Senior Assistant Director, Sports Communications

Provides significant assistance to the Director in the daily operations and oversight of the Sports Communications Office. Responsibilities include oversight of the media relations process relating to all sports and the information process as it relates to a set of specific sports including soccer, basketball and lacrosse. Position serves as the primary point of contact within Athletics for editorial storytelling, which involves developing ideas, creating content, pitching and placing content for broader distribution, supporting print publications work and editing story content produced by other staff. The Lehigh community takes seriously our commitment to antiracism and The Principles of our Equitable Community.

• Oversees sports information and media relations activities for an assigned set of sports by producing pre-competition information, statistical summaries and competition notes for the media
• Travels with teams to produce statistics and written game stories and features, posting these to the website and providing them to the media
• Takes basic photographs, captures and posts post-competition videos
• Services media who are covering our teams; submits stories as appropriate to other publications and websites
• Assists with mandatory reports, attends meetings and responds to supervisory requests while maintaining NCAA and league compliance requests
• Leads or assists with execution of new media initiatives, especially those related to storytelling
• Assists with archiving

• Prioritizes time and tasks on a daily basis to ensure completion with quality standards
• Engages in daily decision-making about the allocation of time and resources to program initiatives and contributes to the decision making around sports communication staff assignments and time allocation
• Participates and engages actively in other managerial activities including problem identification, problem solving and problem avoidance

• Occasional participation on department committees
• Engage in personal development as a professional
• Represent Lehigh with distinction
• Develop and expand experiences to become more independent and more effective in role
• Serve as the primary athletics source for creating and/or editing mission relevant stories and features regarding people (students, staff and alumni), programs and/or facility initiatives

• Promotes and reinforces the institutional and departmental mission, vision, values and priorities within and beyond the department staff including public audiences
• Identification of initiatives that will improve or add value to existing programs
• Improving the use of technology, techniques and productivity to ensure better evaluation system
• Act as an example for students in terms of work ethic, responsibility, attention to detail and accountability
• Provides mentoring for less experienced Sports Communications staff and editorial assistance regarding stories and special projects

• Achieves the educational, competitive and service objectives defined by the department and/or University
• Contributes substantially to institutional visibility via program execution
• Promotes student-athlete and staff recognition

• Schedules, guides and directs student workers
• Communicates performance expectations to students
• Provides specific work assignments and instructions
• Evaluates student performance via direct and constructive feedback
• Delegates to students as appropriate in the aim of developing student ownership and pride in multimedia and new media productions
• Promotes diversity and inclusion commitment in all supervisory responsibilities

Grade: 8 – 40

Position Number: S82600

Special Considerations

The duties of the position do not allow for a remote work option; the employee in this position will be required to work on campus where they can be fully accessible to the Lehigh community.

Non-traditional schedule involving many nights and weekends; Volume of work is highest during competitive seasons for varsity sports teams

Qualifications

Bachelor’s Degree in Communications, Marketing, Journalism or related field or equivalent combination of education and experience

Three to five years related work experience

Progressively responsible experience working in sports communications including some experience with higher profile sports which require increased volume and timing specific activity, and which have the potential for achieving higher visibility for the University

Supervisory experience preferred

Excellent written and oral communication, interpersonal skills and a high level of customer service required

Ability to build, foster and maintain positive professional relationships

Excellent attention to detail, organizational skills, time management and sound judgment

Proven ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously and a high degree of initiative for bringing tasks to completion

Excellent computer skills with experience using word processing, spreadsheet, database and presentation software

Adept use of digital communication preferred

Successful completion of standard background checks including but not limited to: social security verification, education verification, national criminal background checks, motor vehicle checks, PATCH, FBI fingerprinting, Child Abuse Clearance and credit history based upon the requirements of the position

All Lehigh faculty and staff are required to be fully vaccinated and receive a booster shot six months after their second vaccine; unless they receive an approved medical or religious exemption from the requirement.

Only complete applications will be considered therefore please complete the application in its entirety. Once the posting is removed from the website applications may no longer be allowed to be completed.

Advertised: August 11, 2022 Eastern Daylight Time
Applications close: