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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 & Creativity

(

Howard

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Open Elective | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/24 – 12/3, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
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 525: Brand Values

(

)

- 2026-2027 | Autumn 2026

Open Elective | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/30 – 12/9, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 12813

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

)

- 2021-2022 | Spring 2022

MCCN Elective | 5 Credits
Saturdays 4/9, 4/23, 5/7, 5/21, 6/4 9:00AM – 5:00PM | Online
Registration SLN: 21477

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 538: Storytelling and Communication for Mission-Driven Organizations

(

Melograna

)

- 2022-2023 | Autumn 2022

MCCN Elective | Meets Law and Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Sundays 10/9, 10/23, 11/6, 11/13, 11/20, 9:00AM – 5:00PM | CMU 242
Registration SLN: 13022

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.

Meets Law and Ethics Requirement.

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COMMLD 570: Leadership at All Levels

(

Myers

)

- 2021-2022 | Spring 2022

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Wednesdays 3/30 – 6/1 6:00PM – 8:20PM | CMU 242 | Partially In-Person
Registration SLN: 21310

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 540A: Building Teams and Community

(

Baltus

)

- 2022-2023 | Autumn 2022

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Mondays 10/03-12/05, 6:00PM – 8:20PM | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 13023

Course Description:

Building meaningful community around your work begins with your team. This course focuses on cultivating community from the inside out, in a series of concentric and overlapping circles. First it addresses ways to bring people together within the workplace and make sure they feel valued through rewarding opportunities to brainstorm, collaborate and critique. Then it explores what it means to set communication norms within an organization and how those norms affect an organization’s culture and identity. Finally, it provides a methodology for deepening connections with external audiences, conducting credible outreach, building load-bearing bridges and inviting widespread engagement that leads to social impact.

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COMMLD 530: Ethics of Storytelling

(

Graney-Saucke

)

- 2022-2023 | Summer 2023

Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
A Term: Tuesdays/Thursdays 6/20 – 7/18, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 14192

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 520A: Principles of Marketing

(

Ninivaggi

)

- 2025-2026 | Winter 2026

Open Elective | 5 Credits
Mondays, 1/5 – 3/9, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 12645

Course Description

This course provides a foundational understanding of marketing principles and their application within business, nonprofit, and public-sector organizations. Students will learn through the lens of integrated marketing, a key skill in today’s marketing landscape. Our focus will be on understanding the key elements of a marketing strategy, including goal setting, audience identification, planning, and landscape analysis. Students will learn practical and commonly-used tools like SWOT analyses, stakeholder maps, brand positioning exercises, and messaging frameworks. 

Building on this foundation, the course will also explore elements of brand and behavior change marketing, with real-world applications in areas such as public health, sustainability, and social impact. Students will complete the course with increased confidence in designing and executing strategies that work across public relations, creative, digital, and operational functions in complex organizations.

Through lectures, case studies, guest speakers, in-class activities, and group projects, students will connect theory with practice, based on their areas of interest and expertise. Students will develop portfolio-level plans to support their career goals. This class is a fit for students who plan to pursue more advanced coursework, and those with an interest in marketing, communications, public affairs, or brand strategy careers where cross-functional collaboration is essential.

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COMMLD 525: Brand Values

(

)

- Current Quarter | 2025-2026 | Spring 2026

Open Elective | 5 Credits
Thursdays 4/2 – 6/4, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 12411

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 540B: Strategic Marketing Communication: Creating Integrated Solutions for Responsible Impact

(

Keyes

)

- 2022-2023 | Autumn 2022

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Mondays 10/03-12/05, 6:00PM – 9:50PM PST | CMU 230
Registration SLN: 23517

Course Description:

How should a government agency respond in a Twitter war? How do you score a review for your new product in an online magazine? What’s the best way for a nonprofit to survive a communication misstep in our current cancel culture? This course is designed to help you obtain the knowledge and skills needed to apply a critical thinking approach to communication opportunities and marketing challenges. From creating mission statements to producing videos, this course will teach participants to anticipate the communication needs of an organization and develop effective solutions. We will use a variety of real-world scenarios, interactive discussions and guest lectures to provide practical insight, relevant theory and memorable learning. By the end of this class, you’ll have the knowledge, tools and techniques to understand the components of a strategic marketing communication plan and how to use it to get the right results and build your portfolio for future academic and professional endeavors.

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COMMLD 530B: Ethics of Storytelling

(

Graney-Saucke

)

- 2022-2023 | Winter 2023

Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 1/4 – 3/8, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 12781

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 530C: Building a Visual Campaign

(

Faris

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Sundays, 10/15, 10/29, 11/12, 9:00AM-5:00PM | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 23651

Course Description:

Images have a profound impact on our lives and have shaped our communities. Visuals reach people at an emotional level motivating us to act on a cause, influencing our decisions, or convincing us to buy one product over another. How do you bring visual content designed for a variety of channels together into a cohesive and compelling campaign? Through interactive coursework, thoughtful discussion, and real-world examples, students will walk away with the tools and knowledge to create campaigns that deliver results. Students will work in groups during three workshop-style days to develop and present a multi-channel visual campaign.

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COMMLD 530B: Storytelling Across Mediums

(

)

- 2026-2027 | Autumn 2026

Open Elective | 5 Credits
Mondays 10/05 – 12/14, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 22901

Course Description

Storytelling is the uniquely human superpower that we have used to communicate with other people since time immemorial. No amount of AI slop can replace it. That’s the reason the number of LinkedIn job postings in the U.S. mentioning ‘storyteller’ doubled last year, with roughly 50,000 listings under marketing and over 20,000 under media and communications.

Stories house our knowledge, our intentions, and our values, and communicate them across generations. Stories are expressed through different mediums depending on culture and context – from cave paintings to virtual reality games, from campfire stories to podcasts.

As a professional storyteller, you must harness your ability to craft stories to reach you or your organization’s audiences, customers, and constituents. In this course, students examine storytelling traditions across history and cultures, then apply those lessons to contemporary media and strategic communications. Through hands-on projects, students will develop and adapt stories across multiple formats while exploring how narrative functions in commercial, educational, journalistic, and advocacy communications.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• Develop stories across multiple media formats for different audiences and platforms;

• Apply core storytelling principles to commercial, educational, and advocacy-based communications;

• Evaluate how narrative shapes audience understanding, emotion, and action;

• Integrate storytelling into broader strategic communications goals and campaigns;

• Adapt narrative structure, tone, and medium to meet specific communication objectives.

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COMMLD 541A: Crisis Communication: A Survival Guide for Communications Professionals

(

Schwartz

)

- 2022-2023 | Autumn 2022

Track Neutral | Meets Law and Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 10/04-12/06, 4:00PM – 7:50PM | Online
Registration SLN: 13024

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 530C: Engaging Interviews

(

Dalch

)

- 2022-2023 | Winter 2023

Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Wednesdays 1/4 – 3/8, 6:00PM – 7:50PM | CMU 242
Registration SLN: 22223

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.

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© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington

© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington