Class Type: MCCN - Page 4 - Communication Leadership

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 525: Brand Values & Creativity

(

Howard

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/25 – 12/4, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | DEN 213
Registration SLN: 13057

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 520A: Principles of Marketing

(

Meyer

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Mondays 9/30 – 12/9, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 13053

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.

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COMMLD 513: Content Marketing

(

Weaver

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

MCCN Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Saturdays 10/5, 10/19, 11/02, 11/16, 12/07, 9:00am – 5:00pm | Online
Registration SLN: 13051

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 503: Practicum: Search Engine Optimization

(

Long

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Thursdays 9/26 – 12/5, 6:00pm – 7:50pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 13042

Course Description

In this practicum, students will work on a real-world Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy—forming a partnership among SEO students, instructor, and a client. Students will work in a team-based context and apply their SEO skills to be able to give the client an SEO strategy recommendation for their website to help them improve their keyword rankings in Google.

The final deliverable will be a client presentation highlighting keywords that the client should target based on the use of various analytics tools resourced with help from the instructor. Students will also deliver a sample of a page that has been optimized on the client’s website as an example, with resources the client can use to further optimize their site. By the end of the Practicum, students will have a sample for their portfolio to demonstrate their knowledge of SEO.

About Communication and Leadership Practicum:
Communication and Leadership Practicum courses give you the opportunity to engage in contemporary professional practice by addressing the challenges of real-life organizations. Each section is matched with a client organization or group of client organizations, and focuses on a distinct professional skill or practice that is deemed essential across a variety of professional fields.

Designed to mirror a professional setting, our Practicum offer you the opportunity to work at a higher level and with greater responsibility than what you might encounter in an internship or in entry-level work. In the span of a quarter, you will enhance highly-desirable professional skills, produce work that you can include in your own professional portfolios, and most importantly, leave with a story–your story – of what you did in this project to create value for your client.

Credit/No Credit Only

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COMMLD 501: Leadership and Communities

(

Yasin

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Thursdays 9/26 – 12/5, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | PCAR 192
Registration SLN: 13041

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 600: MC Research Project

(

)

- 2023-2024 | Summer 2024

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Application Required

Course Description:

After completion of a minimum of 50% of Comm Lead course work, students can choose to conduct a scholarly research project. An MC Research Project is roughly the equivalent of a master’s thesis in scope and rigor, and requires the student form a committee of at least two faculty members to evaluate the work, as well as give a public presentation of the final deliverable. See complete details and application instructions on the Guide to MC Research Project page.

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COMMLD 593: Internship

(

)

- 2023-2024 | Summer 2024

Track Neutral | 1-5 Credits
Application Required

Course Description:

An internship can be a useful way to give students a fundamental understanding of the industry and to accelerate one’s career path. Internships should be directly relevant to the student’s field of study (degree or specialization). Part-time jobs not related to the degree will normally not be approved for internship credit, as the purpose of an internship is to apply what you have been learning in your degree to a real world work experience. See complete details and application instructions on the Guide to Internships page.

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COMMLD 591: Independent Research

(

)

- 2023-2024 | Summer 2024

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 503 A/B: Practicum in Immersive Experience Design

(

Cioffi

)

- 2023-2024 | Summer 2024

Track Neutral | 2 or 3 credits
Thursdays 6/20 – 8/15, 6:00pm – 8:20pm | CMU 302
2-credit 503A Registration SLN: 10828
3-credit 503B Registration SLN: 14193

Course Description

In this practicum course, students will collaborate with Mental Health Over Dinner and the Seattle Chamber of Connection to advance storytelling projects across various platforms. Through event design, user-generated content strategies, and immersive technologies like XR, students will develop comprehensive story plans to drive client missions forward. They will learn essential skills such as navigating ambiguity, deep listening, and delivering tangible outcomes like storyboards, slide presentations, and execution plans. By the course’s end, students will have honed their storytelling abilities and gained practical experience in real-world project development and collaboration.

Section A will be 2 credits. Section B will be 3 credits.

Credit / No Credit Only.

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 560A: Inclusive Design & Product Equity

(

Liu

)

- 2023-2024 | Summer 2024

Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Mondays 6/17 – 8/12, 5:30pm – 9:20pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 14185

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 530A: Ethics of Storytelling

(

Graney-Saucke

)

- 2023-2024 | Summer 2024

Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 6/18 – 8/13, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 10833

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 525: Brand Values & Creativity

(

Howard

)

- 2023-2024 | Summer 2024

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 6/26 – 8/14, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Registration SLN: 14159

Course Description:

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COMMLD 560A: Communicating Across Power and Identities

(

Ross

)

- 2023-2024 | Spring 2024

Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Wednesdays 3/27 – 5/29, 6:00pm – 7:50pm | DEN 213
Registration SLN: 12571

Course Description:

This course provides a primer on equity concepts, such as identity, power, privilege, and systems of oppression. Through reflective writing and facilitated discussions of curated readings, students explore how their identities impact their effectiveness in communicating across interpersonal difference. Designed for students who seek a welcoming space in which to learn modes of inquiry for iterative self-preparation for collaborations across power and identities.

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COMMLD 525: Brand Values and Creativity

(

Howard

)

- 2023-2024 | Spring 2024

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 3/26 – 5/28, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 12558

Course Description:

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COMMLD 570C: Cross-Sector Collaboration for Social Change

(

Foot

)

- 2023-2024 | Spring 2024

Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Mondays 3/25 – 5/20, 6:00pm – 8:20pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 21560

Course Description

Social change requires organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors to collaborate well. However, organizational leaders face many challenges in doing so. Cross-sector collaboration is a complex communicative process that underlies every aspect of societal change, at multiple levels and across many kinds of difference. In this course, students will employ concepts from several fields to analyze and practice real-world instances of cross-sector collaboration, and develop the communication skills essential for interorganizational interactions that foster social change.

The centerpiece of the course is a 5-week simulation of collaborative decision-making conducted during class sessions. In the simulation, each student has a role in a (mock) multi-sector task force– situated in a fictional mountain town– that negotiates the creation of a wildfire mitigation safety plan. Through the simulation, students will apply knowledge gained from course readings, and develop skills in assessing other stakeholders’ needs and motives, building alliances, communicating constructively through disagreements, and negotiating multilateral agreements for the collective good.

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COMMLD 570B: Understanding Online Communities and their Data

(

Hansen

)

- 2023-2024 | Spring 2024

Track Neutral | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 3/27 – 5/29, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 242
Registration SLN: 12574

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.

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COMMLD 525: Brand Values & Creativity

COMMLD 520A: Principles of Marketing

COMMLD 513: Content Marketing

COMMLD 503: Practicum: Search Engine Optimization

COMMLD 501: Leadership and Communities

COMMLD 600: MC Research Project

COMMLD 593: Internship

COMMLD 591: Independent Research

COMMLD 503 A/B: Practicum in Immersive Experience Design

COMMLD 560A: Inclusive Design & Product Equity

COMMLD 530A: Ethics of Storytelling

COMMLD 525: Brand Values & Creativity

COMMLD 560A: Communicating Across Power and Identities

COMMLD 525: Brand Values and Creativity

COMMLD 570C: Cross-Sector Collaboration for Social Change

COMMLD 570B: Understanding Online Communities and their Data

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