Sonoma State is seeing yet another new change in staff, as Julia Gonzalez is set to become Vice President of Strategic Communications. She will be taking over for Rob Eyler, who was previously serving as an interim officer for the position. 

Gonzalez has had a long career working as a public information officer. She spent over 13 years working for the city of Santa Rosa, and most recently, she was the communications and marketing manager for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District, more commonly known as the SMART Train. While working at SMART, Gonzalez oversaw their communications, branding, marketing and advertising programs. Gonzalez also has experience working in higher education, including at Sonoma State, where she served as an outreach coordinator, EOP advisor, and program specialist early in her career.

Julia Gonzales has a clear vision for what she hopes to accomplish as VP of Strategic Communications. Her ideas include creating a more universal brand for how SSU communicates from faculty to the public. Across departments, she aims to make communication strategies comprehensive and clear, eliminating any current confusion and aiding departments who struggle to communicate effectively with students. 

Additionally, Gonzalez wants to provide a clear and easy place to go where all campus events are promoted, so students and the community have an easier time keeping track of all of the events our campus provides. Eliminating the need for individual departments to communicate their events will ideally unite the campus in a way we haven’t seen before. 

Gonzalez also mentioned her plan to increase and improve SSU’s social media use by merging pages and sharing content targeted to engage and inform followers. She hopes to start a presence on platforms SSU has yet to explore, such as LinkedIn, Snapchat, and TikTok.

In the past few years, the campus has faced fire danger, issues with clean drinking water, campus rapes, burglaries, and even homicide. Our community has learned to value effective communication as we face these struggles, and Gonzales aims to increase communication during future crises. Gonzalez says she will prioritize twice a day updates on emergency proceedings and believes morning and evening information output is critical.

Sonoma State has lacked a system of communication that is mutually beneficial for students, faculty and the public, but Julia Gonzalez seems to understand what issues our campus has faced and vows to target and change them.

Gonzalez began the transition to her new position on Sept. 14, and has already begun to implement the changes she hopes to accomplish during her time in this position.