An International Meeting of the American Accounting Association 2005 Annual Meeting August 7–10, 2005 San Francisco, California Come to the City by the Bay!

Effective Learning Strategies Forum
Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Session 18
Integrating the Curriculum to Meet Professional Challenges in the 21st Century

Presenter:
Gail E. Wright, Albright College

Description:
The last decade brought significant changes in how we do business in the corporate world. More government regulation, increased international competition, and a creative genius for business generate professional challenges for accountants in the 21st Century. The academic world has also changed. Segregation of accounting schools and departments, competition in recruiting students, accelerated programs of study and a drive to better prepare students for future careers is changing many accounting curricula. Accounting educators who engage in curriculum reform are often stymied by traditional course expectations, textbooks, and tedious demands of college curriculum committees. An effective way to quickly implement curricula change is developing special topics courses and creative, comprehensive course assignments.

The desire to better prepare students for changes immediately after the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and to integrate more general business and social issues into the accounting realm resulted in three new special topics courses. Each of the courses contains a comprehensive corporate or organizational project that can be the focus of a new course, utilized as a semester project in a related course, or be the final project in a senior seminar capstone class.

Session participants may explore the detailed course objectives, topics, and assignments for the courses Corporate Governance and Reporting, Strategic Cost Management, and Fraud Examination. Actual corporate and organization projects will be displayed which demonstrate integration of new government regulations, management and marketing choices, corporate social responsibility, and accounting standards and services. Links will be provided that match comprehensive assignments to existing courses, programs, and student bodies. Methods of low-stress implementation will be highlighted based on student evaluations and responses to readings, research, group projects, and assignments.

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