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Classes

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 573: Listening and Leadership

(

Crofts

)

- 2021-2022 | Winter 2022

Track Neutral Elective | 2 Credits
Wednesdays 1/5 – 3/9, 6:00PM – 7:50PM | CMU 126 | Hybrid
Registration SLN: 12707

Course Description:

This course considers listening skills as a key leadership attribute when it comes to effective communication. The behaviors of a good listener are considered through a range of texts related to leadership, but with additional emphasis on audio programs showcasing the interview format where an interviewer’s ability to listen closely and empathically solicits strong connection and memorable storytelling. Foundations in Audio Story is the production course geared toward audiophiles at Comm Lead, whereas Listening and Leadership is for all Comm Lead students who are keen to hone their ability to listen as a critical career skill.

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COMMLD 570 A: Stakeholder Mindset and Communication

(

Howard

)

- 2021-2022 | Winter 2022

Track Neutral Elective | 3 Credits
Tuesdays 1/4 – 3/8, 6:00PM – 8:20PM | CMU 232 | Hybrid
Registration SLN: 12706

Course Description:

Investor Warren Buffett describes the concept of institutional imperative as “the tendency of executives to mindlessly imitate the behavior of their peers, no matter how foolish it may be to do so.” He added, “I then thought that decent, intelligent and experienced managers would automatically make rational business decisions. But I learned over time that isn’t so. Instead, rationality frequently wilts when the institutional imperative comes into play.”

This unseen force has stifled innovation in businesses while focusing solely on short term financial gains for shareholders only. And covering up for this behavior through dubious communication practices has only complicated things. What role will marketing communication professionals have in expanding companies’ messaging beyond just shareholders going forward? Is change truly afoot, or will there be more of the same?

From the Boeing 737 MAX fiasco to the ever-changing excuses of Facebook to the anti-trust actions against Google, we’ll examine why the communication practices of honesty, trust and admiration will always emerge victorious over institutional imperative. During the quarter we will discuss evolving public and private sector stakeholder communications including, Shareholders, Board Members, and Funders, Communities, Employees, Suppliers, and Customers.”

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COMMLD 543: Leadership Approaches to Equity Initiatives in Organizations

(

Ross

)

- 2021-2022 | Winter 2022

MCCN Elective | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 1/5 – 3/9, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | Online
Registration SLN: 22043

Course Description:

This course challenges and supports students to develop deeper self-awareness, hone stronger skills for learning across difference, and prepare themselves as organizational change-makers for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

For better or worse, organizational change initiatives impact individuals, groups, organizations, and ultimately societies. Thus, courageous leaders throughout organizations must learn how to improve their relevant knowledge, skills, and awareness iteratively, in order to contribute effectively to genuine change-making. The course is designed to meet students where they are and coach them toward significant growth in self-awareness, skills, and understanding. Students learn collaboratively together in order to explore interconnections among the dimensions of our intersectional identities. Those who complete this course gain confidence in their ability to learn about uncomfortable topics and expand their understanding of the roles of individuals, groups, organizations, and societal structures in making real system change.

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COMMLD 538: Storytelling and Communication for Mission-Driven Organizations

(

Melograna

)

- 2021-2022 | Winter 2022

MCCN Elective | Meets Law and Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Mondays 1/3 – 3/7, 6:00PM – 9:50PM, + Saturday 3/5, 9:00AM – 5:00PM | CMU 302 | Hybrid
Registration SLN: 12701

Course Description:

Nonprofits, NGOs, campaigns and social enterprises are driven by their desire to make the world a better place. As their storytellers, our job is to make sure their messages reach the right audiences and recruit those audiences to the cause. Keeping in mind that mission-driven organizations will often work on complex issues involving vulnerable populations, our job is to pursue this work within an ethical framework that centers the concerns and desires of the people whom our clients serve. Upon completing the course, students will be able to work with mission-driven organizations as their primary storytellers.

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COMMLD 537: Principles of Storytelling for Organizations, Business, and Movements

(

Kessler

)

- 2021-2022 | Winter 2022

Track Neutral Elective | 5 Credits
Saturdays 1/8, 1/22, 2/5, 2/19, 3/5, 9:00AM – 5:00PM | CMU 126 | Hybrid
Registration SLN: 12700

Course Description:

Thinking Story is a foundational class that focuses on the art and craft of nonfiction storytelling to communicate ideas and emotion, build relationships and community, promote change and inspire action. The class reflects the need in all sectors for superb storytelling. The class explores, investigates and discusses the elements of narrative — what makes a story a story – and looks at examples of nonfiction storytelling across media (text, sound, still image, moving image and multimedia combinations). This platform-agnostic, birds-eye view of story is about learning how to reframe/ reconceptualize “information” and “report” as story, how to locate the small story that illuminates the larger issue, and what it takes to produce such work. At its heart, the class is about learning how to conceptualize issues, topics, brands, and ideas as narratives. Students will learn to “think story,” to pinpoint, pitch and gather material for the production of original, compelling and persuasive content.

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COMMLD 560 B: Communication for Change Management

(

Hall

)

- 2021-2022 | Winter 2022

Track Neutral Elective | 3 Credits
Mondays 1/3 – 3/7, 6:00PM – 8:50PM | CMU 242 | Hybrid
Registration SLN: 22073

Course Description:

The world we live in continues to change at an intense rate. In order to succeed in this uncertain future, organizations must adapt to tough market conditions by changing their strategies, their structures and infrastructures, their boundaries, their mindsets, their leadership behaviors and of course their expectations of the people who work within them. The COVID-19 pandemic has shocked the global health care system and the global economy. The Seattle Times reported in April 2020 that the global economy will suffer the worst year since the Great Depression of 1930.  There could not be a more critical time to take a course on change management. Key skills taught in this course will prepare a professional for the shifting workforce.  Upon completing the course, students will be able to guide organizations to implement change management programs that support employees and reflect organizational culture.

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COMMLD 570 C: Professional Visibility and Personal Branding for Communications Professionals

(

Sampaco

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | 1 Credit
Wednesdays 9/29, 10/13, 10/27, 11/10, 12/1, 6:00PM – 7:50PM | CMU 326
Registration SLN: 23780

Course Description:

Career success is not just about what you know or who you know. It’s about who knows you. If you want others in your industry to know who you are and to recognize your value, you must be intentional about how you show up, how you communicate about yourself, and how you make others feel. Taught by a TV news anchor with more than 10 years of on-camera experience, this course is for ambitious professionals who want to set themselves up for success by growing their professional visibility and advocating for themselves at work. Career strategy, personal branding, and public speaking are core elements of this course. You’ll learn how to improve your on-camera speaking skills (ex. Zoom meetings), how to articulate your value to a prospective employer or client, how to talk about your accomplishments, and how to grow your professional credibility using social media. You will practice speaking in front of audiences (in person or virtually) and receive feedback on how to improve your verbal and non-verbal communication skills, culminating in your final assignment, an “About Me” video (geared towards prospective employers or clients) that you can attach to your LinkedIn profile. Guest speakers will also share strategies for growing their professional visibility and how they approach self-advocacy in the workplace. Women, students of color, and international students are strongly encouraged to register for this course.

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COMMLD 540 B: Professional Short-Form Writing

(

Tomasic

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 Credits
Wednesdays 09/29-12/08, 6:00PM PDT – 8:20PM PDT | SAV 130
Registration SLN: 23608

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.

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COMMLD 503 B: Communication and Leadership Practicum: Scenario Planning

(

Salkowitz

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Sundays, 10/24 (9:00AM – 1:00PM PDT), 11/7 (9:00AM – 5:00PM PDT), 11/21 (9:00AM – 1:00PM PDT) | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 23412

Course Description

Scenario Planning is a methodology that organizations use to plan for unexpected risks and opportunities by creating multiple stories about possible futures. The construction of these stories follows a very carefully defined structure and process, starting with the identification of uncertainties that can impact future operations, then building narratives that reflect different possible permutations and outcomes. With these scenarios in mind, we can provide a range of rich “What if” examples to help guide strategies in the face of evolving conditions. In this class, we will undertake an abbreviated version of the scenario planning process to examine a core question: the shape of the Comm Lead Program in the 2030s.

Students will participate in a community scenario planning workshop conducted by industry expert and scenario planning consultant Daniel W. Rasmus (who is serving as guest speaker for the class). They will then work in teams to construct stories around different futures, developing narratives that reflect the experiences of students, faculty members, staff, partners and the broader community. Ahead of the first class session following the workshop, students will work individually to gather further resources to inform the scenario planning process, conducting interviews, doing secondary research, compiling questions, and filling out the research agenda. In the first session, we will use these resources to construct the narrative frameworks and provide professional-level guidance on refining the scenarios into planning tools. In the second session, we will share and discuss the scenarios and apply them to the specific issues related to the future of the CommLead program. Student teams will present and discuss their finding with members of the Comm Lead leadership.

About 503 Communication and Leadership Practicum

Communication and Leadership Practicum courses give students an opportunity to engage with and understand the uses of course concepts in contemporary professional practice by addressing the challenges of real-life organizations.

Each section of the Comm Lead Practicum focuses on a distinct professional skill or practice that is deemed essential across a variety of professional fields. Students can choose their section based on their interests and needs. Each section is matched with a client organization or group of client organizations who are interested in partnering with Communication Leadership students.

In the span of a quarter, students analyze the issues faced by the client organization(s), collaborate and brainstorm collectively in small teams, and with the support of their faculty mentor create a deliverable for the client organization(s) that relates to the specific practice. Students may also create creative samples as part of the project. In doing so, students can develop and enhance skills, build foundations of practice, and produce work that they can include in their own professional portfolios.

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COMMLD 560 C: Wellness Narratives

(

Bradshaw

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Mondays 10/04-12/06, 6:00PM – 9:50PM PDT | DEN 213
Registration SLN: 23405

Course Description

This course dives into wellness and well-being as central concepts to mental, physical, and emotional modes of health in the 21st century.  What does wellness and wellbeing mean as part of our modern lives? We will explore the historical rise of self-help narratives during the turn of the 20th Century through advertising and therapy culture. From there, we will explore the rise of consumerism and health through the television set and formats like Reality TV and the Talk Show to better understand the evolution of wellness into the 21th century. This framing will help us consider health and wellness as part of a complex media ecosystem. That is, 20th century cultural anxieties of the physical and mental body, including the focus on losing unwanted weight and detoxifying the body from various ailments carries into the contemporary moment. Topics for the course will include productivity, health, corporate and social responsibility, clutter, burnout, and more.  The goal of this course is for students to better understand the historical, cultural, economic and technological foundations of wellness specifically in the United States and why this history matters. Students will research and write a White Paper focused on a particular wellness issue. The final assignment helps showcase the student’s ability to do preliminary research while taking complex ideas and distilling them into an understandable paper for an executive audience. We will do weekly reflective journal exercises throughout the quarter that engage with the readings and screenings from the course. Come prepared to engage in discussion, deep dive into wellness research, and hone your writing skills!

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COMMLD 503 A: Communication and Leadership Practicum: Data Insights for Social Impact

(

Wilson

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Mondays 10/04-12/06, 6:00PM – 8:20PM PDT | DEN 111
Registration SLN: 23402

Course Description

The COVID-19 pandemic amplifies the importance of clear and consistent communications. Human behavior is a complex phenomenon, influenced by factors at the individual, household, community and societal levels. Social and behavior change communication (SBCC) is used to spark positive normative and social change by addressing myths and misconceptions and maintaining public trust across all four levels. In this practicum, students will work in teams, supported by a faculty mentor, to develop and present a brief that highlights key factors to communicating with impact based on an analysis of data from a personal protective equipment (PPE) social media campaign. The brief (a useful tool to drive advocacy for health-related issues) will provide clear direction on what can be adapted to achieve results by optimizing the use of existing platforms (e.g., Facebook ads), to ensure high coverage of reliable COVID-19 information and services.  Students will apply policy advocacy strategies, recognizing that supportive environments are the foundation for individual behavior change.

About 503 Communication and Leadership Practicum

Communication and Leadership Practicum courses give students an early opportunity to engage with and understand the uses of course concepts in contemporary professional practice by addressing the challenges of real-life organizations. The course gives students an early opportunity to engage with and understand the uses of course concepts in contemporary professional practice by addressing the challenges of real-life organizations.

Each section of the Comm Lead Practicum focuses on a distinct professional skill or practice that is deemed essential across a variety of professional fields. Students can choose their section based on their interests and needs. Each section is matched with a client organization or group of client organizations who are interested in partnering with Communication Leadership students.

he span of a quarter, students analyze the issues faced by the client organization(s), collaborate and brainstorm collectively in small teams, and with the support of their faculty mentor create a deliverable for the client organization(s) that relates to the specific practice. Students may also create creative samples as part of the project. In doing so, students can develop and enhance skills, build foundations of practice, and produce work that they can include in their own professional portfolios.

Structure of Class

Class will convene online during the time indicated by section for a minimum of 5 classes led by a faculty mentor. This may occur every other week, or at different intervals that serve the needs of the project. On dates that the faculty mentor is not in attendance, students will have that time together to work with their teams.

During the times that faculty mentors are in attendance, students will report out on the current status of their projects, hear from experts about best practices, receive feedback, and provide feedback to one another. At the end of the quarter, students will present their project deliverables to the client organization, faculty, and their peers.

In addition to the final presentation, students will plan to meet with the client organizations mid-way through to report out on the current status of their projects and receive important feedback on their developing ideas and processes. Depending on client availability for these two meetings, time may need to be rescheduled from the regular class meeting time, with consideration of faculty mentor and student schedules.

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COMMLD 535: Foundations of Audio Storytelling

(

Partnow

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 09/29-12/08, 6:00PM – 9:50PM PDT | CMU 242
Registration SLN: 23404

Course Description:

Whether gathered around a radio in a living room or walking plugged in with headphones, the medium of audio storytelling has always offered the opportunity to build a mindset-shifting community around content. This course traces the evolution of audio storytelling from radio to podcasting that links to communities for various purposes: to educate, to entertain, and to inspire action — and the new golden age of podcasting that we find ourselves in means that audio storytelling has the potential for broad reach and powerful impact. Consideration is given to the core characteristics of strong storytelling, observed through an auditory filter. Class materials are twinned with a selection of cross-sector guest speakers who bring their own craft perspective. Students will experiment with designing their own short audio pieces.

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COMMLD 580: Leadership in Emergent Technologies and Trends

(

Hosein

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Tuesdays 10/05-12/07, 5:30PM – 7:20PM PDT | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 23071

Course Description:

In this course, you’ll gain a solid understanding of emerging technologies in the context of social change. We’ll develop a set of questions and conceptual tools that will help you critically assess technologies in early periods of development and adoption. We’ll also explore strategies that you can use to help companies and organizations better plan for, adapt to and advocate for more equitable solutions.

What You’ll Learn

  • How to critically examine narratives used to explain new technologies and their development
  • The fundamentals of key emergent technologies, including artificial intelligence, smart devices and automation, and their potential human impact
  • How to advocate for technology that solves a problem without amplifying existing inequity

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COMMLD 570 B: Leadership at All Levels

(

Myers

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Wednesdays 09/29-12/08, 6:00PM – 8:20PM PDT | CMU 230
Registration SLN: 13061

Course Description:

Leadership shows up everywhere, every day–and it is open to us all. Building on the Comm Lead leadership coursework, this course will take the theoretical development of one’s leadership style and bring it into practice with one’s work style. Classes will focus on mini-workshops around the following topics: decision-making processes, presentation skills, practical communications, how-to be a team player (including how-to run a meeting, how-to write an email), and drafting your optimum work experience. Students will complete the class knowing how to address bias and success inhibitors within any organization; develop skills for collaborative and successful leadership at any level; and understand how to empower their workplace for everyone. Guest speakers will share stories from leadership perspectives at different companies and how they approach their own development and empowerment.

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COMMLD 560 B: Communicating Across Power and Identities

(

Ross

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Tuesdays 10/05-12/07, 6:00PM – 7:50PM PDT | DEM 002
Registration SLN: 13059

Course Description:

This course provides a primer on concepts of identity, power, privilege, and systems of oppression. Through reflective writing and facilitated discussions of curated readings students explore how their personal and professional identities impact their effectiveness in communicating across interpersonal difference. Designed to welcome those who may have previously avoided discussing uncomfortable topics, this introductory course empowers students with modes of inquiry that enable their essential self-examination and self-preparation for any future equity-related organizational collaborations.

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COMMLD 563: Multicultural Marketing: Creating Equitable and Inclusive Communications

(

Park

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

MCCN Track | 5 Credits
Saturdays 10/02, 10/16, 10/30, 11/13, 12/04 9:00AM – 5:00PM PDT | CMU 242
Registration SLN: 13058

Course Description:

This course will take a close look at the evolution of multicultural marketing. We will explore how agencies and companies have adapted, pivoted and transformed how we engage with diverse audiences. You’ll learn how to build marketing campaigns that is rooted in principles of diversity, equity and inclusion and is responsive to the increasingly diverse marketplace.

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4101 E Stevens Way NE, Seattle, WA
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© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington

© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington