As the newly installed chair of our section, I am taking this first opportunity to inform you of the developments planned for our section over the next two years. We have just completed a most productive meeting of section officers and invited members at the American Accounting Association Annual Meeting in New Orleans and took our proposals to the annual general meeting of Public Interest Section members the next day. I am very much looking forward to working with a group of strong supporters of the section to deliver a broad range of activities and benefits to all members of the section.

The New Section Officers
First of all, let me draw your attention to the identity of the officers of the section for this year. According to our revised constitution, I am now in the chair for a two-year term, to hopefully provide greater continuity (as will those chairpersons who will follow me) of leadership and management of the section and to allow for greater ongoing momentum in developing and implementing new strategies and initiatives.

Since my position is for a two-year term, this year there is technically no chair-elect. However, I am delighted to have Leslie Oakes of the University of New Mexico continuing to serve as Vice-chair, Director of Research and CPE Coordinator.

We welcome Lawrence Kalbers of Long Island University to his new role as Secretary/Treasurer of the section and Paul Williams of North Carolina State University continues in his longstanding role as editor of this newsletter, guardian of the constitution and experienced advisor.

Vaughan Radcliffe continues his invaluable work as Membership Co-ordinator. Vaughan is pursuing an active campaign of recruiting new members and resigning former members. This section is addressing major policy issues across a wide spectrum of subject areas, and I encourage you to recommend membership to your colleagues and postgraduate students, or to give any potential names and addresses to Vaughan. You’ll find his contact details on the back of the newsletter.

Pamela Roush is also continuing her invaluable work as coordinator of regional AAA meeting activities for the section. If you would like to volunteer to be a regional representative of the section, contact her. She’s always on the lookout for fresh talent.

Finally, I’d like to welcome Tom Lee of the University of Alabama as our section coordinator for papers to be submitted for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the AAA in San Diego next year. He is on an active campaign to encourage an even greater number of paper submissions from section members than in New Orleans! More on that in a moment.

Expanded Web Site
A major new initiative launched in New Orleans is the redevelopment of our section web site. Gary Schneider of the University of San Diego has generously agreed to be our “web master,” and Paul Williams will chair the task force that has volunteered to work on this project. Other members of the task force include: Sarah Stanwick of Auburn University, Rob Bricker of Case Western Reserve University and University of Portsmouth doctoral student, Dwight Owsen.

We are planning to greatly expand the information and links available for members using that web site, so that it becomes a key service and benefit to section members. Possible content ideas initially discussed (but not yet determined) include scanned-in section newsletters, listings of recent journal articles of interest to section members, links to key journals such as Critical Perspectives on Accounting and Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, links to other web sites of interest for teaching and research, links to conference web sites of interest and a history of the section. If you have any ideas or suggestions for material or links to other sites that you would like to see installed on our web site, please get in touch with Paul Williams, whose contact details are on the back of this newsletter. We are happy to include material on the widest possible range of subject areas that fall within the broad definition of “the public interest.”

Electronic Journal
The overwhelming majority of members at the New Orleans annual general meeting voted in favor of the section proceeding to develop a detailed proposal for launching an electronic-only journal. We have now sent a proposal-in-principle to the AAA, and subject to its approval, will prepare a detailed proposal for final approval at the 1999 Annual Meeting in San Diego. We strongly believe that a focused journal, delivered electronically on an initial one-volume-per-year basis, will provide another major tangible benefit to members of the section.

A task force, chaired by Jesse Dillard of the University of New Mexico, has been appointed to prepare this proposal and to lay all the groundwork for rapid implementation once the next annual general meeting has deliberated. He will be assisted by: Leslie Oakes, University of New Mexico; Vaughan Radcliffe, Case Western Reserve University; Tim Fogarty, Case Western Reserve University; Paul Williams, North Carolina State University; Dwight Owsen, University of Portsmouth doctoral student.

While details of this proposed journal are yet to be worked out, some of the early ideas that surfaced for future consideration included the journal’s potential role as a venue for critical literature reviews, doctoral student research papers, accounting education critique papers and research-practice interface papers. Clearly the possibilities are many.

This is a very exciting future development for the section, and I strongly encourage anyone with ideas to pass them on to Jesse Dillard, task force chair. His email address is: dillard@unm.edu.

This is a very significant development for this section and it has my total support. I believe that it will provide an important alternative venue for the exchange of ideas, critiques and debate. I urge you to give it your fullest support.

Papers for 1999 San Diego AAA Annual Meeting
As already mentioned, Tom Lee is our section coordinator for the next AAA Annual Meeting, and he is campaigning to secure an even greater number of sessions at which members can present their papers. Basically the system is that the more papers that are submitted nominating our section, the more sessions that we shall be granted. Anyone wishing to submit a paper for inclusion in a Public Interest session at the 1999 Convention of the American Accounting Association should therefore do so prior to January 15, 1999, following the procedures to be published in the Late Fall 1998 issue of Accounting Education News.

Please note that the scope of public interest issues can include the following: accountability, accounting regulation, critical theory, ethics (other than ethics education), ethnography and field research, history, public sector change critiques, social and environmental accounting.

We have deliberately expanded the range of subject matter that we wish to encourage within our section. In most cases, these are subjects neglected within the AAA or not treated in the critical sense in which our section and its scholarly connections internationally currently do. All of the above subject areas and methodologies contain research that falls within the scope of the public interest and we are committed to giving them a greater “voice” in conferences, published literature, public policy debate and the activities of this section. So if you are working in any of these areas, or know of colleagues or postgraduate students who are, please encourage them to submit papers designating this section for the San Diego conference, and to join our section and be a part of and benefit from the developments we are planning.

Scope and Direction
Your section officers are convinced that exciting times and opportunities lie ahead of us. We are no longer the smallest section in the AAA and we are committed to developing the section for a wide variety of scholars with interests that address matters of public interest from multiple perspectives. In addition we are committed to implementing a range of focused strategies that will yield tangible benefits to you the members. Once again, we urge you to encourage your colleagues and students to join the section and be a part of these developments. We seek your ideas and support. Please feel free to contact any of the officers with any suggestions you may have for further strategies we might consider that will deliver a greater range of services to you.

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