AICPA Honors Accounting Educators

The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) has named the award recipients for the 2022 Effective Learning Strategies (ELS) Awards, given each year to college and university educators who develop unique and effective teaching tools for introductory, upper-division and graduate courses.

“The progress of the accounting profession relies on innovative educators to encourage its next generation of leaders and problem-solvers,” said Jan Taylor, CPA, CGMA, academic in residence at the AICPA. “These awards recognize professors who share new and creative ways to teach their students.”

The winners of the 2022 awards are:

Bea Sanders/AICPA Teaching Innovation Award

The 2022 Bea Sanders/AICPA Teaching Innovation Award for innovative teaching practices in the first accounting sequence (first- and second-year studies) was given to Wendy Tietz of Kent State University, Tracie Miller-Nobles of Franklin University and Jennifer Cainas of the University of South Florida.

The team’s submission, “Data Cleaning Projects for Introductory Accounting,” includes seven “extract, transform and load” (ETL) projects with accompanying interactive dashboards designed for introductory courses. The ETL projects use Excel, Google Sheets, Alteryx and/or Tableau Prep to clean a “dirty” data set. Once completed, students can use the cleaned data file to create a simple dashboard using Excel, Google Sheets, Power BI or Tableau.

“Data analytics should be integrated throughout the accounting curriculum, beginning in the introductory accounting courses,” the winners stated in their submission.

George Krull/Grant Thornton Teaching Innovation Award

The winner of the 2022 George Krull/Grant Thornton Teaching Innovation Award for innovative teaching in junior- and senior-level accounting courses is Kimberly Young of Greenville Technical College in South Carolina for her “Escape the Mundane Review,” an escape room-type activity for students to complete in groups.

An honorable mention was given to Hagit Levy-Shalev of Baruch College for her submission, “Randomized Data Analytics Case Studies.”

Mark Chain/Federation of Schools of Accountancy (FSA) Teaching Innovation Award

The 2022 Mark Chain/FSA Teaching Innovation Award for innovative graduate-level accounting teaching practices went to Perry Moore of Lipscomb University. His submission was “Using Monopoly as a Practice Set,” a simulation enabling students to develop an audit program, conduct an examination and issue an audit opinion.

Winners to share work at the American Accounting Association annual meeting.

Each winner or team will have an opportunity to share their work at this year’s American Accounting Association annual meeting to be held in San Diego, CA.

“We thank the AAA for granting these educators a platform to present their exciting cases,” said Anna Howard, CPA, Senior Manager of Academic Initiatives for the AICPA. “We appreciate the support from the FSA and Grant Thornton to help encourage innovative ideas in accounting education.”

In addition, winners will receive $5,000 and a commemorative vase (honorable mentions will receive $500). The materials from the submissions will be posted to the Academic Resource Database, alongside past winners.

Get more information about the AICPA educator awards, including submission criteria, on the AICPA’s website.

Accounting