RECL professor named President of the Association for Experiential Education

Receiving a top honour, Recreation and Leisure professor Mary Breunig was recently named President of the Association for Experiential Education (AEE).

In accepting her role as President, she remarked, “I am humbled by this opportunity to serve the association and the fields of experiential education. I remain committed to supporting educators in their efforts to bring about a more just and compassionate world through experiential education theories and praxes.”

AEE is a nonprofit, professional membership association dedicated to experiential education and the students, educators and practitioners who utilize its philosophy.

Breunig’s involvement with AEE spans over 15 years.

Her stake in AEE was cast through her role as Chair of the Northeast Region in the late 1990s. Her role expanded more recently, as Co-Editor of the Journal of Experiential Education, a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal presenting a diverse range of research and conceptual articles in subjects relating to an umbrella of outdoor experiential education topics.

In 2008, she received AEE’s Experiential Teacher of the Year Award for her excellence in implementing experiential education principles and theories in teaching practice.

Breunig has worked in the field of experiential education for over 20 years. Her involvement has meandered through various member associations including the Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario, the American Educational Research Association, planning of the Niagara Social Justice Forum, and most recently an instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).

With a research focus on sense of community and participation on wilderness trips, Breunig is able to apply her experience and expertise to document the disparity between self-identified experiential educators and what critical pedagogues theorize in relation to their actual classroom praxis.