communications, the Assistant Director is responsible for producing, managing, and disseminating the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation’s online presence with the purpose of 1. Attracting potential students by highlighting the School’s activities, academic environment, and student experience. 2. Serving the current student population by providing ongoing timely and accurate information about GSAPP programs, courses, faculty, events, etc. 3. Supporting alumni communications and promoting GSAPP alumni accomplishments to a broader public. 4. Ensures currency of content as well as coherent quality and writing style across the School’s online publishing platforms

Responsibilities

Website Management (50%)

• Manages content across programs to ensure information is accurate and current.
• Manages admissions pages to ensure effective and clear information, with constant reevaluation and improvement of messaging.
• Ensures cross-referencing of applications pages throughout website and finds connections among content.
• Monitors website analytics and provides analytics report to senior management on a regular basis. 
• Develops tools and methods for increasing engagement, specifically among prospective students.
• Refreshes images on an ongoing basis and works with GSAPP programs to maintain current images of their various activities.
• Establishes key targets and benchmarks for each semester related to the school’s activities and priorities, and realizes weekly updates based on this overall timeline.
• Regularly updates and develops the ‘Environments’ pages to be the most compelling and visually exciting section in order to 1. Accurately reflect the student experience on campus, in New York, and across the country and globe, 2. Make visible GSAPP’s Global Engagement through travel images, faculty participation in international exhibitions, student work featured at global events, etc., and 3. Show the frequency and wide geographic reach of GSAPP’s academic initiatives and network.

Social Media (20%)

• Establishes monthly calendar with key semester activities highlighted across GSAPP programs.
• Works with all programs to review their semester activities and coordinates dissemination of key events.
• Establishes weekly plans to enrich content, diversify platforms with content strategy for each, and outline quantity goals to create a regular rhythm.
• Links social media content to the website and vice versa.
• Creates short- and long-term strategies for new content to anticipate needs for documenting programs or events, organizes and stages videos, and develops new media.
• Produces weekly analytics report to monitor the school’s progress and changes, and tracks external and competitors, collaborators, and the cultural landscape for effective benchmarking.

‘Abstract’ and Media Archive (20%)

• Collects and edits content from all GSAPP programs.
• Maintains and manages timely archive of key images across programs and initiatives, organized and readily available for Dean’s messaging, press purposes, website and social media publishing, or for use in related school publications.
• Works with external graphic designers to coordinate their work on Abstract.

Performs related duties and responsibilities as assigned/requested. (10%)

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or its equivalent.  Minimum of 3-5 years' related experience in design and language arts.
• Experience in an academic setting highly desirable.
• Excellent writing and editing skills required, with an understanding of the special requirements of writing for the Web, such as the use of keywords, hyperlinks, navigation and the importance of brevity.  
• Must have a good eye for detail, with excellent spelling, grammar and punctuation skills.  Must have strong interpersonal skills to work effectively with contributors, designers and webmasters.  And, good organizational skills to collate material from multiple sources and produce web content within tight deadlines.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master of Architecture or related degree greatly preferred.

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.