Assistant Director, Strategic & Creative Communications; Intercollegiate Athletics

Assistant Director, Strategic & Creative Communications (5372C) Intercollegiate Athletics #86717

At the University of California, Berkeley, we are dedicated to fostering a community where everyone feels welcome and can thrive. Our culture of openness, freedom, and belonging make it a special place for students, faculty, and staff. As a world‑leading institution, Berkeley is known for its academic and research excellence, public mission, diverse student body, and commitment to equity and social justice.

Since our founding in 1868, we have driven innovation, creating global intellectual, economic, and social value. We are looking for applicants who reflect California's diversity and want to be part of an inclusive, equity‑focused community that views education as a matter of social justice. Please consider whether your values align with our Guiding Values and Principles , Principles of Community, and Strategic Plan.

The Department of Intercollegiate Athletics consists of more than 275 staff members and coaches and sponsors 30 varsity sports programs. These 30 programs include more than 850 student‑athletes who participate in the various sports programs annually within the National Collegiate Athletics Association.

The Strategic and Creative Comms assists with the storytelling and digital communication efforts for 2-3 assigned Olympic Sports. Under the direction of the strategic lead, this position helps execute content strategies that reach fans, recruits, and the community. The Strategic and Creative Comms takes direction on which platforms and mediums to use to best share the team's message. This position supports the department's goals of brand awareness and student‑athlete retention by creating consistent, engaging content.

By focusing on specific sports, the Strategic and Creative Comms provides the necessary support to help those programs succeed within the existing athletics digital ecosystem.

• Supports the Olympic Sports teams by capturing and producing content in various forms, including video, photos, and social media graphics.
• Utilizes tools like Adobe Photoshop and Premiere to execute assets that align with the team's media plan.
• Assists with the daily implementation of the sport‑specific media plan.
• Helps maintain the schedule of information flow, ensures messaging cadence is met, and updates content based on direction from leadership.
• Spends time with assigned teams to identify storytelling opportunities.
• Assists in gathering information on student‑athlete personalities and coaches' strengths to help broaden the team's public message.
• Identify sport influencers and engage to broaden the messages.

• Collaborates with the digital, fundraising, and gameday entertainment teams to help synchronize publicity efforts.
• Acts as a liaison for routine media requests and assists with coordinating storytelling tasks.

• Serve as the main point of contact for the assigned sports specific to storytelling aspects of the position.
• Triage, assign and communicate requests, coverage, and alterations or additions to the media plan and maintain historical knowledge of each sport.

• Facilitate required statistical submissions, written notes, historical records or releases specific to the assigned sports.
• And other duties as assigned.

• Knowledge to create and deliver targeted content in efforts to promote sports/athletes, assist in recruiting and retaining athletes for the sports represented.
• Ability to execute a sport‑specific, storytelling strategy - using existing mediums and content.
• Follow a sport‑specific media plan that includes cadence of messaging, audiences, mediums, types of content, and schedules.
• Ability to learn all facets of an Olympic sports program - including personnel, trends, participants, national landscape and audiences.
• A collaborator that is flexible in adjusting schedules, timelines, content, messaging, mediums, etc. in order to best fit the immediate and impactful needs of a sports program.
• Knowledge of digital media assets and other communication…