UPDATED: Thursday, July 12 at 7:43 p.m.

Syracuse University has hired three individuals to serve as “key leaders” in its Division of Marketing and Communications, which was recently restructured to eliminate 32 positions, the university announced in an SU News release on Wednesday.

Dara Royer, senior vice president and chief communications officer, has been responsible for reviewing and restructuring the division since her arrival in fall 2017, according to an SU News release from June. This included one-on-one interviews with all staffers in the department.

“After extensive consultation with my team, deans, faculty, staff and alumni, I announced back in February a new vision, mission and strategic plan for the division along with my intention to reorganize and modernize our operation,” Royer said in a statement.

Sarah Scalese — previously the associate vice president for university communications — is now senior associate vice president for communications. She first came to campus in 2014 as director of communications in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Scalese will report directly to Royer and will oversee the internal communications team and the media relations team, created as part of the restructuring. Scalese’s position is effective immediately, per Wednesday’s release.

An external hire, Ellen de Graffenreid, will begin working as senior associate vice president for content strategy in late August. In her position, she will develop a content strategy and identify audiences for the university. Her job involves collaboration with the new communications and marketing strategy teams, as well as marketers across the university.

The last of the three new executives — also an external hire — is Tonya Strong-Charles, who will be executive director of media relations. Her responsibilities include building a media relations team and serving as senior strategist for SU’s media relations efforts, according to the release. Strong-Charles will also media train university ambassadors and coordinate media events.

While 32 positions were eliminated in June, not all of those staffers were laid off, per the June release. Of the staffers whose positions were eliminated, 19 were offered new jobs and eight decided not to apply for new positions. A remaining five others were laid off without being offered new positions.

After the announcement of the restructuring and the removal of the positions, nearly 200 SU faculty, doctoral students and alumni signed an online petition condemning the layoffs.

CLARIFICATION: In a previous version of this post, the timeline of Sarah Scalese’s employment at Syracuse University was unclear. Scalese was first hired in 2014 as director of communications in the College of Arts and Sciences.

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Published on July 12, 2018 at 6:41 pm

Contact Catherine: [email protected] | @ccleffert