Associate Vice President of Communications

Associate Vice President of Communications

This is an exciting moment to join Santa Clara University's Marketing and Communications team as a key leader during a time of transformative growth and elevated visibility. As a newly established cabinet-level unit, UMC is poised to drive innovation and alignment across SCU communications. The AVP for University Communications will have the unique opportunity to help shape and execute a forward-thinking vision for storytelling, media relations, and internal/external communications, while fostering collaboration and thought leadership across campus. This role is pivotal to advancing SCU's mission and enhancing its reputation at a transformative time for the University.

The AVP for University Communications will lead development and implementation of a proactive, integrated content strategy that supports storytelling and ensures cohesive, compelling messaging across all internal and external platforms, including digital, social, traditional media, and direct engagement.

Leadership and Team Development

• Take an engaged approach to coaching, mentoring, and guiding the communications team to foster an environment of excellence, creativity, integrity, and teamwork, with clear performance objectives and a vision of shared goals among communicators campus wide.
• Provide leadership and clarity to cultivate an organization that can balance intentional planning and pursuing long-term goals with the nimbleness and adaptability needed to respond to emerging issues and trends.
• Lead the development, recommendation, implementation, optimization, and improvement of communication processes, practices, and policies. Identifies issues, challenges, and opportunities within department and university systems. Strategizes and leads team in solutions.
• Build and oversee relationships with external agencies to align projects with SCU's goals and communication standards.

Media Relations

• Develop and implement a media communications strategy to position the university's story across local, regional, national, and global platforms. Highlight the achievements and distinctions of the campus community, including faculty, students, staff, and alumni.
• Leverage Subject Matter Experts to turn to for media relations needs and to further establish SCU thought leaders in the marketplace.
• Serve as a primary media contact and occasional spokesperson for the university, preparing leadership with key messages and fostering relationships with media outlets.
• Collaborate with the President's Office to develop thought leadership opportunities and executive positioning strategies. This includes identifying targeted media placements, supporting opinion editorials, and securing speaking engagements to elevate the President's profile and SCU's reputation on national and global stages.

Crisis and Issues Management

• Anticipate and address potential challenges to SCU's reputation by developing proactive strategies for crisis and issues management. Serve as a key leader in crafting and executing unified communications across internal and external audiences during crises. When the VP is unavailable, represent the communications function on the University's Critical Incident Response Team.

Social Media and Digital Engagement

• Drive innovative social media strategies to support storytelling and engage key audiences, including students, prospective students, faculty, staff and alumni. Ensure alignment with broader communication initiatives to amplify SCU's visibility and impact.

Internal Engagement

• Build strong alliances with communications professionals across the university to share best practices, ensure consistency, and promote unified messaging that aligns with SCU's overall communications strategy.
• Manage the creation of a university-wide internal news publication to build transparency, alignment, and engagement within the campus community.
• Strengthen relationships with students, alumni, faculty, staff, and other stakeholders through storytelling and strategic communication.

Measurement and Insights

• Help develop and utilize analytics tools to measure the success of communication strategies that advance Impact 2030 priorities and inform data-driven improvements.

Other duties as assigned.

The AVP will oversee key UMC units—Social Media, Storytelling, Santa Clara Magazine, Media Relations and Internal Communications—and lead initiatives that drive external visibility through thought leadership and proactive reputation management. Additionally, the AVP will play a critical role in unifying messaging across campus, fostering collaboration across campus, and advancing initiatives that support enrollment, philanthropy, and engagement with key audiences such as prospective and current students, alumni, faculty, staff, and the broader SCU community.

Recommends initiatives and implements changes to improve quality and services.

Identifies and determines cause of problems; develops and presents recommendations for improvement of established processes and practices.

Maintains contact with customers and solicits feedback for improved services.

Maximizes productivity through use of appropriate tools; planned training and performance initiatives.

Researches and develops resources that create timely and efficient workflow.

Prepares progress reports; informs supervisor of project status; and deviation from goals.

Ensures completeness, accuracy and timeliness of all operational functions.

Prepares and submits reports as requested and required.

Develops and implements guidelines to support the functions of the unit.

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The items below are representative of the knowledge, skills, abilities, education, and experience required or preferred.

This position requires the ability to effectively establish and maintain cooperative working relationships within a diverse multicultural environment and to promote and contribute to an inclusive and respectful workplace.

Knowledge

• Experienced in change management, implementing new systems and processes that enhance organizational agility, improve team performance, and support strategic objectives.
• Proven expertise in media relations, with a strong track record of securing positive media coverage, building influential relationships with journalists, and managing high-stakes media inquiries with sound judgment and discretion.
• Committed to Santa Clara University's mission and values, aligning with its Jesuit principles of ethics, social consciousness, and community engagement.
• Demonstrated track-record of good professional judgement and discretion in dealing with sensitive and confidential matters.

Skills

• Demonstrated success in leading communications and media strategies surrounding crisis and issues management for an organization.
• Skilled in digital communications, social media management, and content strategy, ensuring consistent messaging and outreach across multiple platforms.
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills, with the ability to craft clear, concise messaging for diverse audiences.
• Known for strong listening skills, approachability, and a sense of humor that fosters camaraderie and rapport across all levels of the organization.

Abilities

• High emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build strong relationships across departments and engage diverse stakeholders with transparency and inclusivity.
• Adept at inspiring and leading teams, fostering a collaborative culture, and mentoring talent through effective coaching to build an agile, high-performing communications group.
• Demonstrated ability to lead innovative communications efforts that drive measurable improvements in institutional reputation through strategic, integrated storytelling across news, long-form narratives, social media, and multimedia channels.
• Driven by intellectual curiosity, creativity, and a positive outlook, with a willingness to challenge the status quo and serve as a catalyst for change.

Education and Years of Experience

• Bachelor's degree in journalism, Public Relations, Communication, or a related field, with over 10 years of progressive experience in communications, journalism, or media relations. Ideally has experience within complex organizations such as higher education or within a communications/PR agency.

The physical demands described below are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended, the California Fair Employment & Housing Act, and all other applicable laws, SCU provides reasonable accommodations for qualified persons with disabilities. A qualified individual is a person who meets skill, experience, education, or other requirements of the position, and who can perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation.

• Considerable time is spent at a desk using a computer terminal.
• May be required to travel to other buildings on the campus.
• May be required to attend conference and training sessions within Bay Area or in- or out-of-state locations.
• May be required to occasionally travel to outside customers, vendors or suppliers.

The work environment characteristics described below are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job.

• Typical office environment.
• Mostly indoor office environment with windows that do not open.
• Offices with equipment noise.
• Offices with frequent interruptions.

Telecommute

Santa Clara University is registered to do business in the following states: California, Nevada,