Accounting

I am a professor (actually associate professor) of accounting in the School of Business of Pacific Lutheran University.  Primarily, I teach introductory financial accounting and auditing, though I also sometimes teach management accounting and finance. I enjoy teaching, because I love to help people learn things.  I enjoy students, at least the ones who are interested in learning, and show it by working hard.  

After I received my master's degree in accounting I went to work for Arthur Andersen, the best of the big international accounting firms.  I was in auditing for a couple of years, until I figured out that I didn't want to live such a hectic life, so I came to PLU.  After I left Andersen in 1979, the firm just went downhill until it collapsed in the Enron scandal.

  Financial Accounting       

I enjoy teaching introductory financial accounting, because it is so challenging.  To get a sophomore to understand the basic concepts of accounting is not an easy task.  Moreover, I teach accounting from a theoretical perspective rather than a narrow preparer perspective, so I ask students to think rather than just memorize.  

They first learn the investment decision process in order to understand what the investor (the primary user of the financial statements) needs.  Then they see how accounting meets (and sometimes doesn't meet) those needs.  After becoming familiar with the financial statements themselves, they see how liabilities are valued and how some people try to keep them off the books.  Then they see how assets are valued, what the controversies are over how to value assets, and how assets need to be revalued.  They learn how events affect the financial statements, and how the financial statements interrelate.  They learn how to analyze financial statements to determine a company's ROI and risk.

My approach is significantly different from that of most accounting professors.  For a while, there was talk in the world of academic accounting about the need for innovative and more theoretical approaches.  In fact, I was signed to a contract with West Publishing to expand the financial accounting book I had already written.  I worked hard on it, and essentially finished it.  But before I could polish it, West was purchased by another publishing company, which was not interested in my approach.  In fact, in the years since, it is clear that accounting professors are not really interested in anything new.  Most still just teach debits and credits, just like high school "accounting" (really bookkeeping) classes.  If there is anything less innovative than an accounting professor, I am not sure what it might be.  

I use my own textbook (of about 500 pages) in the courses I teach, and I hope sometime to revise it and polish it, if I can ever find the time.  But I do not think it likely that it will ever be published.

  Auditing           

I enjoy teaching auditing, also, again because it is so challenging.  I have to teach senior accounting students (who have simply learned how to do accounting) how now to find errors and fraud being perpetrated by business people and accountants. Instead of acting as preparers, they must learn to be detectives.  I must try to help them learn to smell out problems, rather than merely perform procedures.  It is always a bit of a shock to accounting students to take on this new role.  

I wrote a lot of the materials for the course back in the eighties (with a few updates), but it was not enough to use alone in the course, so the students also had to buy a published textbook (for over $100).  During my last sabbatical, I extensively rewrote the materials and expanded them, so that now it is a stand-alone textbook.  It still is not finished (there are two or three more chapters to write), but I hope to finish it.  Will this one get published?  Maybe, but I do not show any real reverence for the AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants), and most auditing professors seem to bow to the east (its offices are in New York) and take great pride in being able to quote whatever it says (its official pronouncements).  Also, my treatment of internal controls is superior to the traditional approach (and accounting professors cannot think beyond tradition).  So, I really do not stay in line, and that will probably doom this book, too.

    Managerial Accounting       

I do not usually teach managerial accounting at PLU, though I taught it regularly when I first came here.  I enjoy teaching the course, because it is so practical.  In fact, I have most of a short book on managerial finance (and some aspects of financial management taught in the finance course) completed.  Unfortunately, because I do not teach the subject very often, finishing the book is not a high priority with me.  If I did finish it, it would probably be published as a self-help book for business.

   Managerial Finance       

I like teaching finance, because it is fun to discuss the securities markets--and because a lot of it is just Managerial Accounting (e.g., Operational Budgeting, Capital Budgeting, Managing Working Capital, etc.)  I teach the course very irregularly now, so I haven't done any writing in this area.

  History of Accounting Education   

I have written a book on the history of higher education in accounting.  It is called The Struggle for Status: a History of Accounting Education, published by Garland Publishing.  It received a very favorable review by James Don Edwards in The Accounting Review (volume 70, No 4, October 1995, pp. 670-1).  As can be seen from the title, it does not flatter people in the academic world or in public accounting.  The book came out of my doctoral dissertation.

  Beta Alpha Psi       

I have spent many years as the faculty adviser for the Beta Alpha Psi chapter here at PLU, though this year I am not.  Beta Alpha Psi is the honorary accounting fraternity.  We  have our chapter webpage up here, and you can also go to the national site.

If you are interested in the School of Business, you can browse around in its web site. If you are interested in Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) you can get there from the Business School site.

  If you want to go down some interesting paths, click here to go to my page of interesting links.