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In This Issue- Letter from the Department Chair
- Curriculum Innovation for a Rapidly Changing World
- Marc Rubin Study Away Scholarship Endowment Fund
- Farmer School of Business Recognizes Accountancy Faculty for Teaching and Research Excellence
- Students Top CPA Exams, Awarded PCAOB Scholarship
- Faculty and Staff Updates
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Dear Alumni and Friends,
I hope that you and your family, friends, and colleagues are all well and in good spirits! While the last few months clearly have been challenging, the accountancy department continues to experience many successes, and it is important to celebrate those successes and the optimism they inspire. Accordingly, this newsletter highlights several recent, highly impressive student and faculty achievements and also discusses the department’s continued curriculum innovation efforts.
While this newsletter primarily focuses on our recent successes, and many reasons for optimism, it is also important to report on how the department of accountancy at Miami responded and will respond to several of the recent challenges that have impacted us all.
Regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing restrictions, I am proud to report that our faculty, staff, students, and alums all worked diligently, creatively, and collaboratively to meet the challenges associated with remote delivery of courses. The many on-campus opportunities for face-to-face discussions between students, faculty, alums, and other business leaders, both in and outside of the classroom, are a critical component of the educational experience we provide at Miami and were missed by all. While remote delivery of courses is not a perfect substitute for our traditional, on-campus educational experience, I can confidently assert that the remote delivery of courses we provided in the spring was effective, and course learning objectives were met. We look forward to moving back to traditional face-to-face instruction as soon as possible but also know that we can effectively adapt to whatever circumstances arise.
Regarding the painful issues highlighted by the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Accountancy Department will respond with a continued, but renewed, determination to ensure our programs are both available and welcoming to all members of our diverse society. These efforts will include community outreach, in the form of visits to high schools that have greater numbers of students from underrepresented groups, and similarly, invitations for planned on-campus visits for students from such high schools. Further, while we have already allocated significant departmental resources to scholarships aimed at reducing the financial barriers that could prevent students from enrolling in our programs, we will consider how best to increase those efforts. In addition, I plan to have direct conversations with students to learn more about the steps we can take to ensure that all of our students feel at home at Miami and fully included in all that our programs have to offer. While we cannot solve all issues relating to diversity and inclusion on our campus, there are concrete steps that we can, and will, take to increase the number of traditionally underrepresented students who enroll in our programs and to ensure that all students are fully welcomed and included while on campus.
As always, I am happy to talk with you if you would like to learn more about the Accountancy Department’s initiatives and/or provide suggestions to me. I wish you all the very best and thank you for your continued interest in, and support of, our programs.
Love & Honor,
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| Curriculum Innovation for a Rapidly Changing World
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To prepare our students to excel as future business leaders, we must develop their ability to leverage data to solve structured and unstructured problems and communicate insights. To guide our efforts to teach such skills, we developed a Data-Driven Decision-Making (DDDM) framework, which teaches our students to utilize a scientific approach to problem-solving within a business context. Thus, a critical component of our curriculum innovation efforts is the creation of projects that require students to apply the DDDM framework to a wide range of business problems. To this end, I am pleased to announce that we recently awarded several faculty members the curriculum innovation grants towards the following projects:
- Dr. Eric Marinich - Multifaceted project for our introductory managerial accounting course that introduces students to the DDDM framework and establishes a solid foundation for data-driven, strategic decision-making early in our students’ academic careers at Miami.
- Dr. Dan Heitger - Comprehensive project for our intermediate managerial accounting course that builds on the project noted above by requiring students to complete each facet of the DDDM framework.
- Dr. William Brink - Modules on tax analytics that focus on applying the department’s DDDM framework to solve business problems with a particular focus on structuring transactions to minimize costs, including tax obligations.
- Dr. Tim Eaton - Project developing students’ ability to extract, transform, and load data to make decisions regarding current, unstructured financial accounting issues.
- Dr. Brian Ballou - Modules to help students understand the innovative blockchain technologies that enable companies to design and implement highly effective, efficient, and secure and immutable audit trails for transactions and monetary exchange.
- Dr. Anne Farrell - New materials that focus on data-driven decision-making for our managerial accounting and financial leadership courses.
- Dr. William Moser - Projects requiring students to apply the DDDM framework when researching and solving tax-related business and legal problems in our tax elective course.
These grants were generously funded by the KPMG Curriculum Innovation Fund and the Jeff and Sandy VonDeylen Family Trust Accountancy Technology Support Fund. We thank KPMG, the KPMG Foundation, and the VonDeylen Family for their generosity and support!
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Marc Rubin Study Away Scholarship Endowment Fund
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In honor of Dean Marc Rubin’s many contributions to Miami University, we are delighted to announce the establishment of the Marc Rubin Study Away Scholarship Endowment Fund. Through the amazing generosity of many alums and corporate partners, over $250,000 is currently committed to the fund!
Each year, the earnings generated by the endowment will allow multiple students with financial need to participate in a two-week winter term study away program without incurring a significant financial burden. In the program, students travel to New York City and Washington D.C. to engage directly with and learn from policymakers, regulators, and leaders at multiple financial institutions and professional service firms (Read more about this program).
We gratefully acknowledge and thank our many alums and corporate partners who generously contributed to this wonderful cause! Alums and friends of the department who wish to contribute can do using the link below:
Give to the Marc Rubin Study Away Fund
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| Farmer School of Business Recognizes Accountancy Faculty for Teaching and Research Excellence
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Dr. Eric Marinich, assistant teaching professor, has been awarded the Richard K. Smucker Teaching Excellence Award as the Outstanding Clinical Professor. Marinich teaches managerial accounting courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He often uses Top Hat, an interactive classroom response system that pushes questions to students' phones or laptops. "Attaching a small point value to questions and allowing everyone to answer them on their phones or laptops keeps the students much more engaged and helps me break up my lectures," shared Marinich.
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In May, Dr. Jonathan Grenier, professor of accountancy, won the Farmer School of Business Senior Faculty Award for Research Excellence. Since joining the Miami faculty in 2010, Dr. Grenier has published over 25 articles in academic and practitioner journals. He is a recognized expert in the areas of (1) juror judgment and decision-making in cases of alleged auditor negligence, and (2) accountants’ involvement in corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting and assurance. He serves on the editorial board of The Accounting Review, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, and Behavioral Research in Accounting.
A true believer in Miami’s Teacher-Scholar model, Dr. Grenier has published seven articles with five different accountancy undergraduate and graduate students, and frequently brings his research into the classroom. His research is part of a larger unparalleled period of departmental research productivity. Miami currently ranks ninth, globally, in experimental research (across all topical areas), and fifth in the areas of experimental research in audit, tax, and accounting information systems (Source: www.byuaccounting.net).
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Students Top CPA Exams, Awarded PCAOB Scholarship
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Three Miami accountancy graduates were among the select few winners of the 2019 Elijah Watt Sells Award: Adam Levitt, Seth Levitt, and Collin Moeller. This highly prestigious award recognizes students who obtained a cumulative average score above 95.50 across all four sections of the CPA exam, passing all sections on their first attempt. Read more...
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For the third year in a row, a Miami accountancy student has been awarded the PCAOB scholarship. The $10,000 award was awarded to Kirby Copper, who plans to pursue a career in forensic accounting. Read more...
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| Faculty and Staff Updates
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We are pleased to share the following updates from the accountancy staff and faculty:
- Jonathan Grenier was promoted to professor.
- William Brink was promoted to associate professor and granted tenure.
- William Moser was promoted to associate professor and granted tenure.
- Amanda Pyzoha was promoted to the EY professional development advisor.
- Jan Eighme was promoted to teaching professor.
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| We'd love to hear from you!
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Have you recently started a new job? Retired from an old job? Gone to graduate school?
Are wedding bells soon to ring, or is a baby on the way? Let your fellow alumni know
through the Class Notes section of the next Accountancy Annual Report. Simply send an
e-mail with all pertinent information (including your graduation date and maiden name,
if applicable) to accdept@MiamiOH.edu. Alternatively, you may update your
information through our online form.
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