COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The University of Maryland has named Anne Buckley as vice president for marketing and communications, effective September 4, 2024. In this role, Buckley will provide vision and leadership to bolster UMD’s reputation as a top national and global university in research, academics, arts and athletics, with a commitment to embracing the diversity of its community.
Buckley will lead the university’s 50-person Office of Marketing and Communications, which includes communications, marketing, editorial strategies, creative design and web services. She will work closely with senior leadership across UMD to develop and deploy a communications and marketing enterprise that serves the needs of the university while supporting the colleges, schools, programs and units.
“Anne brings decades of higher education experience to build upon the creative foundation and strong brand that the Office of Marketing and Communications has helped establish,” said UMD President Darryll J. Pines. “Under Anne’s leadership, I am excited to expand the university’s reputation for cultivating fearless leaders dedicated to the public good.”
Buckley joins UMD from the University of California San Diego, where she currently serves as the university’s inaugural chief communications and marketing officer. In this role, she has worked to unite reputation, brand and messaging priorities across the university, the academic health sciences schools, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the UC San Diego Health system, the NCAA Division I athletics programs, advancement and enrollment management. Buckley also launched UC San Diego’s first strategic communications plan to drive awareness of the prestige and distinction of the brand.
Previously, Buckley served as the inaugural chief communications officer for the University of Alabama at Birmingham where she directed a staff of approximately 80 professionals in all strategic public relations activities, with an emphasis on crisis communications and issues management; internal and executive communications; and oversight of WBHM public radio. Prior to that, she was the senior director in the Office of Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University and held positions as a reporter and national news editor for the Associated Press.
“I am thrilled for the opportunity to lead a talented team of marketing and communications professionals at one of the most prestigious public research universities in the nation,” said Buckley. “I am excited to help tell the story of the value of higher education, its extraordinary impact, and Maryland’s place in serving the public good.”
Buckley is a steering committee member of the Association of American Universities’ Public Affairs Network, a member of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities’ Council of Strategic Communications, and a member of the national and local chapters of the Public Relations Society of America. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in journalism and a minor in business from the University of New Mexico. She earned her Accreditation in Public Relations, APR, in 2009.
