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