{"id":17029,"date":"2007-01-15T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2007-01-15T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=17029"},"modified":"2016-04-03T18:12:15","modified_gmt":"2016-04-03T23:12:15","slug":"vanishing-profession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/vanishing-profession\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanishing Profession"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The shortage of accounting faculty is a hot topic in academia and professional circles. Some call it a crisis.<\/em><\/p>\n

INSIGHT \u2013 The Magazine of the Illinois CPA Society<\/em> <\/strong>\u2013 January\/February 2007
\n<\/strong>By Sheryl Nance-Nash<\/p>\n

Over the next three years, US and Canadian universities will need to hire 942 new PhDs, but will have only 621 graduates to choose from. Which brings to light a simple truth: The number of graduating PhDs are insufficient to replace the number of professors who are due to retire over the next decade, according to research conducted by the American Accounting Association.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is terribly serious,\u201d says Paul Sharman, president and CEO of the Institute o Management Accountants, (IMA) based in Montvale, New Jersey. \u201cThere are 50 percent fewer PhDs in academia than there were 10 years ago; and given the number of PhD students now, that number will likely be halved in another decade,\u201d he contends. \u201cThe problem is growing increasingly acute.\u201d<\/p>\n

The root causes are pretty well understood, but making them relics of a bygone era presents challenges.<\/p>\n

The numbers don\u2019t add up<\/strong>
\nWhen you look closely at the shortage, one factor crops up again and again: Money.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes five or six years to get a PhD, and the most students typically get paid is $15,000-$20,000, just barely enough to survive if you don\u2019t have to support a family,\u201d points out Shyam Sunder, the James L. Frank Professor of Accounting, Economics and Finance at Yale School of Management and president of the American Accounting Association. \u201cYet, a top undergrad can come out of school and make $50,000-$70,000. Where\u2019s the incentive? How good a deal does this sound to our brilliant students, who we would like to attract to a life of teaching and scholarship? \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone will have to decide that funding PhD education is important. Society decides what matters. You can\u2019t expect the best and the brightest to survive on poverty wages for five years, especially the older candidates with families,\u201d says Sunder. \u201cMoney is certainly a large part of the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, \u201cThe skilled labor shortage has pulled some accounting faculty back into full-time practice,\u201d says Joyce Gioia, president of the Herman Group, a consulting firm based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Then, too, PhD programs typically require full-time enrollment.<\/p>\n

\u201cA part-time program might be easier for someone to enter. That way, the financial burden might not be as great,\u201d suggests Charles Davis, chair of the Accounting & Business Law Department at Baylor University\u2019s Hankamer School of Business in Waco, Texas. \u201cAnd, if they find out that they don\u2019t really want to pursue the PhD, they have an escape route back into practice. Increasing stipends and adding benefits would be good. I don\u2019t believe many programs include health insurance benefits for students as part of the stipend.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also wouldn\u2019t hurt, Davis believes, to look at reducing the length of time it takes to complete a graduate program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we had only two or three viable candidates for our tax position last year. We made one offer that was turned down, and now we are recruiting for that position again this year,\u201d he continues. \u201cI think the shortage will be particularly difficult for smaller schools and those in non-metropolitan areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Debunk the myths<\/strong>
\nAnother issue is social image and prestige. \u201cAcademia just doesn\u2019t sound exciting to some people. While it does have many interesting aspects, I think professionals recall boring accounting classes in college and they don\u2019t want to be a part of that,\u201d says Tracy Coenen, who teaches part-time in the MBA program at Concordia University, Wisconsin as well as working as a forensic accountant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen most people choose their careers and consider what their friends think is cool, being a university professor doesn\u2019t rate high,\u201d says Sunder. \u201cIn popular culture and in the media, college professors are viewed as nerds \u2013 not an ideal image to attrach talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trouble is, the image of accountants isn\u2019t accurate even at the undergraduate level, says Sharman. \u201cWhat\u2019s misunderstood is just how critical accounting is. It\u2019s how business gets done, while also being mindful of compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to change people\u2019s minds about accounting,\u201d says Susan Crosson, accounting coordinator and professor of accounting at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Fl. \u201cPeople think of it as a math class, but accounting is the language of business. How well you understand the rules determines how successful you\u2019ll be in business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gioia sees the image problem in a different light. \u201cWith Enron and other accounting scandals still singed into our memories, young people are not going into accounting in the numbers we used to see. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that many just don\u2019t want to work that hard; they want to have personal lives. With fewer people going into the profession, there are fewer to choose academia as a career route.\u201d
\n
\nThe search for answers<\/strong>
\n\u201cPhD education is a public good, like clean air and national defense. As with other public goods, universities educate PhDs at high cost to themselves, do not get compensated, and others can free-ride on the benefits of such education,\u201d says Sunder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to keep this issue in the spotlight,\u201d adds Sharman.<\/p>\n

According to Sandy Richtermeyer, the IMA professor-in-residence at Xavier University in Cincinnati, you also have to consider the environment at colleges and universities. \u201cThe environment can be intimidating. People can be reluctant to make the leap, especially if they don\u2019t have a mentor.\u201d The change from the corporate world to academia can be tough. \u201cMore needs to be done to smooth the transition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere needs to be a commitment to raising money for scholarships,\u201d says Crosson. \u201cIf people only understood the benefits and pleasures of teaching, there wouldn\u2019t be a shortage. Community colleges don\u2019t pay well, so it\u2019s easier for us to find part-timers rather than someone committed to working full-time to improve accounting education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Universities would do well to establish strong alliances with professionals who are interested in part-time teaching. \u201cThese people could become valuable, long-term faculty members on a part-time basis,\u201d says Coenen. \u201cSome schools use their part-time faculty as back-ups or fillers for classes that don\u2019t have full-time faculty.\u201d She calls that shortsighted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more beneficial to treat those part-time faculty members as valued employees,\u201d Coenen continues. \u201cThe schools should go out of their way to make the teaching experience one that professionals want to continue for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The shortage of accounting faculty is a hot topic in academia and professional circles. Some call it a crisis. INSIGHT \u2013 The Magazine of the Illinois CPA Society \u2013 January\/February 2007 By Sheryl Nance-Nash Over the next three years, US […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2777,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forensic-accountant","category-writing-blogging"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-4qF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}