Communications Coordinator, College of Architecture, Art, and Planning

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The College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University (Cornell AAP) is home to nearly 1000 students, 120 faculty, and 65 staff members who come together from around the world to take up some of today's most urgent challenges and advance research, inquiry, and approaches to designing, making, and doing that build a more just and sustainable future.

The AAP Office of Communications establishes and stewards the college brand, visual identity, and editorial strategy to increase awareness of the college's mission to build a more sustainable, just, and resilient world. Through digital-first communications and media outreach, the office amplifies the impact of AAP's research, scholarship, and creative and critical practices to key audiences including current and prospective students, faculty and staff, alumni, and external stakeholders.

The Opportunity:

Reporting to the Assistant Dean for Communications, the Communications Coordinator contributes to AAP's many platforms and outlets that share and advance the college's mission and priorities, and highlight faculty, student, and alumni news, work, scholarship, research, and critical and creative practices.

The Communications Coordinator's Responsibilities are as follows:

Social media:

• Designs communication strategies and original content that connect students, alumni, faculty, and staff to AAP's mission and priorities
• Plans, develops, and publishes content on college-level social media platforms
• Ensures original content establishes and meets the highest quality of editorial and visual standards, SEO best practices, and alignment with communications priorities
• Acts as a community manager: develops a community with a strong affinity for AAP by increasing engagement among followers, and by connecting new users with resources to help them get involved in the life of the college. Monitors online sentiment and suggests solutions to better engage audiences and communicate key priorities.
• Serves as an AAP social media ambassador, working closely with University Relations (New Media) to ensure adherence to best practices, and advises AAP departmental and unit account managers to ensure alignment with messaging/content and priorities

Digital and Marketing:

• Edits, moderates, and publishes digital content contributed by departments and units on the AAP primary website
• Writes and publishes short marketing content for the AAP website and bi-weekly newsletter sent to all AAP faculty, students, staff, and alumni, emails, and print collateral
• Selects media articles featuring AAP faculty, students, staff, and alumni in Meltwater, and shares them daily on AAP's website, bi-weekly newsletter, and/or social media channels as relevant; creates a monthly compilation of AAP media mentions

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree, preferably in communications, public relations, journalism, marketing, or a similar field
• Proactive, personable, service-oriented, and enthusiastic
• Proven ability to develop excellent working relationships with faculty, students, and staff in a professional and collaborative manner
• Commitment to effectively work and interact respectfully to foster a diverse and inclusive environment
• Ability to deliver and receive feedback with diplomacy, empathy, and confidence

• Social media qualifications:
  • 3-5 years of experience managing social media community
  • Superior writing and editing skills for social media; strong understanding of how to write and design content for social media
  • Knowledge of image/video manipulation design tools
  • High level of proficiency in social media management tools
  • Experience developing distribution strategies for multiple social media platforms and audiences
  • Excellent judgment in sensitive and confidential situations, and the ability to follow established protocols
  • Ability to work nonstandard business hours, when warranted by university events or issues
  • Understanding of and appreciation for topics, issues, and culture in contemporary higher education

• Digital and marketing qualifications:
  • Excellent writer, editor, and proofreader
  • Strong attention to detail
  • Web content management experience with Drupal or similar content management tools; template creation, and content publication
  • Demonstrated understanding of and experience working with print and web communication materials, and the ability to compose multi-tiered, cross-channel communications

The work location for this position is on the Ithaca, NY campus. There is no visa sponsorship and no relocation funds for this position.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Degree in arts, architecture, planning, or design; or, in communications
• 1- 2 years of experience working in an academic environment
• Knowledge, interest, or work experience in the architecture, art, planning, or design disciplines
• Experience with Adobe Creative Suite, Google Analytics, Sprout Social, Canva is desirable.

About the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning:

The College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University (Cornell AAP) is home to nearly 1000 students, 120 faculty, and 65 staff members who come together from around the world to take up some of today's most urgent challenges and advance research, inquiry, and approaches to designing, making, and doing that build a more just and sustainable future. A vital college at one of the nation's foremost research universities, Cornell AAP bridges fields and faculty with 5 departments, 20 degree programs, 18 faculty-led labs, and the Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities, a platform for building partnerships that make change in our cities and communities nationally and internationally.

Cornell AAP's departments include Architecture, Art, and Planning, as well as the new multicollege Paul Rubacha Department of Real Estate, jointly led with the S.C. Johnson College of Business; and the multicollege Department of Design Tech, administered by Cornell AAP in partnership with Cornell Bowers CIS; Cornell Engineering; the College of Human Ecology; and Cornell Tech. The college is housed across three locations — Ithaca, NY; New York City; and Rome, Italy — each with world-class facilities and cutting-edge technologies.

Cornell AAP is about acts of transformation. We are committed to building a caring, inclusive, and rigorous community around our shared priorities — Creative Critical Practices; Sustainability Social Impact; Design Emerging Technologies; and the Future of Cities Communities — that enable us to reimagine and reshape the world in radically new ways, every day.

About the AAP Office of Communications:

The AAP Office of Communications establishes and stewards the college brand, visual identity, and editorial strategy to increase awareness of the college's mission to build a more sustainable, just, and resilient world. Through digital-first communications and media outreach, the office amplifies the impact of AAP's research, scholarship, and creative and critical practices to key audiences including current and prospective students, faculty and staff, alumni, and external stakeholders.

While position responsibilities vary, every member of our community is expected to foster a culture of belonging and a psychologically healthy work environment by communicating across differences; being cooperative, collaborative, open, and welcoming; showing respect, compassion, and empathy; engaging and supporting others regardless of background or perspective; speaking up when others are being excluded or treated inappropriately; and supporting work/life integration of oneself and others.

Cornell communicators share a mission to enhance and preserve the university's brand and reputation as a top research institution and a leader in higher education, and to support and promote critical programs that serve the university's teaching, research, and public engagement mission.

Communication services are carried out through a matrixed organizational system in which University Relations houses the departments of News (Cornell Chronicle), Media Relations (pitching and servicing media requests), Brand (cornell.edu, multimedia production, brand management, and governance), Strategic Communications (communications plans, key messaging, social media management), and Cornellians (digital alumni publication).

Communicators in colleges, schools, and units regularly collaborate with and consult University Relations departments. University Relations serves as a partner and resource for all college/unit communicators.

Full Detail of the Communications Coordinator's Responsibilities:

Responsible for social media strategy, content creation, and community management (50%)

Content planning, Creation, and Publishing:

• Designs communication strategies and original content that connect students, alumni, faculty, and staff to AAP's mission and priorities.
• Integrates the brand promise, vision, and position into these strategies
• Plans, develops, and publishes compelling content on AAP social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Tiktok), including imagery/captions/reels
• Ensures that content meets the highest-quality editorial and visual standards, SEO best practices, and alignment with the college's communications priorities
• Collaborates with the AAP Communications team, colleges we share departments with, University Relations (New Media), and other partners as relevant to share college and university news, resources, events, and priorities to reinforce and enhance brand awareness
• Meets with AAP Creative Producer to develop and formalize project requirements/scope. This includes identifying new types of content, developing creative briefs, setting deadlines, and coordinating social media promotion
• Coordinates requests from brand ambassadors to ensure proper alignment with messaging and communications planning, provides training and guidance as appropriate

Community Management:

• As a subject matter expert, determines whether an official response is required by the college when users comment or have questions on social media posts with the end goal of creating positive interactive relationships with users
• Acts as a community manager, monitors and analyzes online sentiment to understand target audiences, identifies and addresses challenges, and suggests solutions to better engage audiences and communicate key priorities
• Strengthens affinity to AAP by increasing engagement among current followers, and by connecting new users with resources to help them get involved in the life of the college
• Amplifies user content when appropriate
• Identifies potential high-level issues and collaborates with the AAP Assistant Dean for Communications, Chief New Media Officer, and other Central Communications stakeholders when relevant in responding to and tracking issues as necessary

Measuring and Metrics:

• Monitors the social media sites used by the organization
• Analyzes, evaluates, and maintains New Media outreach metrics (e.g., media hits and strategic audience performance metrics) on a regular basis
• Compiles, analyzes, and evaluates data to identify issues, audiences, and competitor trends as part of situational analyses, noting patterns and trends and presenting the results in an appropriate format
• Provides reports on metrics and shares feedback on trends, and makes recommendations for future strategies

Strengthening the frameworks for social media deployment:

• Guides AAP department and unit account managers when needed
• Meets with these account managers regularly to ensure alignment in terms of messaging/strategies/creative direction
• Fosters ongoing relationships with college and university stakeholders to keep current on key issues, current projects, and accomplishments

Responsible for website moderation and short marketing content on AAP channels (35%)

Website moderation and short copywriting:

• Edits and moderates all content (such as evergreen text, event and lecture pages, program updates, faculty profiles, etc.) created by the departments and units and publishes it on the AAP website
• Writes short and engaging marketing content: titles and standfirsts for the homepage, summaries for news, features, "in the media" mentions, faculty work, and announcement feeds

Newsletter/email copywriting:

• Writes titles and standfirsts for content in our AAP bi-weekly newsletter sent to faculty, students, staff, and alumni
• Proofreads bi-weekly newsletter draft
• Proofreads emails sent from AAP Communications or the Office of the Dean

Print material copywriting:

• Writes and proofreads short marketing copy with CTAs

Responsible for amplifying select Media Mentions on the AAP platforms (10%)

• Manages our Meltwater account by checking it daily, updating lists with new faculty names for tracking media hits
• Flags and selects media articles of our faculty/students/staff/alumni in Meltwater and publishes them daily on the website, selects for social media amplification when relevant
• Is the main point of contact with our faculty regarding media mentions: informs them of how we amplified their media coverage across our channels (website/newsletter/social/other) by sending relevant links for their awareness
• Creates a monthly compilation of AAP media mentions to track our performance and media outreach
• Provides a selection of AAP mentions in top-tier media for inclusion in presentations from the Office of the Dean (such as AAP advisory council, all-college, or external presentations)

Other position-related responsibilities(5%)

• Participate in projects with occasional work responsibility falling above or below the current classification.

Familiarize yourself with Cornell's COVID-19 workplace guidance as well as the university's COVID-19 services and information.

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