Gies Department of Accountancy Annual Report 2020-2021

Leading the way in accounting education 2020-2021 Department of Accountancy Annual Report

LEGACY OF FIRSTS

Leading the way in accounting education When you’re committed to excellence, you’re willing to be bold.

You innovate. You stake out new ground. You lead.

As one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious accounting programs, we have built a reputation for excellence, a culture of innovation, and a legacy of leadership.

In this year’s annual report, you’ll read about how our commitment to excellence, innovation, and leadership serves our students, the academy, and the profession. You’ll see how our legacy of “firsts” is much more than points in time or historic milestones. It’s the foundation and the building blocks of a program whose faculty has a mindset and a vision for moving accounting forward.

We established a PhD program in 1936, a Center for International Accounting in 1962, and a projects-based curriculum in 1997—not to be first, though we were, but because we saw opportunities to advance accounting education and we acted on them. We established our online master’s in accounting (iMSA) program in 2017 for the same reason. Now, with nearly 500 iMSA students and 250 alumni, we can see how increasing access to our premier accounting program is making a difference.

We continue that action-oriented approach through our innovative data analytics curriculum, our inclusivity initiatives, our research symposia, and more. It’s this vision and commitment that draws the country’s and the world’s most talented accounting students and faculty to Gies College of Business and that continues to serve our evolving profession.

That’s what leadership means. That’s what we take pride in at Gies. \ Theodore Sougiannis Interim Head, Department of Accountancy

LEGACY OF FIRSTS

For more than 80 years, our department has been the place for serious scholars to train for the accounting professoriate. Our reputation as a leader has been built on the program’s success in: • Building a faculty with deep and broad expertise across research topics and methods to train the nation’s most promising young scholars • Developing a rigorous curriculum and mentorship program that challenges and supports those young scholars • Preparing generations of professors whose work as educators and researchers make an impact in the profession

“Because Gies is home to the

country’s #1 ranked faculty in accounting research, I have the opportunity to learn from experts across topics and methods who guide me and support my success.

BETHANY BRUMLEY, PHD ’22

396

Total number of PhDs awarded in accountancy at Illinois

”

Leadership in teaching excellence Our students benefit from a faculty that has decades of experience as practicing profesionals, scholars, and educators. In one class, students may be taught by a world-renowned audit researcher; in the next, they may learn from a tax practitioner with 20 years of experience. The expertise is different, but the commitment to teaching excellence remains constant.

EXPERIENCE TAX-

TAX+

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LEGACY OF FIRSTS

72

Total faculty members in our Department of Accountancy, the largest accounting department in the country

33/430

33 specialized faculty members bring 430 years of professional accounting experience to the classroom

23:1

Undergraduate student-faculty ratio

trains students to tackle “Gies real-world problems. Expert faculty teach practical applications of traditional accounting concepts, which make Gies graduates consistently high performers in our firm.

”

Our faculty have long been legendary leaders in the field and dedicated teachers in the classroom. The department has recruited the top minds in accounting since its founding, a fact that was recognized when the Accounting Hall of Fame was established in 1950 and five of the first 30 inductees were Illinois professors.

Practical experience has always been valued as well. In fact, three of the first six faculty members in accounting won gold or silver medals for their scores on the CPA exam. That emphasis on building a faculty of scholars and practitioners committed to excellence in teaching continues to set our department apart and prepares Gies students for a bright future.

KEVIN BROWER, ’98, EY ILLINOIS AUDIT NETWORK LEADER AND GLOBAL CLIENT SERVICE PARTNER

Experience is a great teacher. Our specialized faculty include talented professionals like those featured here who bring decades of practical, real-world insight to the classroom. Left to right, from top: Brian Hamm, Clinical Assistant Professor, 23 years in financial accounting Cindy Steward, Clinical Assistant Professor, 32 years in financial accounting and 11 years in teaching Dawn Kink, Clinical Assistant Professor, 30 years in audit and assurance Gerlando Lima, Teaching Assistant Professor, 16 years in financial accounting and 18 years in teaching Gregory Davis, Lecturer, 23 years in managerial and financial accounting John Hepp, Clinical Assistant Professor, 27 years in public accounting, FASB, and government, and 12 years in teaching Julia Shapland, Senior Lecturer, 10 years in audit and tax and 21 years in teaching Susan Pachera, Clinical Assistant Professor, 27 years in auditing and accounting policy Tim Reierson, Clinical Assistant Professor, 33 years in audit and assurance

Leadership in inclusion At Gies, we are committed to creating an inclusive environment where diverse voices are welcomed, valued, and empowered. We do this by eliminating barriers, embracing new approaches, and providing mentorship and support. We also combine our robust recruitment efforts with innovative programming initiatives, such as the Accountancy Leadership Academy, the ACCY Opportunities program, and the iMSA. Together these initiatives help us better serve students from underrepresented populations.

Accountancy Leadership Academy ALA is a one-semester enrichment course for students who have had limited exposure to the accounting profession. The course provides a real-world view of the opportunities available for students and focuses on the leadership and soft skills needed for success. ALA students hear directly from professionals in the field and build technical and communication skills through case studies and interviewing and networking assignments.

ACCY Opportunities The ACCY Opportunities program offers talented underrepresented minority MAS candidates the financial support and career assistance needed to reduce the barriers to success. With full-tuition support, mentorship from faculty and alumni, and the Academy for Accounting Excellence and Innovation (our online academic resource), ACCY Opportunities prepares these students for success.

iMSA Our online master’s in accounting (iMSA) increases access to a career in accounting for all students by offering a flexible, affordable, fully online graduate degree from one of the nation’s top-ranked programs. By enabling students to learn at their own pace from their own home, the iMSA creates opportunity and builds a more inclusive community of learners.

Abisola Oladigbo ACCY Opportunities Fellow MAS 2021

Eduardo Rodriguez ACCY Opportunities Fellow MAS 2022

Bringing more perspectives to the table

200%

Increase in the number of students in the Accountancy Leadership Academy from Fall 2020 to Spring 2021

18%

Of current iMSA students are from underrepresented minority populations

300%

Increase in number of students accepted to the ACCY Ops program, including students from HBCUs

13%

Of all accounting students are from underrepresented minority populations

Raven Overton-Price ACCY Opportunities Fellow MAS 2021, Cohort Leader

LEGACY OF FIRSTS WILLIAM L. CAMPFIELD GRADUATES FROM ILLINOIS, BECOMING THE FIRST AFRICAN-AMERICAN IN THE NATION TO EARN A CPA AND A PHD IN ACCOUNTING Our department has a long history of creating opportunity for underrepresented students, including Frederick Ford, who came to Illinois in the 1940s because he did not have options to study accounting in his home state of Missouri, and William Campfield, who earned his doctorate here in 1951 to become the first Black American to earn a PhD and a CPA. We were also the educational home of other pioneers in the profession, like 1955 graduate Lester McKeever, one of the first 100 Black Americans to become a CPA, and Sybil Mobley, who in 1964 became the first and only Illinois accounting student to complete her PhD in two years and was the founding dean of the School of Business and Industry at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.

“As the largest and one of the

oldest accounting programs in the country, our department’s history includes a longstanding and continued commitment to creating opportunity for diverse students.

”

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR MARTIN PERSSON, ACCOUNTING HISTORIAN

Leadership in advancing the profession

Our reputation for excellence in accounting research and education moves the profession forward. It starts with our faculty, who bring expansive expertise, deep intellectual curiosity, and a commitment to engaging today’s thought leaders in conversations that inform the future of the profession.

1

#

Research faculty in the country BYU ACCOUNTING FACULTY RESEARCH RANKINGS

236

Attendees participated in our 2021 Young Scholars Symposium sponsored by PwC

16

Biennial Illinois Tax Research symposia have been held, the last several in partnership with Deloitte Tax

24

Biennial Illinois Audit Research symposia have been held in partnership with KPMG Associate Professor Michael Donohoe is the department’s leading tax researcher and an RC Evans Data Analytics Fellow. Since joining Gies in 2011, he has received several awards for research and teaching excellence, including the Illinois CPA Society’s Outstanding Educator Award and Poets&Quants Top 50 Undergraduate Professor.

A prolific researcher, Professor

Associate Professor Laura Wang joined

Research Assistant Professor Joseph

Michael Williamson has earned

our faculty in 2014 and was named

Yun is director of the Data Science

the #1 ranking in experimental

the Best Early-Career Researcher

Research Service and a Center

managerial accounting research from

in Management Accounting by the

for Business Analytics Fellow. His

BYU and an Impact on Management

American Accounting Association

research focuses on novel data science

Accounting Practice Award in 2020

in 2019. She holds the Fred and

algorithms, user-centric analytics

from the AICPA. He has also served

Virginia Roedger Fellowship in

systems, and societal considerations of

the College as director of our

Accountancy and received an Impact

AI-based marketing. He has an NSF grant

PhD program and was associate

on Management Accounting Practice

to study the spread of misinformation

department head from 2017 to 2019.

Award in 2020 from the AICPA.

about COVID-19.

“By creating an opportunity for dialogue between

practitioners and scholars, our symposia improve the relevance and quality of research and move the profession forward.

”

2016

First Emerging Management Accounting Symposium held

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR DEVIN WILLIAMS, CO-CHAIR, ILLINOIS AUDIT SYMPOSIUM

LEGACY OF FIRSTS

In our Department of Accountancy, we’ve long believed in the meeting of the minds—the power of serving the profession by finding ways to bring stakeholders together to share their expertise. In 1961, we did that by hosting the first International Conference of Accounting Education. We continue that commitment today by creating opportunities for collaboration through our tax, audit, management accounting, and young scholar symposia and consortia. There is no better way to consider new ideas than to share them with others. By bringing together scholars, practitioners, and regulators who present and provide feedback on timely topics, leading-edge accounting research is advanced, and so is the profession.

Leadership in curriculum As a curriculum innovator, we deliver accounting education in bold, unexpected ways. That was true in 1936 when we became the first university to offer a PhD program in accounting. That remains true this year, as we mark the 20th year of our integrated BS/MAS program and the fifth year for the University of Illinois-Deloitte Foundation Center for Business Analytics.

Strong, Practical Foundations There is a direct line from the introduction of Project Discovery, a revolutionary projects-based curriculum, in 1997 to the 2001 launch of the integrated BS/MAS fifth-year program. Twenty years later, we continue to build on that strong foundation of practical, relevant, comprehensive career preparation. Through our MAS, MSA, and iMSA programs, we offer top-ranked graduate accounting education that is STEM-designated and provides advanced training in data analytics.

CPA Readiness Our programs have always been ahead of the curve in preparing future CPAs, not only for the exam but for success in the profession. That commitment becomes even more important with proposed changes to future exams and with more than 70% of current CPAs expected to retire in the next 15 years. It’s a commitment that comes from a forwardthinking faculty who design curriculum to match a changing profession.

LEGACY OF FIRSTS

The Data Analytics Difference

When Sandra Lozano decided to study accounting at Illinois, she didn’t know she would be in on the ground floor of a new approach to accounting education. For her first two years, the classes were traditional lectures with homework assignments, a mid-term, and a final. But with the launch of Project Discovery in 1997, Lozano was given a choice—continue the traditional classroom approach or choose the new project-based curriculum.

Businesses are clamoring for professionals who know how to extract decision-useful information from complex data. We prepare students to be those decision makers through our innovative data analytics curriculum and our leadership in developing and sharing that curriculum through the University of Illinois-Deloitte Foundation Center for Business Analytics.

In 2022, we will launch an Accounting Data Analytics Campus Graduate Certificate that will provide working professionals with a convenient, online opportunity to develop the data analytics mindset needed for success in the evolving profession.

At a recent webinar, Assistant Professor Kim Mendoza explained how Gies prepares accounting professionals to be data-driven decision makers through a leading-edge curriculum in data analytics.

She chose Project Discovery, which emphasized concepts, not just technical tasks, and principles, not just spreadsheets. It focused on active learning, writing across the curriculum, problem solving, and teamwork, which Lozano, a partner at KPMG, says was great training for the real world. “You had to learn to adapt, collaborate, communicate, and think in terms of what you could do to best help the team succeed. It was an innovative approach that has now become universal.”

“Project Discovery students graduated with strong technical skills plus an added layer of problem-solving and communication competencies that prepared them for the ambiguity of accounting.

Curriculum that raises the bar

2

3

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CLINICAL ASSISTANT PROFESSOR MIKE LULLO ’88, RETIRED AUDIT PARTNER, DELOITTE

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Graduate accounting program in the nation

Undergraduate accounting program in the nation

US NEWS & WORLD REPORT

US NEWS & WORLD REPORT

7

Concentrations in the graduate curriculum

GiesBusiness.illinois.edu/accountancy