Classes are designed to challenge your thinking and develop your professional skills. You’ll leave each class with a unique set of tools to approach new communications challenges.
Tailor your experience to your career goals by focusing on one of eight areas of specialization. Use the search widget below to sort classes by quarter, specialization, instructor and degree track for each quarter. Get a comprehensive view of the full academic year in our Course Guide.
View the University of Washington Academic Calendar for important dates, including quarter start and end dates, registration dates and deadlines, and campus holidays.
Registration numbers (SLNs) are located on the Time Schedule. Please read the Department’s statement on internet resource requirements for access to courses.
(
Park
)
- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025
Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Saturdays 10/4, 10/18, 11/01, 11/15, 12/06, 9:00am – 5:00pm | Online
Course Description
(
)
- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025
Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | A is 3 Credits, B is 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/24 – 12/3, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
Course Description
(
Visneski
)
- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025
Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/24 – 12/3, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Course Description
(
Baltus
)
- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025
Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 Credits
Mondays 9/29 – 12/1, 6:00pm – 8:20pm | CMU 242
Course Description
(
Partnow
)
- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025
Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 9/30 – 12/2, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room TBD
Course Description
(
Meyer
)
- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025
Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Mondays 9/29 – 12/1, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
Course Description
(
Weaver
)
- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025
MCCN Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Saturdays 9/27, 10/11, 10/25, 11/8, 11/22, 9:00am – 5:00pm | Online
Course Description
(
Yasin
)
- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025
Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Thursdays 9/25 – 12/4, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | PCAR 192
Course Description
(
)
- Current Quarter | 2024-2025 | Spring 2025 | Summer 2025
Track Neutral | 1-5 Credits
Application Required
Course Description:
Independent Research projects are student-driven, with faculty serving in a loose advisory capacity. This option is for students with a clear project in mind who will only need minimal faculty support to accomplish their end goal. See complete details and application instructions on the Guide to Independent Research page.
(
Liu
)
- 2024-2025 | Summer 2025
Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Mondays 6/23-8/18, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
SLN: 10758
Course Description:
This course offers a comprehensive exploration of the critical intersection between Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and technology. In an era where technology such as artificial intelligence and machine learning plays an ever-expanding role in shaping our world, we should interrogate who gets to build it, use it, and profit from it. As future technology leaders it is imperative to not only be well versed in DEI but to create necessary solutions that democratize technology rather than allow it to perpetuate systems of inequality.
Meets Law & Ethics Requirement.
(
Schwartz
)
- 2024-2025 | Summer 2025
Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 6/25-8/20, 4:00pm – 7:50pm | Online
SLN: 10757
Course Description:
The 24-hour news cycle, social media, and online reporting fundamentally changed how institutional leaders, executives, celebrities, politicians, and organizations address crises big and small. Effectively managing a crisis means not just employing PR strategies, but developing a comprehensive communications plan that disseminates actionable content and engages all stakeholders with equal focus across multiple and diverse networks.
This course will identify the key communication issues that must be addressed during an organizational crisis (real or imagined). We’ll examine implementation strategies to engage traditional and social media; digital networks; federal, state and local lawmakers; external and internal stakeholders; and consumers or constituents. As important, we’ll deconstruct and reinforce the personal ethics and behavior required by professionals in a crisis situation. This class uses current events, interactive discussions, real-time exercises, and engaging guest lectures to provide practical insight about effective techniques and lessons learned.
Meets Law and Ethics Requirement.
(
Graney-Saucke
)
- 2024-2025 | Summer 2025
Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Thursdays 6/26-8/21, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
SLN: 10756
Course Description
Ethics plays a critical role in how we tell stories. What values are behind the story? Who is telling the story, and for whom? What is the intended outcome, and what could the potential impact be? What are the ethics around new media technology like deep fake as we continue to take stories at face value?
Ethics and subjective bias in storytelling can also be complex, and thus they require our attention and reflection in responsible and responsive creative communications. This course will address various storytelling mediums and scenarios where ethics in storytelling are actively at play. Students will engage in critical discourse and assignments to assess values that impact ethical decisions personally and professionally. Assigned media and reading material as well as student sourced case studies will be used in order to ensure diverse and current content. As a conclusion to the class, students will create a final video, audio, web or UX project that engages an ethical challenge.
Meets Law & Ethics requirement.
(
Marr
)
- Current Quarter | 2024-2025 | Spring 2025
Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Mondays 3/31 – 6/2, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
Application Required
Course Description
This advanced course explores the evolving challenges and opportunities in marketing management, equipping students with the tools and strategies to excel in today’s dynamic marketplace. Through a combination of case studies, group projects, and industry experts, students will delve into topics such as AI in marketing, customer insights, digital transformation, omni-channel strategies, and new revenue models. Designed for graduate-level students, Advanced Marketing emphasizes practical application of marketing strategy and execution.
By the end of this class, students will be able to:
• Analyze the challenges and opportunities marketing leaders face in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
• Apply advanced marketing strategies, including AI, personalization, and omni-channel integration, to real-world scenarios.
• Develop and present a comprehensive marketing plan, incorporating insights from customer data.
• Evaluate and implement customer-centric approaches to improve customer experience and drive business growth.
*Asynchronous work will be added to make up for Memorial Day.
**Since this class takes foundational concepts to the next level, students who register must have already taken any of the following courses:
COMMLD 520: Principles of Marketing
COMMLD 520: Strategic Communications
COMMLD 521: Digital Marketing
COMMLD 522: Future of Marketing
Or have equivalent Marketing experience.
Please fill out the form below to the best of your ability. If your form is approved, you will receive an add code to register for the course. (Note: applications will be time stamped, and qualified applicants will be added to remaining class spots on an equitable basis determined by time of application and remaining time in the program.)
The application will go live on Tuesday, February 18, 2025 at 6:30 AM here: https://forms.office.com/r/MZT7VgETXc
Here are the questions to the form to help you prepare before it goes live:
Full Name
UW Email
Have you taken or are currently taking any of the following courses:
COMMLD 520: Principles of Marketing (Meyer)
COMMLD 520: Strategic Communications (Keyes/Ramos)
COMMLD 521: Digital Marketing (Mottola)
COMMLD 522: Future of Marketing (Salkowitz)
(If you have not taken any prerequisite) You have stated that you have not taken the prerequisites for this course. You may still be qualified if you have previous experience. Please describe your marketing experience.
(
Hansen
)
- Current Quarter | 2024-2025 | Spring 2025
Track Neutral | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Mondays 3/31 – 6/9, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 230
SLN: 12593
Course Description
Navigating online communities constitutes a large portion of what we experience as “the internet,” and yet understanding these communities is not always a straightforward or easy task. This course will explore the nature of online communities, different ways we can come to learn about them, and how we should think about handling the data we collect (and indeed, whether to collect it at all). Students will gain a basic social scientific foundation for thinking about communities and the affordances of computer mediated communication before surveying several established approaches to collecting and analyzing data produced by and about specific communities, including surveys, web scraping, and social listening/monitoring.
Throughout, we will consider the ethical implications and demands of our work as researchers and professionals, emphasizing such values as respect for persons, prevention of harm, and beneficence. Students will conclude the course by developing group research projects using one or more of the methods we’ve learned together to answer a clearly defined research question and presenting their findings within a professional context.
Meets Research Methods Requirement.
(
Howard
)
- Current Quarter | 2024-2025 | Spring 2025
Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 4/1 – 6/3, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | DEN 258
SLN: 12579
Course Description:
This course will take a close up look at corporate brand values in marketing communications today. Brand values should be timeless and unchanging, but in a constantly fluctuating business environment, is this goal even possible? While high volume video advertising and A/B testing is exploding, paradoxically, messaging of corporate brand values is oftentimes minimized. Marketing today is composed of ever-changing algorithms, transactional communications, and confusing narratives. Should creativity play a bigger role in storytelling in today’s marketplace? Do customers even know what the companies they make purchases from actually stand for values-wise? Does it matter? How can companies still connect emotionally with consumers? Students will ideate a marketing film for a company or nonprofit of their choice. All the while, they’ll be considering deeply how emotion, story, and marketing message function in a project that resonates with the consumer while also reinforcing an organization’s belief system.
(
Crofts
)
- Current Quarter | 2024-2025 | Spring 2025
Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Wednesdays 4/2 – 6/4, 6:00pm – 7:50pm | Online
SLN: 12594
Course Description:
While there are many skills that contribute to being an effective leader at any level of any organization, you would be hard-pressed to find a list that didn’t include listening up at the top. Across the field of professional communication, teams collaborate to design things every day—from a strategic communications plan to a new app. Participatory design centers the voices of end-users in the design process, with a goal to create products or services that thereby better meet the priorities of the user by listening carefully to their insights, observations, and feedback. (Other terms for participatory design include cooperative design, co-design, or community design.) One could argue that strong leadership and strong participatory design share a common feature when it comes to listening: both your colleagues and your clients thrive when you actively listen and learn from them.
This class takes an applied approach to listening skill development by inviting students to become keen observers of their listening habits, as well as active participants in strengthening this crucial skill set. We will explore listening as it relates to participatory design, from UX research to community development, and from listening across differences on diverse teams to advocacy movements.
Throughout the quarter, we were able to learn about various listening styles and how we can apply them in our personal and professional lives. To this day, I still reference the material and course reading that we learned and reviewed in class.–AK Sterling, MCCN cohort ‘19 alumni
commlead@uw.edu
206.543.6745
4101 E Stevens Way NE, Seattle, WA
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University of Washington
Department of Communication