Invitation

Plans for this year’s Annual Meeting are rapidly falling into shape. As I announced last August, this year’s Annual Meeting is structured on the theme of Reinvigorating Accounting Scholarship. This is reflected in the lineup of plenary speakers, and in some structural and content changes in the concurrent sessions.

The plenary sessions are designed to highlight the reinvigoration theme. First, on Thursday, August 15, Jerry Feltham, University of British Columbia, will deliver this year’s Presidential Lecture, “Understanding the Value of Accounting.” Second, the meeting’s keynote address will be delivered on Friday, August 16, by Jack Triplett, productivity and cost measurement specialist and Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Third, on Saturday, August 17, the winners of the Curriculum Design Contest I announced last summer will present their designs. I was delighted by the creativity of those who participated in the contest, and the winning submissions are simply amazing in the insight, imagination, and forward-looking thinking they provide.

The concurrent sessions further reflect the reinvigoration theme. First, we have designed almost 15 percent of the sessions to be interdisciplinary in nature. The idea is to focus on the topic, without reference to method, Section, or interest group. I am hopeful this will increase trade among our various specialties and put accounting per se back in the center of our scholarly activities. Second, we have set aside a number of “make your own” session slots where individual members are able to compete, on a first-come, first-served basis, with their own concurrent offerings. This allows us to experiment with a less structured approach to designing the concurrent sessions, and to provide a venue for less patterned approaches to designing those sessions.

I am excited about the forthcoming meeting, with its emphasis on our scholarly ideals, aspirations, and responsibilities. I invite each and every one of you to attend, to stretch yourself, and to help us all increase the vigor, the excitement, the pure joy of accounting scholarship.

Joel S. Demski
President, American Accounting Association

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