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The Vice President for University Communications and Marketing reports to the President of the University and exercises a critical leadership role as the chief communications and marketing strategist for the University. The Vice President is a member of the President’s Cabinet, and, together with the University’s other senior administrators, shares broad responsibilities to advance the mission, reputation, and capacity of the University to fulfill its important purposes.

The Vice President oversees all aspects of the development and dissemination of the University’s public messaging, including executive communications; branding; advertising; enrollment marketing; news media relations; publications; constituent communications, including messaging for donors and government officials; crisis communications; and digital and social media strategies, content, and architecture.

The Vice President develops and implements annual plans for strategic messaging and for marketing and public relations initiatives, and oversees rigorous analysis of performance metrics and return-on-investment criteria. The Vice President provides strategic public relations counsel to the President, Senior Vice Presidents, Vice Presidents, Deans, faculty and others as necessary. The Vice President will also function, when appropriate, as an official Spokesperson for the University to the news media, to the Legislature, or in other public venues.

The Vice President oversees compliance with the University's policies relating to communications and is a key member of the University's crisis management and response team.

Specialization

Dr. Brennan is one of the nation's most respected and influential higher education marketing and public relations professionals. Over a 30 year career he has served three major public research universities as a vice president (the University of Iowa, the University at Albany-SUNY, and Montclair State University). As a cabinet member or consultant he has been a trusted advisor to more than a dozen presidents, supporting them to make significant institutional transformations, grow revenues and navigate through high risk situations.

Brennan is also a published author and public speaker whose research interests include emergency communications, crisis leadership, services marketing, and design and leadership of the communications function. He is the primary author of the first statistically rigorous and peer-reviewed critique of the leading system for college rankings, and his work has helped change how college communications professionals think about rankings. He is also a peer reviewer for the Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management. Go here for a complete list of his peer-reviewed and professional publications: https://www.josephabrennan.com/publications

He earned the Accredited in Public Relations credential from the Public Relations Society of America in 1998. In 2017, Brennan was elected a member of the PRSA College of Fellows, a distinction conferred on a select few senior professionals after a rigorous peer review process, in recognition of superior performance, knowledge, ethics and service to the profession.

Brennan holds a doctorate in English, a master's degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing (4.0 GPA), and a BA in English and Psychology (summa cum laude). He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and three other academic honor societies.

His professional service includes chairing the board of the national professional society for higher education communicators, PRSA Counselors to Higher Education; volunteering as a disaster communications expert for the American Red Cross; and serving on the planning committee for the American Marketing Association's higher education marketing conference, the largest gathering of university marketers in the world. Brennan has also served as an independent peer reviewer for assessments of college and university communications and marketing departments.

Resume/CV