Associate Professor Receives Teaching Award for AI-Innovative Project
Elio Leturia (right) with Denise McGill, an associate professor from from the University of South Carolina.Artificial intelligence in student work is one of today’s most pressing issues in higher education. 汤不热视频 Associate Professor Elio Leturia was recognized for addressing this challenge through creative teaching. On August 6, 2025, he received the Innovations in Teaching Award from the Visual Communication Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) at its 108th annual conference in San Francisco.
The award honored Leturia’s class project, “Visualizing Latinx Stories through Art, AI, and Student-Driven Research,” developed for his course People, Power and Narrative: Latino Voices, which he created in 2021 and has taught eight times so far. Since Fall 2022, Leturia has given students the option to responsibly integrate AI into their final projects, encouraging creativity, research, and critical thinking while emphasizing ethical use.
The AEJMC conference, themed “Leading in Times of Momentous Change: Individual and Collective Opportunities,” gathered journalism and communication scholars from across the U.S. and abroad. Leturia also contributed to two panels: “Teaching Innovations under an A.I. Environment,” where he received the award, and “Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Journalism, Media and Communication Classrooms,” alongside colleagues from University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Arizona, San Diego State University and San Francisco State University.
A Good Year
This isn’t Leturia’s first award this year. On July 15, he also received the 2025 Strategic Partner of the Year, given by Catholic Extension Society, for his contributions as a visual journalist and art director of the 120-year-old "Extension" magazine.