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The Taos Institute is a non-profit educational organization, concerned with the social processes essential for the construction of reason, knowledge, and human value. The institute is engaged in exploring, developing and disseminating ideas and practices that promote creative, appreciative and collaborative processes in families, communities and organizations around the world.

Overview
The educational ends of the organization are achieved through conferences, workshops, publications, a PhD program, a distance learning program, newsletters, and web-based offerings. These activities function at the interface between the scholarly community and societal practitioners primarily from communities of mental health, social work, counseling, organizational change, education, community building, gerontology and medicine. Their endeavors are the ways in which scholarly research can enrich professional practices, and practices can stimulate scholarly inquiry.

History
The Taos Institute was founded in 1991 by a group of scholars and practitioners exploring the potentials of social constructionist ideas for generating and informing societal practices. The founders included Harlene Anderson, David Cooperrider, Kenneth Gergen, Mary Gergen, Sheila McNamee, Suresh Srivastva, and Diana Whitney. Primary attention was focused at that time on organizational development and family therapy, with practices of appreciative inquiry and co-constructive practices of therapy prevailing. The name of the Institute was derived, in part, by the fact that one of its founders, Diana Whitney, lived in Taos, New Mexico, and provided a geographic center for possible meetings. In addition, however, the locale was rich in multi-cultural, artistic, and spiritual traditions, and blended these traditions with a promise of new horizons. In 1992, the Institute held its first international conference in Taos. Since this early period Institute activities have expanded in many directions. In addition to annual conferences, many of which have been in partnership with universities and other institutes, a program of workshops was initiated. The workshops were facilitated by the development of an Associates wing of the Institute, including scholars and practitioners sharing in the interests of the Institute. There are presently over 130 Associates representing 17 nations. Among the Associates are Sara Cobb, Susan Levin, Peter Lang, Peter Whitehouse, Karl Weick, Barnett Pearce, Robert Neimeyer, and Ron Chenail. Among the Honorary Associates are listed Tom Andersen, Warren Bennis, Jerome Bruner, Lynn Hoffman, Peggy Penn, Theodore Sarbin, John Shotter, and Michael White. With the collaboration of the Associates, the Institute went on to develop a publishing company (Taos Institute Publications), a distance learning program (in conjunction with the Houston-Galveston Institute), and a PhD program (in collaboration with Tilburg University in the Netherlands). The Institute also serves as the home for the electronically distributed, Positive Aging Newsletter. Most of the founders remain on the Executive Board, but have since been joined by Dawn Dole, Robert Cottor, Sally St. George, Jane Magruder Watkins, and Dan Wulff. Because of its widely distributed activities, the Institute now functions as a virtual as opposed to a geographically centered organization.