Search for January 2027 Term Courses

This course examines Native American, Spanish, and Anglo arts and cultures of the American Southwest between 100 CE and the 21st century. It considers the effects of ethnicity, gender, and community identity on regional art traditions and places artworks within their material, religious, political, and economic contexts. Astronomical alignments, water, earth and sky, spirits and saints, the living and their ancestors—these are among the themes in the art of the region. The course is designed for SMU-in-Taos. Many class days include field trips or interactive projects. Films, readings, and PowerPoint slide talks set the stage for visits to artists’ studios, archaeological sites, pueblos, churches, and museums. Hands-on art projects, collaborative projects, and engagement with the community help students understand the socio-political, religious, technical, and aesthetic qualities of the art and architecture we study in this class.I love teaching at SMU-in-Taos because its rich cultural heritage, long history of material culture, and extant traditional practices allow students to engage directly with the subjects we study in class. The people, landscape, pueblos, archaeological sites, mission churches, urban spaces, museums, and artists' studio workshops are living classrooms. It is an incredible experience to teach and learn through cultural immersion in the region.

During winter terms, students receive ski and snowboard instruction at the Taos Ski Valley. Students are able to apply the five components of health-related fitness to all of the activities that they pursue. Open all all skill levels. Special activity fee: $975 in winter to cover all equipment and sports activities.

Fundamentals of vibrations with application of simple machine and structural members. Single, multiple, and infinite degree-of-freedom systems. Harmonic motion, free and forced vibration, resonance, damping, and isolation. Modal Analysis, Hamilton's Principle, and Lagrange's equations. Prerequisites: ME 2320, MATH 3304, and MATH 3313; or permission of instructor.

Explores the history of New Mexico through the experiences of those who live there. Offers field trip opportunities throughout the Taos area to enhance student experiences with course content. The course is inherently interdisciplinary in focus, considering our attention to the natural world, history, literature, visual art, and anthropology, among other fields.

Examines the concept of human rights critically, with an eye for cross-cultural variation and a particular focus on health-related rights. Featuring case studies realted to the local New Mexico communities and field trips that provide hands on learning.

This interdisciplinary course uses Northern New Mexico as its classroom. We approach food as text, a portal to understanding historical and contemporary practices, technological advances, social issues, and power dynamics in the so-called 'American Southwest.'

This course introduces students to the core concepts and workflow of data science through hands-on analysis of real-world datasets. Students will learn how to collect, explore, visualize, and interpret data, as well as how to communicate insights effectively. The course is highly applied, with an emphasis on practical skills and critical thinking rather than mathematical theory. The Taos format enhances the course by providing an immersive and focused environment where students can engage deeply with data through extended, hands-on activities. The intensive schedule allows for a continuous workflow‚ data exploration to analysis, and communication within a short time frame, reinforcing learning through immediate application.Students use datasets related to environmental, social, and economic topics relevant to the Taos region. This may include exploring data on climate, tourism, or local communities, helping students connect analytical techniques to meaningful real-world contexts. The course also has an interdisciplinary nature, as data science is widely applicable across fields such as business, social sciences, environmental studies, and public policy. Teaching this course in Taos provides a unique opportunity to integrate these perspectives in a setting that encourages reflection, collaboration, and active learning.

Why are yoga studios and mindfulness classes seemingly everywhere? On one hand the answer to these questions is that Asian religions are nowadays found everywhere because of global migration and the larger realities of globalization. Yet, in the case of America, such global transmissions are really nothing new. Rather, for almost two-hundred years leading figures in American culture have been fascinated by Asian religions. Ralph Waldo Emerson, for example, was the first American to use the word “karma” in print. Moreover, Henry David Thoreau’s sojourn on Walden Pond was inspired by his reading of Buddhist scriptures. Similarly, the famous Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes proclaimed that the life story of the Buddha was “second only to that of the Bible.” And over the course of the twentieth century this interest in Asian religions has only increased as well evidenced by the Beats of the 1950s, the hippies of the 1960s, and nowadays, of course, with yoga and mindfulness being touted by titans of industry from Silicon Valley to Wall Street. The aim of this course is to explore and better understand this history from the vantage point of Taos, an epicenter of the counter-culture movement. Each religion studied (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Chinese religions) will therefore be approached in a two-fold manner. First, we will study the historical development and transformations that occurred in these different traditions across Asia. Then, building upon this foundation we will investigate how Asian religions came to be not only shaped by the forces of modernity, but also how Asian religions shaped the modern West.

Addresses the question of how an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by his/her social environment; includes topics such as attitude change, conformity, attraction, aggression, and small-group behavior.This Taos-focused version of Social Psychology will emphasize experiential learning and cultural issues relevant to the southwest. Field trips provide opportunities to discuss cultural and environmental influences on personal development and attitudes.