Each year, Telluride Association hires a pair of faculty to teach each TASS seminar.

The Telluride Association offers the Telluride Association Summer Seminar (TASS) to high school students who have completed their sophomore year or junior year. The Telluride Association, together with its university partners, has offered both programs tuition-free to all students since their inception.

Each program brings together 10 to 14 students for an intensive, six-week-long academic experience. The programs combine the close, interdisciplinary consideration of texts and ideas in a discussion-based seminar with the opportunity for students to engage in meaningful service and self-governance outside of class.

As the intellectual cornerstone of the program, the seminar grounds students’ experience of service and self-governance in the critical examination of perspectives and ideas. Neither TASS-CBS nor TASS-AOS are given for credit, nor do students receive grades. Instead, faculty offer written evaluations for each student. Faculty are responsible only for the seminar portion of the program, which meets five days-a-week for three hours. Factotums, college-age teaching assistants hired by the Telluride Association, mentor students in other aspects of the program, from written and spoken expression to organizing meetings and extracurricular projects and activities.

In 2022, Telluride Association together with Cornell University, the University of Maryland, and University of Michigan  will host two TASS seminars at each site.

To apply to teach at TASS-CBS or TASS-AOS, please read through our calls for proposals, found in the column, left.  Please note that the Summer Seminar Committee accepts proposals only from faculty pairs.

Please submit all application materials together and in one continuous PDF to teach.tass@tellurideassociation.org. If you have any questions about submitting a proposal or inquiries about our programs, please write us at the above address.

The deadline for receipt of 2023 proposals: August 15, 2022. If you need an extension past that date, please email tass@tellurideassociation.org. 

Telluride Association does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability.