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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.

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COMMLD 525: Brand Values and Creativity

(

Howard

)

- 2021-2022 | Spring 2022

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 3/29 – 5/31 6:00PM – 9:50PM | DEN 213 | Partially In-Person
Registration SLN: 12605

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 513: Content Marketing

(

Weaver

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

MCCN Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Saturdays 10/7, 10/21, 11/04, 11/18, 12/09, 9:00AM – 5:00PM | Online
Registration SLN: 13002

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 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 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 560: Communicating Across Power and Identities

(

Ross

)

- 2020-2021 | Autumn

Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Tuesdays 10/6-12/8, 6:00pm – 7:50pm | Online

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 560: Communication Strategies for Inclusion and Equity

(

Burey

)

- 2020-2021 | Winter

5 Credits | MCCN Elective
Tuesdays 1/5-3/9 | 6:00PM – 9:50PM PST | Online

Course Description

We are in the midst of a national reckoning with the presence and impact of institutionalized anti-Black racism in our lives. Politicians, business leaders and everyday people all across the country are asking what it means to stand for Black lives. To do so requires committing beyond surface level diversity and inclusion practices and digging deeper into how we make meaning with our choices for the images and narratives we use to create culture. Knowing how we engage in meaning-making as communicators is foundational to reimagining what meaning we can make to push our companies and cultures towards the vision of racial equity. In this course, we will examine case studies of meaning making across professional sectors including studies of entertainment, fashion, and politics. We will connect this to our interpersonal interactions across race in our professional lives, as well as in our work as communication leaders. By the end of the course, students will be able to more effectively articulate cultural messages and develop skills to help them create new narratives grounded in inclusion, belonging and racial equity.

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COMMLD 540: The Power of Revision

(

Baltus

)

- 2020-2021 | Spring

Track Neutral Elective | 2 Credits
Tuesdays 3/30 – 6/1, 6:00PM – 7:50PM PST | Online

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.

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COMMLD 541: Crisis Communication

(

Visneski

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 09/29-12/08, 6:00PM – 9:50PM PDT | CMU 302
Registration SLN: 23175

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; internal and external; local, national, and international. 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 address how the tools of communication influence crisis communication strategies. In addition, it will identify the key issues that must be addressed during an organizational crisis (real or imagined) from a communications perspective. It will 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, it will 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.

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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 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 530A: Advanced Podcasting

(

Partnow

)

- 2021-2022 | Spring 2022

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 3/30 – 6/1 6:00PM – 9:50PM | CMU 302 | Partially In-Person
Registration SLN: 12606 (application required)

Course Description

This is a project-centered class for students with audio storytelling skills. Class time will focus on story/project development, visits with guest speakers, and skill building geared towards designing and implementing a large audio story project, such as a new podcast, audio mini series, or audio-driven multimedia project. Students will consider target audience and create an audience engagement plan, develop an editorial mission and focus, explore funding options and production needs, create an outline of the full project or first season of a new podcast, and produce an initial pilot episode. Students should come to the class comfortable with recording and editing audio. COMMLD 535: Foundations of Audio Storytelling or equivalent experience in nonfiction audio or video storytelling required.

*Students must prove their proficiency in audio or video production to register for this course by meeting the minimum qualifications:

1. Proficient experience in editing audio or video programs

Please fill this form to the best of your ability. You may be reached out with further clarifications. If your form is approved, you will receive an add code to register for the course.

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COMMLD 510A: Introduction to UX Writing and Content Design

(

Romero

)

- 2023-2024 | Spring 2024

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 Credits
Tuesdays 3/26 – 5/28, 6:00pm – 8:20pm | CMU 230
Registration SLN: 21555

Course Description

User Experience (UX) Writing involves the words used in a website, app, or other digital experience flow. The job of UX Writing is to make sure those words help make that experience simple, conversational, and easy to use. This course will use design thinking to guide you through solving complex UX issues using workshops, real-world examples, emerging AI tools and techniques, and creating your own unique UX writing flows and portfolio.

Meets Professional Writing 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 560: Communication for Change Management

(

Hall

)

- 2020-2021 | Autumn

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Mondays 10/5-12/7, 6:00pm – 8:20pm | Online

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 562: Communication for Advocacy

(

Parikh

)

- 2020-2021 | Winter

MCCN Elective | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Thursdays 1/7-3/11 | 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online

Course Description:

This course is focused on”integrated advocacy,” which is a strategy of communicating one’s advocacy efforts through multiple channels – like the marriage equality movement, net neutrality efforts by Google, Facebook and Netflix, and the passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. You will develop part of an integrated advocacy campaign working for a client in this class. Real-life challenges and advocacy needs of our clients will allow us to use integrated advocacy model in an applied sense. We will build stories around goals and solutions. We will come up with advocacy tactics and create an advocacy campaign that will ignite change. This is a hands-on course. The course will help you develop immersive storytelling skills, and practice community organizing. You will learn persuasive communication and engagement methods, and how to pack a punch with a campaign aimed at making change. Guest speakers and mentors with experience spearheading campaigns will serve as guides throughout the quarter. The course will culminate with a short advocacy pitch session.

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COMMLD 542: Distributed and Diverse Teams

(

Chang

)

- 2020-2021 | Spring

Track Neutral Elective | 5 Credits
Saturdays/Sundays 4/10, 4/11, 4/24, 5/23, 9:00AM PST – 5:00PM PST | Online

Course Description:

Through this practical and applied course, students will build their leadership and communication effectiveness to work in distributed teams at the global, national, or local levels. With increasing interconnectedness that builds larger and more complex teams and also reduces face/face time of those teams, competencies in distributed leadership are a rapidly evolving must-have set in any professional context but especially in the field of communications. And yet opportunities to sharpen those nuanced skills remain less than optimal. Students will embark on a full-immersion experience by working in distributed teams using a combination of relevant practical materials and readings, ongoing team and individual assignments, personal self-reflection and improved self-awareness and the planning and execution of a class-wise exercise such as a strategy retreat or other learning event. Topics covered will include project planning, goal setting, managing through direct and indirect influence and communicating with impact over the e-highways. Distributed team technology will anchor the students together as they move through coursework that will help them to stretch, struggle, and succeed. By the end of the course, students will be able to not only recognize their progression but will also be able to more effectively articulate the related competencies using terminology and language relevant for professional pursuits. Please note that this course models distributed team leadership in that students will have a weekly distributed leadership team call and work in addition to the 4 on-site classes; this applied approach to the course offers deeper leadership transformation as well as practical skill development.

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© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington

© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington