Nebraska

First, our faculty continue to set the bar for excellence in research and teaching. Recent research and productivity rankings compiled by BYU place our faculty in the top 10 of over 600 schools for scholarly activity in archival tax and audit research as well as overall research across all types and methods. The SoA community also applauds the recent promotion of five accounting faculty: Tom Kubick was promoted to full professor, Dirk Black received tenure and was promoted to associate professor, Deb Cosgrove became the first to be promoted to full professor of practice within the College of Business, and Jill Trucke and Steve Hegemann were promoted to associate professor of practice. So many of our accounting faculty were recognized for the important contributions to teaching as well. This year, Jina Morris received the CoB Excellence in Teaching award, a worthy commendation for her commitment to student success.

Our students, likewise, continue to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them no matter whether classes, internships and extracurricular activities are offered in person, remotely or some combination of the two. We congratulate the recent graduates of our undergraduate (135) and MPA (39) programs. This academic year, 64 of our students completed an internship, including those who took advantage of our unique split semester internship program. (Read Story)

As we continue to develop and train the next generation of accounting professionals, it’s important to note that we rely on support from people like you – members of our broad and engaged community – to help us. I am confident the SoA legacy will continue to grow and that you will welcome the new director, Jimmy Downes, associate professor of accountancy, in the same spirit you welcomed me. It has been my honor to support this community over the past year.

Best wishes and Go Big Red!

Tammy Beck, PhD
Interim Director of the School of Accountancy