Terry College of Business - Fall 2008 - (Page 26) “I want my students to have the same experience I had — to be in the CPA exam and think, this is a piece of cake compared to what I did at school!” says Linda Bamber. “I want them to be surprised and delighted by the idea that school prepared them so well.” half percent of all candidates and earning national recognition as an Elijah Watt Sells Award Finalist. Bamber draws upon her CPA exam experience to prepare her students for the eventual transition from college to a client service industry. Because the demands of the corporate world can wreak havoc on studying, Bamber gives long-form, evening exams in her Cost Accounting 5100 course to simulate the testing environment of the CPA exam. “I want my students to have the same experience I had — to be in the CPA exam and think, This is a piece of cake compared to what I did at school!” says Bamber. “I want them to be surprised and delighted by the idea that school prepared them so well.” From her desk drawer Bamber pulls out a thick, red packet that she creates for students in her cost accounting class. “I have handouts for every chapter that explain why you should be interested in the topic, what is important to get out of the chapter, and helpful hints,” says Bamber. This customized course supplement is currently 272 pages long, and it’s crammed full of business press articles, problems more difficult than the textbook offers, plus case studies and writing assignments. “I have to coordinate this with the syllabus, library materials, and my class web site.” Updating this material has become one of Bamber’s summertime rituals for the past 20 years, but it is this type of instructional planning that is necessary to remain current with accounting practices. The field is so quick to evolve with continual rule changes — making it difficult, if not impossible, for the textbook industry to keep up. Bamber credits the School of Accounting Excellence Fund for making a significant impact on students through its support of faculty. “The proportion of state funds is dwindling rapidly at universities nationally. We’re asked to take more students with less faculty. And to do that you’ve got to have better faculty,” explains Bamber, who says the excellence fund is supported by public accounting firms, corporate contributions, alumni, and even some accounting professors themselves. Besides giving scholarships to students, Ben Ayers has used the fund to attract and retain top faculty. 26 • Fall 2008 Linda Bamber “Ben Ayers does a great job of making sure that people who excel as teachers are appreciated for that function — and that’s really unique,” says Bamber, who emphasizes that the Tull School valued the importance of quality instruction long before teaching became a higher priority to accounting programs around the country. “We have a long track record of caring about it from the beginning, so it’s not lip service,” says Bamber. “We’ve been able to hire really good, young faculty because it’s a good research institution, as well as a good teaching environment. If we didn’t have the support from the accounting firms, corporate employers, and alumni, Terry would not command the attention of up-and-coming professors in demand around the country.” Take new hire Andy Call, for example. He teaches Intermediate Accounting II, part of a sequence of three intermediate courses that form the backbone of the curriculum. Call covers material that makes up the biggest portion of the CPA exam — and, according to Ayers and Bamber, his first-year teaching evaluations were among the highest they have ever seen. Call is a big fan of the way Terry’s accounting program divides intermediate material into three semester-long courses, which he says is unique. “It really spreads out the syllabus, so professors can go into greater depth and give real-world insights about the topic,” says Call, who believes the end result is that students retain the material better and longer. Which is vitally important, given that students typically take the CPA exam two years after they initially took the courses. “Whenever you’re studying for the CPA exam, you’re going to be re-learning a lot of stuff,” says Call. “If you’re actually re-learning something you learned once, that’s a better situation than learning something that you kind of remember seeing, but never really knew the first time. It makes a world of difference, and I think the nature of spreading it out across three semester courses really helps. I haven’t heard of another school that does it this way.” Ayers, Bamber, and Call all Linda Bamber creates a customized course supplement for cost accounting students. Currently 272 pages long, it’s crammed full of business press articles, case studies, and writing assignments — and she’s been updating it for 20 years. Terry College oF Business
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