SMU-in-Taos is expanding its experience-based learning programs and will offer classes during the coming fall semester.

Classes will be offered in many fields – from business management to wellness. Upper-level classes like cultural communications and the Taos experience will also be offered.

The Taos fall semester will specifically target students pursuing a business minor. Students will have the ability to take four business classes for their minor.

“The Taos program is structured in a unique way. There are 14 weeks and four modules,” professor Michael Adler, executive director of SMU-in-Taos, said. “Each module will allow a student to devote all of their time to one specific class and one professor teaching one topic.”

Business students have a more economically feasible option by going to Taos in the fall.

“You can either spend two summers and higher tuition in Dallas, or in one semester, you can get four classes out of the way,” Adler said. “You could spend all four blocks learning business and have a very thematic semester.”

But Taos will also offer something to students of all majors.

“Taos stresses experience-based education. It is for students who want to do something different,” Adler said.

Students will have the opportunity to work with the Taos Community Foundation and secure positions at non-profits.

“Whenever people think of Taos, they think of an isolated place. But there is a lot of engaged learning on and off campus,” Adler said.

Because class sizes are small, students have the opportunity to get to know their professors on a personal level.

Students also have the opportunity to lead their professors in getting to know the rules and sentiments of Taos life.

“The students become the natives and the professors become the visitors,” Adler said. “An interesting dynamic develops in what you could call a big academic village.”

For students who maintain busy schedules in Dallas, Taos offers a semester of less stress and worry.

“I once had a student complain, ‘I’m not stressed out,'” Adler said. “It’s the benefit of the block system. It gives students a focus.”

Adler believes this focus is an important life lesson.

“Education can be enjoyable. At Taos, students receive an opportunity for reflection and deliberate study that I believe we have perfected,” Adler said.

SMU-in-Taos calls Fort Burgwin home – a location surrounded by the Carson National Forest. Students who have studied at Taos believe that the location of the campus is a selling point.

“Coming to SMU-in-Taos was the best decision I have ever made in my academic life,” Lauren Rodgers, a senior, said. “Besides the lessons I’ve learned in class, living in Taos has helped me really understand, perhaps for the first time, what it means to be part of a community.”