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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 540B: Public Speaking and Presenting with Impact

(

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | 2 Credits
Tuesdays 9/30 – 12/2, 6:00 – 7:50pm | PCAR 492
SLN: 23631

Course Description:

Skilled presenters have the power to move people and inspire change. Becoming a more effective and dynamic public speaker means making the complex accessible, connecting the dots for your audience, and developing confidence over canned answers.  By using storytelling and other communications strategies to become a better presenter, you’ll resonate with your audience in new and more meaningful ways.

In this course, you’ll learn how to grab attention immediately, the importance of simplifying your visuals, and why it’s critical to know your message well enough to speak directly to your audience — not to your notes and not to your screen.  We’ll address the mistakes most people make, and how to avoid them to ensure that you’re communicating with poise, confidence and conviction in a way that captivates your audience.

You’ll also learn how to:

– Understand the science behind emotional, engaging, and persuasive storytelling
– Identify the most effective types of stories to connect with your audience and gain buy-in
– Develop content that is concise, relevant, compelling, and memorable
– Cultivate your personal communication style and preparation process
– Learn effective delivery skills involving preparation, presence, vocal variety, body language, narratives and humor, and handling nerves

Whether it’s over Zoom or winning over the room, by mastering your public speaking skills you will learn to overcome doubt, increase your confidence and find your voice.

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COMMLD 541B: Crisis Communication

(

Hennessey

)

- 2022-2023 | Spring 2023

Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 3/29 – 5/31, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | Online
SLN: 12565

Course Description

Effectively managing a crisis means not just employing PR strategies, but having a comprehensive communications plan already in place. This class will identify key communication issues that must be addressed during an organizational crisis, and examine how to engage traditional and social media, digital networks, federal, state, and local lawmakers, external and internal stakeholders, consumers and constituents. We will examine how organizations attempt to prevent and recover from crises, how the broadcast and print media cover different types of crises. As important, we’ll deconstruct and reinforce the personal ethics and behavior required by professionals in a crisis situation.

Meets Law and Ethics Requirement.

Instructor Bio coming soon. In the mean time, feel free to connect with them on LinkedIn.

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COMMLD 541A: Crisis Communication

(

Visneski

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral Elective | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 10/3-12/5, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | Online
Registration SLN: 13015

Course Description:

Nothing is more dramatic than a crisis. When an organization, company, industry, or individual in the public eye is in a crisis, communication is one of the crucial routes back to normalcy. Oftentimes, organizations find themselves unprepared when a crisis hits and only then think “Oh goodness, we should get a crisis communications plan in place!” Trying to “spin” a bad situation can both be unethical, and ineffective, damaging reputation, and subsequently business.

This course will teach you how to be rapidly responsive, responsible, and to avoid common pitfalls in crisis comms. We will examine how organizations attempt to anticipate and recover from crises, how the broadcast and print media cover different types of crises, how crisis communications fails, and how it succeeds.

Meets Law and Ethics 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 543: Leadership Approaches to Equity Initiatives in Organizations

(

Ross

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

MCCN Elective | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 1/8 – 3/12, 6:00pm – 8:50pm | DEN 258

Registration SLN: 12716

Course Description:

In this leadership development course students grow intra-personally in order to more effectively communicate and collaborate to change organizational systems and cultural norms toward greater equity, justice, diversity, access, belonging, and inclusion.

The course is designed to meet students where they are and coach for growth in self-awareness, communication skills, and comprehension of equity concepts. Students learn interactively together in order to explore interconnections among dimensions of our intersectional identities and experiences of power, and to expand our collective understanding of how organizations, and the people within them, function within larger societal systems of power.

Dual tracks of learning structure the quarter: shared equity related content learning and independent individually-bespoke topical inquiry. Students transform their understanding of their identities and agency, gain confidence for communicating about often-taboo topics, experience iterative reflection as a social justice practice, and expand their comprehension of the distinct roles of individuals, groups, organizations, and societal structures in making genuine system change.

Sarah’s course was intentional and thought-provoking and provided me with the tools to assess and navigate current and future workplace dynamics. I am now able to critically question and analyze organizational health.–AK Sterling, MCCN cohort ‘19 alumni

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COMMLD 544: Professional Short-Form Writing

(

Tomasic

)

- 2022-2023 | Spring 2023

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 Credits
Wednesdays 3/29 – 5/31, 6:00PM – 8:20PM | DEN 110
SLN: 12566

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 541B: Crisis Communication

(

Hennessey

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral Elective | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/27-12/6, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | DEN 112
Registration SLN: 13016

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 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 541A: Crisis Communication

(

Visneski

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/25 – 12/4, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Registration SLN: 13067

Course Description:

Nothing is more dramatic than a crisis. When an organization, company, industry, or individual in the public eye is in a crisis, communication is one of the crucial routes back to normalcy. Oftentimes, organizations find themselves unprepared when a crisis hits and only then think “Oh goodness, we should get a crisis communications plan in place!” Trying to “spin” a bad situation can both be unethical, and ineffective, damaging reputation, and subsequently business.

This course will teach you how to be rapidly responsive, responsible, and to avoid common pitfalls in crisis comms. We will examine how organizations attempt to anticipate and recover from crises, how the broadcast and print media cover different types of crises, how crisis communications fails, and how it succeeds.

Meets Law and Ethics Requirement.

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COMMLD 541: Crisis Communication

(

Visneski

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/24 – 12/3, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Registration SLN: 13024

Course Description:

Nothing is more dramatic than a crisis. When an organization, company, industry, or individual in the public eye is in a crisis, communication is one of the crucial routes back to normalcy. Oftentimes, organizations find themselves unprepared when a crisis hits and only then think “Oh goodness, we should get a crisis communications plan in place!” Trying to “spin” a bad situation can both be unethical, and ineffective, damaging reputation, and subsequently business.

This course will teach you how to be rapidly responsive, responsible, and to avoid common pitfalls in crisis comms. We will examine how organizations attempt to anticipate and recover from crises, how the broadcast and print media cover different types of crises, how crisis communications fails, and how it succeeds.

Meets Law and Ethics Requirement.

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COMMLD 560A: Communication and the Environment

(

Russell

)

- 2022-2023 | Autumn 2022

MCCN Elective | Meets Law and Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 09/28-12/07, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | CMU 242
Registration SLN: 23357

Course Description:

Over the past 30 years since climate change became widely acknowledged, there has been much investigation and speculation as to why forces of climate denialism remain so strong and, more broadly, why we are failing to do more to respond to anthropogenic climate change. This course uses climate change as a critical lens to examine the forces shaping the contemporary information landscape, with a focus on efforts by various groups including NGOs, politicians, industry leaders, scientists, journalists, among others to shape environmental discourse and policy.

Meets Law and Ethics Requirement

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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

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 Credits
Wednesdays 9/25 – 12/4, 6:00pm – 8:20pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 13069

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 545 A/B: Engaging Interviews

(

Dalch

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

Track Neutral | 2 or 3 Credits
Tuesdays 1/7 – 3/11, 6:00pm – 7:50pm | CMU 242
2-credit 545A Registration SLN: 22261
3-credit 545B Registration SLN: 22262

Course Description:

Great conversations are at the heart of professional success—whether you’re interviewing users for product research, having discovery calls with clients, conducting interviews for publication, or building your professional network. This course teaches you how to master the art of purposeful professional conversations through preparation, presence, and genuine curiosity. You’ll learn how to design and lead different types of professional dialogues, from structured research interviews to dynamic networking conversations, while maintaining authenticity and engagement.

Through a blend of coaching techniques and practical frameworks, you’ll develop skills in active listening, strategic questioning, and conversation management. Students will engage in hands-on practice with various conversation types (UX research, client discovery, media interviews, and professional networking) with guest speakers from various industries invited to add real-world perspectives on applying these skills.

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

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COMMLD 532: Advanced Video Storytelling

(

Christensen

)

- 2024-2025 | Spring 2025

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Saturdays 4/5, 4/19, 5/3, 5/17, 5/31, 9:00am – 5:00pm | Collective Chemistry
Application Required

Course Description

The world of video production is a mysterious and ambiguous place consisting of freelancers, business owners, and in-house roles. In this course students will learn how to add structure to their client interactions, how to ensure that they’re delivering content that fits their client’s needs, and how to navigate studio-based filming environments. Class will consist of qualitative analysis of how to approach storytelling problems as well as hands-on experiences with advanced camera gear in a professional setting. Students will collaborate in teams throughout the quarter to create one short video for a real-world client.

This course is a good match for students who:

• Have taken the Foundations of Video Storytelling course OR have a very strong understanding of how to create video content

• Are open to a simulated real world experience which includes working in groups

• Are prepared for a time consuming and rigorous learning experience

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

1. Proficient experience in editing video on the following platforms: Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, and/or DaVinci Resolve.

2. Experience in shooting video with either DSLRs or Video Cinema Cameras.

Please fill the form below 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. (Note: applications will be time stamped, and qualified applicants will be added to remaining class spots on an equitable basis determined by time of application and remaining time in the program.

The application will go live on Tuesday, February 18, 2025 at 6:30 AM and can be found here: https://forms.office.com/r/d3qPW7CJzg

Here are the questions on the form to help you prepare before it goes live:

Full Name
UW Email

Have you taken (or are currently taking) COMMLD 531: Foundations of Video Storytelling or COMMLD 536: Intensive Video Storytelling?

If you have not taken the Foundations of Video Storytelling course, do you have other comparable experience? We do not cover basics of how to use gear or software in this class, we focus largely on client relations and storytelling principles so you need to have a solid foundation of video creation methods in order to succeed. Please provide examples of your work if applicable.

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COMMLD 544A/B: Professional Short-Form Writing

(

Shaban

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 or 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/24 – 12/3, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
3-credit 544A Registration SLN: 13025
5-credit 544B Registration SLN: 23358

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.

Students can choose between a 3-credit and 5 credit option:

• Section A will be 3 Credits and meet the Professional Writing Requirement. It meets 6-8:20. 

• Section B will be 5 Credits and also meet the Professional Writing Requirement. It will meet for a longer period from 6-9:50 and include additional short form assignments over the course of the quarter. 

Meets Professional Writing Requirement.

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© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington

© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington