Class Type: MCCN - Page 7 - 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 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:

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 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 563: Multicultural Marketing: Creating Equitable and Inclusive Communications

(

Park

)

- 2023-2024 | Spring 2024

MCCN Elective | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Saturdays 4/6, 4/20, 5/4, 5/18, 6/1, 9:00am – 5:00pm | Online
Registration SLN: 12572

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.

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COMMLD 545 A/B: Engaging Interviews

(

Dalch

)

- 2023-2024 | Spring 2024

Track Neutral | 2 or 3 Credits
Wednesdays 3/27 – 5/29, 6:00pm – 7:50pm | CMU 302
2-Credit 545A Registration SLN: 21557
3-Credit 545B Registration SLN: 21559

Course Description:

Being a great interviewer takes a combination of preparation, presence, and curiosity––whether that interview is with a subject for a published piece or a fact-finding mission with a client. In this class you will learn how to prepare without over preparing, create rapport with your interview subject, and cultivate curiosity and presence while in an interview––so that you can get what you need while creating an engaging experience for both subject and listener/viewer.

The art of inquiry will be approached through a coaching lens in which the interviewer is both directive and actively listening/responding to allow for discovery. Students will also learn about different scenarios in which interviewing skills will be useful (eg, client consulting, podcasting, video, etc.) with guest speakers from various industries invited to add their unique perspectives.

Section A will be 2 Credits. Section B will be 3 Credits with an additional interview project.

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COMMLD 544: Professional Short-Form Writing

(

Tomasic

)

- 2023-2024 | Spring 2024

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 Credits
Wednesdays 3/27 – 5/29, 6:00pm – 8:20pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 12568

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.

Meets Professional Writing Requirement.

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COMMLD 541: Crisis Communication

(

Hennessey

)

- 2023-2024 | Spring 2024

Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Mondays 3/25 – 5/20, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Registration SLN: 12566

Course Description

Crisis communications is about much more than “spin.” Crises will happen – in government, in the corporate sector, in nonprofits and political campaigns. What will differentiate you as a communicator is your ability to plan for it, navigate it in real time, and learn something from it. There is opportunity in crisis. A crisis forces us to look inside ourselves, at our policies, at our practices, and at how we do our business.

Of course, crisis communications has always been tough; social media and the advent of generative AI have just made it tougher. We will navigate the latest cultural challenges, from “cancel culture” to messaging in our polarized society. In this course, we will look at before the crisis (including planning), how we respond during the crisis (this includes the critical crisis communications plan) and after (this is where we cover actions one must take afterwards, including how to repair the damage done). The class is designed to look at crises in various sectors and will include participation from professionals in the field.

Meets Law and Ethics Requirement.

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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

COMMLD 563: Multicultural Marketing: Creating Equitable and Inclusive Communications

COMMLD 545 A/B: Engaging Interviews

COMMLD 544: Professional Short-Form Writing

COMMLD 541: Crisis Communication

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