The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Communications Specialist

USA (On-site)

$65K/yr – $75K/yrMid LevelFull time

Posted 12 days ago

Top 1% of applicants do these two things.

The other 99% submit and hope. You're about to do something different.

Job Summary

Owns executive communications, strategy for reputation management, nominations coordination, and cross‑school content development; drives multi‑stakeholder projects and rapid, visible outreach for Gillings School communications.

Leads dean-focused communications and nomination efforts for major professional organizations.
Creates and coordinates content across internal and external audiences while upholding Gillings brand consistency.

Job Description

Responsibilities

The Public Communications Specialist supports the communications mission of the Gillings School of Global Public Health, the top public school of public health in the U.S. and #2 overall.
This role implements communications and marketing strategies that strengthen the School’s reputation, with a particular focus on: partnering with the dean to produce executive communications, and elevating the visibility of Gillings faculty by strategically supporting nominations to prestigious professional organizations such as NAM, NAS and NAE.
Executive Communications: The Specialist develops internal and external communications on behalf of the dean and Dean’s Office, producing deliverables for faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors, public health leaders, prominent scientists, and strategic partners in business and industry.
Strategy, Impact and Reputation Management: A core responsibility is managing and innovating a key strategy for reputation management. The Specialist identifies faculty who have made significant public health contributions and matches them with competitive, high level awards.
This role manages and collaborates with the School’s Nominations Committee to identify strong candidates and align them with appropriate awards. The Specialist guides development of persuasive nomination packages, coordinating with the dean, department chairs, the University’s Office of Research, leaders at other universities, and staff at sponsoring organizations.
After awards are secured, the Specialist promotes achievements across web, social media, executive communications, and outreach to alumni and donors.
More broadly, the Specialist consults on and helps implement communications that elevate schoolwide strategic initiatives in public health practice, research, academics, and global health.
This includes independently and collaboratively developing compelling content articles, news releases, announcements, memos, and web content for internal and external audiences.
The role requires effective liaison across committees, work groups, and individuals involved in these initiatives.
General Communications: The Specialist partners with communications and marketing colleagues to maintain a unified approach to Gillings brand guidelines across the School and university.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in a discipline related to the area of assignment; or equivalent combination of training and experience. All degrees must be received from appropriately accredited institutions.
A strong track record as an outstanding writer who is able to (a) communicate complex information to both general and academic audiences; and (b) to synthesize, summarize and distill large amounts of disparate information and data for the widest range of audiences.
Experience with liaising and partnering with a broad range of people within the university and beyond, including senior leaders for other organizations.
Expertise in Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office Suite, and WordPress.

Preferred

Three years of compensated writing/editing experience for an educational institution, with skill in understanding how to make a persuasive case in writing for internal and external audiences; the ability to handle several projects at once; and the flexibility to change priorities as needed.

Benefits

UNC-Chapel Hill offers full-time employees a comprehensive benefits package, paid leave, and a variety of health, life and retirement plans and additional programs that support a healthy work/life balance.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Carolina’s vibrant people and programs attest to the University’s long-standing place among leaders in higher education since it was chartered in 1789 and opened its doors for students in 1795 as the nation’s first public university. Situated in the beautiful college town of Chapel Hill, N.C., UNC has earned a reputation as one of the best universities in the world. Carolina prides itself on a strong, diverse student body, academic opportunities not found anywhere else, and a value unmatched by any public university in the nation.UNC-Chapel Hill's LinkedIn comments guidelines:Thank you for liking the LinkedIn page of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This page highlights information about the people and programs at Carolina. Consistent with UNC-Chapel Hill’s Policy on Prohibited Discrimination, Harassment and Related Misconduct, and the North Carolina Campus Free Speech Act, we encourage your comments and opinions as they relate to our posts.This page is actively monitored for relevance. Carolina reserves the right to remove any comments that are not related to the particular post, make unsupported accusations, contain ad-hominem attacks, use obscene language or images, are blatant spam, contain advertisements, or contain inappropriate personal information or sensitive information. Repeated violation of these guidelines or behavior that substantially disrupts the maintenance of this page could result in a user being blocked from the page. Thanks for keeping the page enjoyable for everyone. Go Tar Heels!

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

20K employees (644 in marketing)

unc.edu

Traffic Signals

Monthly Visitors

Monthly Google Ads Budget

$1.1M

Traffic Source Mix

45.4%

Direct

46.7%

Referral

6.6%

Social

0.4%

Paid

0.7%

Headcount Trend

Current headcount: ~20.1K

Marketing Team

Marketing Team Size

494 (2% of company)

Marketing Roles Posted (Last 30 Days)

Funding

Total Funding

$3M

Last Raise

$3M

Grant, 3 years ago

Funding History

Oct 2022
Grant • $3M

Recent News

Former Provost Sues UNC Chapel Hill

Sep 24, 2025 • Inside Higher Ed

Carolina ranks as No. 1 best value public for 21st straight year

Sep 23, 2025 • The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

How a North Carolina startup grew from zero to $10M

Sep 22, 2025 • Seattle TechFlash

Responsibilities

The Public Communications Specialist supports the communications mission of the Gillings School of Global Public Health, the top public school of public health in the U.S. and #2 overall.
This role implements communications and marketing strategies that strengthen the School’s reputation, with a particular focus on: partnering with the dean to produce executive communications, and elevating the visibility of Gillings faculty by strategically supporting nominations to prestigious professional organizations such as NAM, NAS and NAE.
Executive Communications: The Specialist develops internal and external communications on behalf of the dean and Dean’s Office, producing deliverables for faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors, public health leaders, prominent scientists, and strategic partners in business and industry.
Strategy, Impact and Reputation Management: A core responsibility is managing and innovating a key strategy for reputation management. The Specialist identifies faculty who have made significant public health contributions and matches them with competitive, high level awards.
This role manages and collaborates with the School’s Nominations Committee to identify strong candidates and align them with appropriate awards. The Specialist guides development of persuasive nomination packages, coordinating with the dean, department chairs, the University’s Office of Research, leaders at other universities, and staff at sponsoring organizations.
After awards are secured, the Specialist promotes achievements across web, social media, executive communications, and outreach to alumni and donors.
More broadly, the Specialist consults on and helps implement communications that elevate schoolwide strategic initiatives in public health practice, research, academics, and global health.
This includes independently and collaboratively developing compelling content articles, news releases, announcements, memos, and web content for internal and external audiences.
The role requires effective liaison across committees, work groups, and individuals involved in these initiatives.
General Communications: The Specialist partners with communications and marketing colleagues to maintain a unified approach to Gillings brand guidelines across the School and university.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in a discipline related to the area of assignment; or equivalent combination of training and experience. All degrees must be received from appropriately accredited institutions.
A strong track record as an outstanding writer who is able to (a) communicate complex information to both general and academic audiences; and (b) to synthesize, summarize and distill large amounts of disparate information and data for the widest range of audiences.
Experience with liaising and partnering with a broad range of people within the university and beyond, including senior leaders for other organizations.
Expertise in Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office Suite, and WordPress.

Preferred

Three years of compensated writing/editing experience for an educational institution, with skill in understanding how to make a persuasive case in writing for internal and external audiences; the ability to handle several projects at once; and the flexibility to change priorities as needed.

Benefits

UNC-Chapel Hill offers full-time employees a comprehensive benefits package, paid leave, and a variety of health, life and retirement plans and additional programs that support a healthy work/life balance.