I thank the members of the Auditing Section for giving me the opportunity to serve as President during this academic year. It is truly an honor to hold this office, following in the footsteps of so many exemplary individuals. Managing the Auditing Section is a team effort, and each Executive Committee builds on the successes of its predecessors. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Joe Carcello (University of Tennessee), the outgoing President, for his able and enthusiastic leadership during the past year. I also want to thank the outgoing members of the Executive Committee for their excellent service. Mike Bamber (University of Georgia), Past President, provided able leadership during his term as President, and much-needed guidance and advice during the past year. Rick Tubbs (University of Iowa) did a superlative job as Treasurer, keeping control over funds and tracking the Section’s financial status. Andy Bailey (University of Illinois) was a superb Historian, maintaining and improving the Section’s Bylaws and Operating Manual, and providing the Executive Committee with excellent advice based on his years of service to the Section and the AAA. I also welcome the new members of the Executive Committee: Linda McDaniel (University of Kentucky), Vice President–Academic; Scott Showalter (KPMG LLP), Vice President–Practice (who took office in midyear); Jeff Cohen (Boston College), Treasurer; and Karen Pincus (University of Arkansas), Historian. Continuing members are Joe Carcello, who moves from President to Past President, and Bill Dilla (Iowa State University), who continues as Secretary.

Past President Joseph V. Carcello passes the gavel to incoming President Jean C. Bedard at the AAA Annual Meeting in Honolulu.

Before discussing past and future activities of the Section, as is traditional in the Presidents’ Reports, I want to take this opportunity to urge you to increase your attendance at academic meetings, despite the difficulty in finding the time and the funding to do so! More and more, our academic meetings serve a dual role. While the research communication function remains important, there is a growing awareness that these meetings are vital vehicles for faculty to improve their teaching. The accounting/auditing world that we used to know is changing rapidly—so rapidly, in fact, that it is very difficult to keep up. If we want to present our students with the most current information available, we must have a convenient source for that information. My experience over the past two years is that the insights I have gained from academic meetings have been invaluable for my teaching, both in financial accounting and in auditing. These insights have come from auditing professionals and regulators serving as invited speakers or panelists at meetings, and from interaction with my colleagues at other universities about their experiences. I could not have gained these insights from the financial press, as the press does not focus on the issues relevant to professional accounting practice, and certainly not at the level of detail we need for teaching. In the AAA Annual Meeting and Midyear Conferences, the Auditing Section takes great care to provide multiple opportunities for faculty to learn about the very latest trends, and how the profession is responding to them. We seek a balanced perspective, with the ultimate goal of improving the financial markets and society as a whole by promoting effective and efficient auditing. Thus, you will come away from our meetings with a wealth of knowledge that will be of immediate use in the classroom.

An example of a successful meeting is the AAA Annual Meeting in Honolulu. For instance, our luncheon speaker was Greg Scates, Associate Chief Auditor of the Office of Professional Standards at the PCAOB. Greg spoke on the Board’s current activities and future plans, including its plans for addressing auditing standards. (For a more complete report on Greg’s speech, see the article later in this issue.) Also, the Auditing Section sponsored events addressing auditing technology, including a CPE session on continuous auditing, and a panel discussion on XBRL. The Section also was well represented in research paper sessions. There were 34 auditing papers presented at concurrent sessions, 12 in the research forum, and one panel session. In his President’s Report last Fall, Joe called on members of the Section to submit their work to the Honolulu meeting, as the competition for session slots was likely to be heavy. I am pleased to report that our members responded: we had 103 submissions of auditing papers, as opposed to 77 for the 2002 Annual Meeting. Of the 103 submissions, 57 were archival, 30 were experimental, 6 analytical, and 9 presented in-depth discussion of an auditing issue. This success in gaining submissions resulted in an increased workload for those individuals in charge of selecting papers for the meeting, and for the many volunteers who reviewed the submitted papers, and they all deserve a special acknowledgment. Our thanks go out to Bryan Church (Georgia Institute of Technology) and Mike Ettredge (University of Kansas), Director and Assistant Director of the 2003 Annual Meeting Committee, and to Mark Zimbelman (Brigham Young University), Director of CPE Programs.

Next, I want to look to the future. Traditionally, each incoming President sets one or more goals for the Presidential term. I hope to focus on two basic efforts in the upcoming year and, in addition, I will continue several initiatives begun under Joe’s Presidency. My first goal is to work with our standing committees to provide guidance to Auditing Section members on how the academic auditing community can respond to the current challenges facing the profession, through our research, teaching, and service functions. This effort should primarily involve the Education, Research, and Communications Committees. My second goal is to work with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to develop formal and informal linkages between the PCAOB, the Auditing Section, and the American Accounting Association, with the goal of enhancing the process and outcome of policy making related to the auditing function. Other members of the Executive Committee, particularly Joe Carcello, are helping us achieve this goal. Other committees likely to be involved include: Midyear Meeting, Annual Meeting, Auditing Standards, and Membership and Regional Coordinators.

In addition to these initiatives, the Executive Committee also will continue several activities begun last year, which were envisioned by Joe as being long-term in nature. I enthusiastically supported these activities, and we jointly decided that they should be considered multiple-year goals. Significant progress already has been made on these efforts during Joe’s term, as he described in his Summer 2003 President’s Report. I will report further progress to you in the upcoming issues of The Auditor’s Report.

I also am pleased to announce that, at our meeting in Honolulu, the Executive Committee approved a conference celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory. This conference will be held the day before the 2005 Midyear Conference, and will include a celebratory dinner. There will be a separate submission process for papers to be presented at the 25th Anniversary Conference, and selected papers will be published in a supplemental issue of AJPT. Further details will be announced shortly. At this point, we envision having a single registration fee for both the 25th Anniversary and Midyear Conferences, both located in New Orleans, Louisiana. We currently are negotiating with hotels, seeking a high-quality venue at a reasonable price, within walking distance of the wonderful restaurants, music, and historical sites that New Orleans has to offer.

In closing, I extend a warm invitation to attend the Auditing Section’s 10th annual Midyear Conference (MYC), next January 15–17 in Clearwater, Florida. Steve Glover and Doug Prawitt (both at Brigham Young University), Co-Chairs of the 2004 Midyear Conference Program Committee, and the meeting planning committee are working on the program, which promises to be outstanding. The MYC will include two plenary sessions, both of which will be very helpful in informing our teaching and research. In the Friday morning plenary session, Douglas Carmichael, Chief Auditor and Director of Professional Standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, will provide his insights on the Board’s operations. The Saturday morning plenary session features a panel that will provide an update on the current state of auditing standards. We have received over 80 paper submissions, representing a broad variety of topics and research methods. In addition to concurrent sessions focusing on research and teaching, the MYC also will have several concurrent panels, including one on corporate governance sponsored by KPMG, another by personnel from the U.S. General Accounting Office on their studies required by Congress in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as well as panels sponsored by Section committees (e.g., the Research and Education Committees). Current plans for CPE focus on auditors’ activities related to management’s assertions on internal control required by Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404, including implications for practice, education, and research. The location for our 2004 conference, the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort in Clearwater, Florida is outstanding! Situated 20 miles from the Tampa International Airport, the resort is located on an island overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. The Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort sits on 10 acres along a beautiful, private white sandy beach. An entertainment pier is just a short walk from the hotel. The island has 30 or more restaurants as well as many shops and attractions. Make your hotel reservations early because a block of rooms has been reserved at a favorable price.

The day before the MYC, the Auditing Section and KPMG LLP will sponsor our annual Doctoral Consortium. Ron King (Washington University), Chair of the Doctoral Consortium Committee, is developing a program designed to benefit any doctoral student, regardless of research interests and/or stage in the program. Because of the generous sponsorship of the KPMG Foundation, the Consortium is free to doctoral students, including one free hotel night and meals on the day of the Consortium. To encourage doctoral students to stay for the MYC, their registration fee for the balance of the meeting is only $25. Please encourage your doctoral students to attend the Consortium, and the rest of the meeting, as this is a superb opportunity both for learning and for making contacts that they will value throughout their careers.

Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to serve as President this year. Please feel free to contact me or other Section officers and committee chairs if you have comments or questions regarding Auditing Section activities. Our contact information is on the Section’s website.