Assistant Director - Athletic Communications

Overview

School/Unit Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Job Function Communications

Location Allston

Job Type Full-time

Salary Grade 056

FLSA Status Non-exempt

Union 55 - Hvd Union Cler & Tech Workers

Term Appointment No

Company Description

By working at Harvard University, you join a vibrant community that advances Harvard's world-changing mission in meaningful ways, inspires innovation and collaboration, and builds skills and expertise. We are dedicated to creating a diverse and welcoming environment where everyone can thrive.

Why join the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences?

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is the historic heart of Harvard University. It is the home of Harvard's undergraduate program (Harvard College, founded in 1636) as well as all of Harvard's Ph.D. programs (the Harvard Kenneth

C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1872), Harvard Athletics and the Division of Continuing Education. The 40 academic departments and 30+ centers of the FAS support a community unparalleled in its academic excellence across the broadest range of liberal arts and sciences disciplines. Together, the FAS seeks to foster an environment of ambition, curiosity and shared commitment to knowledge and truth that elicits excellence from all members of our community and prepares the next generation of leaders through a transformative educational experience.

Job Description

Job Summary:

This position plays a key role in publicizing select Varsity sports for the Department of Athletics, which has a 42-sport Division I athletics program. Handles sports public relations, media relations, and communications and information for assigned sports. Promotes positive branding, press coverage, strategic communications, social media, multimedia and messaging to various constituents, using a variety of traditional media as well as new media outlets.

Constituents include prospective student-athletes; game-day attendees, alumni/ae, fans, and the entire University community. Works with select sports to ensure that appropriate Athletics storylines are created and communicated; statistics, schedules, rosters, game recaps and other information is communicated to the proper media outlets. Handles media interview requests. Assists with archiving historical records. This position greatly enhances both the external and internal image of the Department.

Job-Specific Responsibilities:

1. Manages media and public relations functions for select sports as well as key Department initiatives.

• Proactively communicates with media about, and solicits media coverage for, events and feature stories on Harvard athletes, teams, and other Department milestones/accomplishments.
• Conceives and creates content for a dynamic Department website (including graphics and video content), which serves as a primary source of information regarding Harvard Athletics ().
• Directly responsible for publicity efforts in assigned sports. Media point-of-contact for assigned sports.
• Designs, writes and edits printed game programs, special event publications and press releases, including the creation of graphic designs and video content.
• Informs and educates athletes, coaches, administrators, and other Department of Athletics constituents about effective methods of media interaction. Oversees media relations at home events and travels with varsity teams to cover select competitions.

2. Effectively utilizes multimedia, digital, new and social media strategies for promoting the department and select sports.

• Stays abreast of and proficient with emergent social media best practices, strategies and platforms, in order to promote Department programs and increase fan engagement.
• Coordinates social media/networking initiatives among the department with effective strategy and foresight for information delivery protocols.

3. Manages student employees, volunteers, and game day event staff.

• Recruits, hires, trains, schedules, supervises, and evaluates game-day staff, volunteers, student workers. Ensures compliance with applicable University, NCAA and Ivy League policies, procedures and regulations.
• Provides guidance to interns and game-day staff.
• Manages payroll functions for game-day and office staff. Ensures that appropriate time-keeping and Human Resources procedures are followed. Resolves payroll issues.
• Develops and maintain positive relationships with students, faculty, staff, and the community.

4. Actively plans and implements the historical archiving of content for assigned sports and projects.

• Directly responsible for maintenance of current and historical team information (rosters, statistics, records, photos, videos) in assigned sports including proper naming and meta data assignments.

Working Conditions:

• A valid driver's license is required.
• The position requires extensive evening, weekend and holiday hours and ability to handle last-minute schedule changes.
• Occasional local and regional travel is required, about 20% of the year.

Physical Requirements:

Job occasionally requires…