At first glance, Romi Burks teaches your typical biology class. But Burks seems to have unwrapped a unique approach to her subject.
"I think, you know, a little risk taking is good," Burks said.
But if you're among those who love chocolate, nothing seems risky about professor Burks' chocolate-enriched courses.
This aquatic biologist said her love affair with chocolate began
one summer a few years ago when she visited Belgium to study the behavior of a small crustacean.
When she returned to Texas from the country known for its chocolate, she provided a taste of her newfound chocolate knowledge in her invertebrate ecology course.
"It's hard for them to think, alright, well, the internal
organization or internal content of how this organism is, is what all of these things are based on," Burks said of her biology students.
"Any model would work. The advantage of chocolate is that it comes in a ton of varieties, and also comes in a ton of forms and has a ton of different content," Burks said.
And what was an initial flirtation with occasionally weaving chocolate into her biology courses, has recently turned into a more serious relationship at Southwestern University.
"Multi-Chocolated: An Aesthetic, Historical and Scientific Journey into the Wonders of Chocolate," is one of 28 first-year seminars on the Georgetown campus offered to incoming students.
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Your neighbors
Professor Romi Burks infuses chocolate into her lesson plans.
 
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Burks believes it is the only class in the country that offers an interdisciplinary approach to chocolate.
"I don't know who said it, but, nine out of ten people surveyed
like chocolate, and the tenth one lies," Burks said with a smile.
The topics include everything from different cultures, to
marketing and fair trade. The course brought in experts in their various fields, who used chocolate to illustrate their points.
Burks said it makes the students think about different issues.
"You know, are you buying chocolate that is fair trade? Or,
what does that mean? Are you making socially-responsible decisions?" she said.
For Professor Burks, it's all about life long learning and making
connections. And it seems to be working.
"You definitely want them to enjoy coming back. The students in
the chocolate class were always there, and always on time," Burks said.
