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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.

COMMLD 590A: Capstone Preparation: Research and Development

(

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Thursdays 9/25 – 12/4, 6:00pm – 8:20pm | PCAR 297

Course Description:

This course builds a foundation in research design and practice to support the development of an impactful, and well-scoped capstone project. A range of research approaches will be introduced, including qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, and emerging modes such as futures thinking. Students will begin by exploring existing academic and professional conversations to identify gaps, opportunities, and areas of relevance. From this foundation, they will learn to frame meaningful research questions, select appropriate methodologies, and design ethical, context-aware studies. The course also includes strategies for identifying relevant participants, stakeholders, audiences  and data sources aligned with research goals.
The primary outcome of the course is a complete research plan, which will serve as the foundation for students to continue the work through the academic year, culminating in the Spring Quarter Capstone class.

A note on the Capstone: If you are an MCCL student, you will complete a Capstone project as part of the requirements for graduation. Capstone projects are a chance for you to develop a rigorous, in-depth portfolio project that demonstrates impact, whether social, organizational, community, or professional.

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COMMLD 503: Practicum: Advanced Marketing

(

Myers

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Thursdays 9/25 – 12/4, Time 4:00pm – 5:50pm | CMU 126
Application Required

Course Description

Level up your leadership. Build a real-world marketing strategy that actually gets used.

In this hands-on practicum, you’ll partner with a real client to create and deliver a strategic marketing plan—plus sample content they can start using now. You’ll assess their current outreach (social, web, posters, community engagement) and design a smarter, more integrated approach. The client will provide real-time feedback and decide what to adopt—so the stakes (and impact) are real.

This course is built for students ready to stretch: to lead through ambiguity, influence without authority, and work through the messy middle of real-world challenges. There’s no step-by-step playbook—just strong coaching, clear expectations, and support to help you grow fast.

By the end, you’ll walk away with a marketing plan, content samples, client-facing experience, and a standout project for your resume or portfolio.

Credit/No Credit only

**Since this class takes foundational concepts to the next level, students who register must have already taken any of the following courses:

• COMMLD 520: Advanced Marketing (Marr)

• 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.)

Form will be posted soon

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COMMLD 525: Brand Values & Creativity

(

Howard

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/24 – 12/3, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 230
SLN: 13017

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.

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COMMLD 563: Multicultural Marketing: Creating Equitable and Inclusive Communications

(

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
Registration SLN: 13031

Course Description

This course will take a close look at the evolution of multicultural marketing, industry best practices and foundational strategies related to multicultural communications. We will explore how agencies and companies have adapted, pivoted and transformed the way brands and organizations engage with diverse audiences. You’ll learn how to build marketing campaigns that are rooted in principles of diversity, equity and inclusion. Additionally, we’ll learn how to craft campaigns that are responsive to the increasingly diverse marketplace and ever-changing marketing landscape.

Meets Law & Ethics Requirement.

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COMMLD 544A/B: Professional Short-Form Writing

(

Shaban

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 or 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/24 – 12/3, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
3-credit 544A Registration SLN: 13025
5-credit 544B Registration SLN: 23358

Course Description

This collaborative hands-on course explores the kind of short-form writing that dominates today’s rapidly evolving professional communications space — the digital space where lines between content and form increasingly blur and where always-on media feeds deliver a mix of advertising, marketing, public relations, human resources, personal brand-building and journalistic reporting and research. It’s a space that presents new writing challenges every day: professional emails, office memos, newsletters, website copy, funding proposals, executive summaries, op-eds, tweets, blurbs, blogs. Much of this material is badly done. Most of it is mediocre. The best of it, though, sings out and demands our attention, demonstrating mastery in the kind of critical thinking and dedicated practice that delivers copy sharply focused and sure in matching voice and material with form and audience. This course is part professional-communications criticism class and part writing workshop. It’s about learning how to identify good writing; it’s about understanding the process that produces good writing; and it’s about practicing that process yourself.

Students can choose between a 3-credit and 5 credit option:

• Section A will be 3 Credits and meet the Professional Writing Requirement. It meets 6-8:20. 

• Section B will be 5 Credits and also meet the Professional Writing Requirement. It will meet for a longer period from 6-9:50 and include additional short form assignments over the course of the quarter. 

Meets Professional Writing Requirement.

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COMMLD 541: Crisis Communication

(

Visneski

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/24 – 12/3, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Registration SLN: 13024

Course Description:

Nothing is more dramatic than a crisis. When an organization, company, industry, or individual in the public eye is in a crisis, communication is one of the crucial routes back to normalcy. Oftentimes, organizations find themselves unprepared when a crisis hits and only then think “Oh goodness, we should get a crisis communications plan in place!” Trying to “spin” a bad situation can both be unethical, and ineffective, damaging reputation, and subsequently business.

This course will teach you how to be rapidly responsive, responsible, and to avoid common pitfalls in crisis comms. We will examine how organizations attempt to anticipate and recover from crises, how the broadcast and print media cover different types of crises, how crisis communications fails, and how it succeeds.

Meets Law and Ethics Requirement.

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COMMLD 540A: The Power of Revision

(

Baltus

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 Credits
Mondays 9/29 – 12/1, 6:00pm – 8:20pm | CMU 242
Registration SLN: 13023

Course Description

No matter what kind of writing you do, editing skills are essential to producing your best work. In this course, experienced writers will learn a rigorous, methodical approach to revision that transforms a rough draft into a compelling finished piece. You’ll gain the awareness and control you need to diagnose and address problems, develop ideas and themes, create structure, and craft a story. You’ll also hone your ability at the line level, learning ways to make your writing clearer and more precise by eliminating clichés, clunky phrases, and extraneous words. As an editing workshop, this course emphasizes the importance of giving and receiving kind, productive feedback. It focuses on longer-form texts for public audiences, such as blog posts, executive op-eds, and news releases, though its principles are applicable to all forms of writing and creative iteration.

Editing IS Writing! Leah Baltus approaches her craft with precision and clarity, and her mission is to pass on her knowledge to students in a highly structured way, with loads of productive feedback. Several students from this class have had their work published in professional/ trade outlets. If you want a surefire way to improve your writing effectiveness, this class is for you!–Gretchen Ludwig, Associate Director

Meets Professional Writing Requirement.

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COMMLD 535: Foundations of Audio Storytelling (e.g. Podcasting)

(

Partnow

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 9/30 – 12/2, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room TBD
Registration SLN: 13021

Course Description

The podcasting industry has surged in recent years, with podcasts also becoming an increasingly important part of marketing and communication campaigns. Since it is the only medium that audiences can consume while engaged in a multitude of other activities, audio storytelling has a unique advantage to inform, entertain and call to action.

This course will teach you how to use audio to tell a powerful story. You will learn how to create your own short sound-rich, nonfiction audio story driven by characters and scenes. You will move through the process of research, reporting, interviewing, writing, editing, and mixing an audio story, as well as pitching a story for radio or podcast. By the end of the class you will have a working knowledge of the basics of audio storytelling and production. You will feel more confident about how to support visual storytelling with audio, as well as how to work with a larger production team on audio projects.

This course is a good match for students who:

• Are seeking an individualized, project-based course

• Want foundational storytelling and editing skills that can translate into any medium

• Would like to learn how audio can elevate and transform storytelling

This class greatly elevated my ability to concisely tell stories!—Jacob Christensen, Foundations of Video and Advanced Video Practicum Instructor, and MCDM cohort ‘15 alumni

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COMMLD 520A: Principles of Marketing

(

Meyer

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Mondays 9/29 – 12/1, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 13013

Course Description

This course is designed to provide you with an understanding of foundational marketing concepts and their application within business and non-business organizations. We start with an overview of marketing strategy, including strategic goal setting and planning and assessment of the market environment (company customers, and competitors), and then review fundamental elements of the marketing mix – product, price, placement (distribution) and promotion. We’ll go deeper into marketing communications, including product/service launches, branding, and integrated campaigns. We will explore all this through a dynamic mix of lectures, case studies, guest speakers, videos, in-class discussions, and individual and group projects.

At the end of the course, you will know how to develop a marketing plan, including how to perform market segmentation, targeting, and positioning; implement branding concepts; execute market research tools and techniques; analyze consumer/audience behavior, introduce new products or services, and develop advertising and integrated communications campaigns.

This class is a good match for students who:

• Want a foundational understanding of how marketing strategies and tools function in the world of business and organizations

• Plan to pursue marketing roles within organizations not limited to communication or creative

• Want to learn to create a portfolio-level marketing plan for an actual client

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COMMLD 513: Content Marketing

(

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
Registration SLN: 13011

Course Description

This course focuses on the approach and implementation of marketing programs that encourage community building and engagement. Content marketing is a special kind of content that you can use to build relationships with audiences, drawing new audiences or rewarding loyal fans. Our focus will be on how to give freely of our knowledge. We will explore a research-backed method for how to make content that educates and supports audiences, that complements advertising, mission-driven, or task-based content.

To do so, we will learn the basics of a content strategy process. Our 6 part data-driven methodology includes working with secondary research: stakeholder goals and audiences. Conducting our own primary research in comparative and content review. Building from research, we’ll explore best practices and tactics for messaging, content planning, and delivering strategy concepts to clients or coworkers. Our final product focuses on building brand storytelling, effective messaging, and planning adaptable content for multichannel (physical or digital) environments. Final materials can be useful for portfolios.

Meets Research Methods Requirement.

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COMMLD 501: Leadership & Communities

(

Yasin

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Thursdays 9/25 – 12/4, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | PCAR 192
Registration SLN: 13006

Course Description

This foundational class considers leadership development through the two lenses of story and community. Sustained community engagement in the service of a more equitable and just world requires strong leadership models. Personal history and cultural context influence leadership styles, so using cross-sector profiles and guest speakers, we will carefully consider a range of leaders, their life stories, communication styles, and how they connect meaningfully to customers, colleagues, and constituents.

Credit/No Credit only

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COMMLD 591: Independent Research

(

)

- 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.

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COMMLD 560E: Inclusive Design & Product Equity

(

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.

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COMMLD 541A: Crisis Communication

(

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.

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COMMLD 530B: Ethics of Storytelling

(

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.

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COMMLD 520 B: Advanced Marketing

(

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.

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© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington

© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington