Senior Editor/Writer

Department: Col of Humanities and Soc Science

Classification: Public Relations & Mktg Spec 4

Job Category: Classified Staff

Job Type: Full-Time

Work Schedule: Full-time (1.0 FTE, 40 hrs/wk)

Location: Fairfax, VA

Workplace Type: Hybrid Eligible

Pay Band: 05

Salary: Salary commensurate with education and experience

Criminal Background Check: Yes

About the Department:

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) is a hub of intellectual dynamism and diversity, a locus of local and global civic engagement, and an access point to educational excellence for individuals of all backgrounds. Whether students are beginning their college-level education at Mason, transfer here to finish their undergraduate degree, or come to Mason at a later point in their life's journey—to finish an undergraduate degree, pursue advanced research training, re-skilling or up-skilling—CHSS is committed to being a “relationship-rich” educational environment that prepares its students for a multitude of career paths and celebrates the diversity of its faculty, students, and alumni. CHSS has a strong liberal arts tradition of broad and integrative learning that the faculty support through courses for the Mason Core as well as for the college's own majors and minors. Through dozens of undergraduate majors and minors and over 40 graduate degrees and certificates, CHSS prepares students exceptionally well for economically successful and civically engaged lives.

About the Position:

The Senior Editor/Writer leads the writing and editorial function for the college's digital communications, including its bi-monthly e-newsletter, and contributes to a dynamic, creative, and team-focused environment. The position aims to extend the college's reputation as a vibrant, vital college that supports research and teaching in the humanities and social sciences by supporting and telling the CHSS story. The position identifies and develops content that supports the university's grand challenges of developing healthy people, a healthy planet, a healthy economy, and a healthy society, while emphasizing the CHSS mission to improve the world by inspiring responsible leaders through transformational learning experiences.

Responsibilities: 

Content Curation and Creation

• Develops and executes a storytelling approach for the college that is aligned with the broader College of Humanities and Social Sciences strategic plan and distributes content through the website, email, social media, and other communication tools;
• Engages communicators and faculty across CHSS to educate them about institutional storytelling strategies and encourages contributions to support overall content strategies;
• Meets with delegates from individual departments or programs to develop stories and content calendars. They work with those delegates to draft and publish stories, including through the university publication channels, social media, and the college website; and
• Directs and collaborates with content experts, college leadership, Mason's Office of University Branding, and others in the creation and editing of expert content. Develops, with the Director of Communications, a strategic content plan. 

Sharing Content

• Leverages exceptional writing and editing skills, creativity, and a keen ability to identify newsworthy topics to develop content, as appropriate, for the CHSS website, the university's website, fundraising, social media, publications, executive presentations, and the CHSS faculty/staff newsletter;
• Sources and reports key stories that have the potential for the greatest interest and impact, mining newsworthy information from faculty, staff, students, and alumni;
• Assists with speechwriting and internal communications; and
• Manages relevant sections of the website, writing and uploading new and fresh content. 

Internal Communications 

• Manages, edits and publishes the college's bi-weekly newsletter, the CHSS Digest. Regularly collects content and writes original content as needed;
• Ensures the content strategy is in alignment with the Dean's goals; and
• Publishes the newsletter electronically twice a month during the spring and fall semesters.

Develops, refines, and leverages the CHSS brand

• The CHSS brand platform is clearly developed in conjunction with the marketing team, and the brand is implemented consistently across all materials in the college's print and digital publications portfolio. 

Leverages and supports college-wide and department and program events, activities, and research publications for student recruitment

• Promotes the expertise of CHSS faculty to potential graduate students and funders, such as foundations and grant-making bodies, as well as to ensure that their work is visible to the university at large;
• Identifies content work from outside of the marketing team to incorporate in CHSS's marketing channels, to broaden the reach of CHSS research and teaching, and to support the recruitment of graduate students; and
• Monitors and updates the CHSS website, landing pages, and other digital properties and creates content for those platforms. 

Other related duties as assigned

Required Qualifications:

• High school diploma or equivalent;
• Extensive experience in writing and editing related positions;
• Comprehensive, results-driven experience in development and execution of communications plans, writing for all media forms, print and digital publication development, media relations, web content management, social media messaging, and creating and managing strategic partnerships;
• Knowledge and skills in building an external communications program;
• Possess exceptional communication skills and is a self-starting storyteller;
• Possess exceptional writing and editing skills, as well as the ability to adopt the style, tone, and voice of CHSS's various types of written content;
• Demonstrated skills in using project management tools such as Microsoft Teams or Asana to manage writing and publishing projects and collaboration;
• A team player with interest in and understanding of the importance of liberal arts and higher education;
• Has the vision, talent, creativity, and energy to build on Mason's and CHSS's legacy of excellence; and
• Ability to use the CHSS visual branding guidelines as well as an understanding of the university's style and branding guidelines.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in related field; and
• Experience in an academic environment in higher education is preferred.

Instructions to Applicants: 

For full consideration, applicants must apply for Senior Editor/Writer at https://jobs.gmu.edu/. Complete and submit the online application to include three professional references with contact information, and provide a Cover Letter/Letter of Intent, Resume and Writing Sample/Portfolio for review. 

Posting Open Date: December 16, 2024

For Full Consideration, Apply by:  January 31, 2025

Open Until Filled:  Yes