Taos, N.M. is located in a mountainous region of the state. (Courtesy of Devin Kerns)
SMU-in-Taos started as a summer program that took students to the Carson National Forest in New Mexico. But now SMU is giving students the opportunity an trade in Dallas’s buildings and busy streets, for the rolling landscape of New Mexico for a whole semester.
For the first time students can enroll in at Taos for a full fall term. This campus allows students to engage in hands on learning, time away from the typically stressful class schedule, and brings about personal growth.
“It’s a beautiful place basically out in the middle of nowhere, but it’s just great. Almost indescribable,” sophomore Maggie Craven who is currently studying at SMU-in-Taos, said.
A project that’s been in the works for five years was piloted in the fall of 2009. Lauren Rodgers, an administrative specialist in the Taos office, was one of eleven students enrolled in the pilot session. Rodgers was going into her sophomore year at SMU when she decided to go to Taos.
“For someone like me, who I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to commit to, it gave me a really good time to take classes that I might never have taken,” she said.
Taos calls itself a “classroom without walls” in many of its advertisements, and it’s unique block schedule not only gives professors room to take students on field trips, but also allows student to do some exploring of their own.
The block schedule is divided into four parts, and each block is roughly three weeks long. During each block the students pick one class they want to take and attend that class every day.
According to Anna Aston, the Director of Operations and Finance, this creates a “living and learning environment.”
Offering Wellness, cultural formation courses, and even independent studies the classes are filtered so that Taos meet the needs of the students going to Taos. The program even helps students obtain a business minor for the fall term, something SMU only offers in the summer.
“They can almost knock out an entire minor in our fall term.” Aston said.
However, it’s not all work in Taos. In between the blocks students are given three to four days as breaks. On these breaks students are allowed to plan their own trips, or go on trips sponsored by SMU-in-Taos.
Trips can range from boarding across sand dunes in the desert to backpacking to the Grand Canyon. Two of the three trips are a result of Taos planning, and the students voting. But the third trip is planned completely by the students. “They keep joking about going to Disneyland,” said Rodgers.
Thursdays also serve as a sort of break for students. Mike Adler, professor and director of the campus, teaches the Thursday course which is considered an anthropology class. During this class, students are “participating in the creation of their own education,” Adler said.
Adler helps students team up with local nonprofits, and gets them involved in the community.
Currently students are doing everything from working at a horse sanctuary where they help take care of horses that are used for therapy rides to picking apples at a local organic farm.
But it’s not just working within the Taos community that affects students. The community created between students and faculty on the SMU-in-Taos campus is very strong. Craven, who is also an RA at the campus, said the community in Taos is “totally different than any other dorm life you’ve experienced. Even the kind at SMU in Dallas – the community is almost family like.”
Many students may have the first reaction as Rodgers. What’s the catch? Financially Taos has made efforts to help students, and through donations was able to give each student in the current fall term $2,000 in aid. Tuition, room and board are the same as at the main campus and Taos helps students by choosing the cheapest meal and housing plan.
As for the students who are considering studying abroad, fear not. “It’s not like you have to pick and choose, you can do both.” Rodgers, who went to both Taos and studied abroad in the Dominican Republic, said. Taos has also had a lot of students involved in the Greek system and other organizations spend time at their campus without it effecting their involvement in those groups.
Tucked between mountains and a quiet brook, Taos is an opportunity that isn’t offered by any other university.
It is a place where students have the chance to get their hands dirty.
With no extra costs and the only loss being the rush of the city Mike Adler believes Taos is something students should seriously consider.
He encourages students with two words, “Be courageous.”
