Former Tags: Spring 2014, MCDM, 2 Credits, 3 Credits, 4 Credits
Course Description:
In Fall 2012, Communication Leadership Associate Director Scott Macklin and Community Fellow Michael Hebb and eight MCDM students held a Leader Communications design studio Independent Study to develop the concept www.deathoverdinner.org (DOD) with dozens of leaders in End of Life Care. In August 2013, DOD launched and has inspired over 10,000 individuals to gather family and loved ones and hold a structured and thoughtful conversation about life and death while breaking bread. DOD has received remarkable press (The New York Times, Bloomberg, USA Today, National Public Radio, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Huffington Post, The Atlantic) for its ingenuity and effectiveness as a digital platform. DOD has been credited with inspiring an international movement. Now Scott and Michael are going back into the studio with partners CIVILIZATION, The Huffington Post, Newport Academy (possibly ADAI/UW Health Sciences) to create a companion platform that could potentially reach 10x the audience of Deathoverdinner.org. -The topic: Drugs, Addiction, Rehabilitation, and Policy. The War on Drugs has been judged to be a colossal failure. We aim to set a model for how adults talk to their children and to one another about this critical issue. This Independent Study will put students directly onto the design team as we review the success and failures of DOD, begin designing and building Drugs over Dinner, and launch the platform with our partners.
University of Washington
Department of Communication