LT's Dr. Angel Pazurek presented last week at the annual convention of the American College Personnel Association in Tampa, Florida. ACPA is a professional organization for student affairs and student development professionals in higher education. This year's convention theme was "Consider - Collaborate - Create - Commit," and it emphasized action and inquiry to address the changing landscape of higher education in terms of establishing networks to strengthen internal and external partnerships that help advance student success.

Pazurek presented with Dr. Brenda Marina, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership & Higher Education Administration at Georgia Southern University, and Roy Chan, doctoral student in Higher Education Administration at Boston College. The title of their talk was "Considering our Collaboration for the Americas: Reflecting on our Ecuadorian Experience." They discussed the intersections of their scholarship and the collegial relationships that have emerged after traveling together to Ecuador to study recent changes in the country's higher education system. Aligned with the convention theme, Pazurek particularly highlighted the impacts of emerging technologies on higher education worldwide as many international, interdisciplinary, and inter-institutional networks and collaborations are being fostered by the affordances of advanced communication media. She shared case examples from Ecuador and discussed the implications ICT may have for internationalization in higher education as evidenced by the partnership she's established with educators at the University of San Francisco in Quito, Ecuador (USFQ). This international collaboration has included a visit from USFQ's Director of Online Education to speak with students and staff at the LT Media Lab and professional development webinars she has conducted with faculty at USFQ on online teaching and learning.

Together with Dr. Marina, Pazurek was also invited to speak at an International Colloquium sponsored by the Commission for Global Dimensions of Student Development as part of the ACPA events. They shared insights from their visits to several Ecuadorian universities that continue to impact their work as researchers and higher education professionals committed to social responsibility, global engagement, and international partnerships.