LT faculty member, Dr. Angel Pazurek, recently attended the 2022 international conference of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 2022 conference theme was,  "Impacting Student Learning." During the conference, she was featured on a panel with other leading women scholars in instructional design to discuss their perspectives on "Considerations of Academic Politics: Navigating as a Student, Emerging Scholar, and Early Practitioner" with members of the Graduate Student Association of AECT. Pazurek also presented a concurrent session titled, "Productive Intersections Between Feminist Pedagogies and Distance Education," and discussed the theoretical and practical implications of feminist pedagogies to support access, equity, agency, and more holistic means of learner engagement in distance education courses and programs. 

Additionally, Pazurek was honored at the conference with the 2022 Outstanding Contribution Award for her leadership and distinctive service to the Learner Engagement Division (LED) and the AECT Board of Directors. In concluding her 4-year term on the AECT Board this year, she was presented with this award by LED president Scott Gibbons from the University of Cincinnati, who referred to Pazurek as "a difference maker." The LED is the newest division of AECT and Pazurek has been instrumental in the division's continued, remarkable growth in membership and activities since its inception in 2018.

AECT is the premiere professional organization in the field of instructional design. It will be celebrating its 100th year at the 2023 conference in October of next year, which will be held in Orlando, Florida. To honor and celebrate AECT's long history of influence on educational research and practice, the theme of the 100th year anniversary conference event will be, "Reflections and Transformations."