University of New Mexico Vice President for Student Affairs Eliseo “Cheo” Torres is internationally acclaimed for his traditional medicine, “Curanderismo,” course, that he teaches every summer.
An online version of his course is reaching more students than ever. Now, Cheo is sharing the tradition of Curanderismo with students around the globe with its conversion into a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).
More than 30,000 students from 70 different countries enrolled in the first session of this MOOC, and it surpassed Cheo’s own expectations about how popular the course would be. “I’m excited about the number of students worldwide who are taking my class. Many are in discussion groups with students from other countries about different class topics. Discussion groups are even forming, according to country and language,” he said.
He added, “This course is different, unique. No one else is doing it.” Cheo planned ahead to prepare his course for online instruction, recording videos with some of the renowned traditional healers who teach his 2 week intensive Curanderismo course, offered for credit and as a non-credit course through Continuing Education every summer at the University of New Mexico campus in Albuquerque.