Why should you attend?

Leaders in Higher Education

• Identify the key drivers of change within higher education and the challenges and threats that have emerged.
• Identify transformative opportunities to sustain the realization of their vital societal role.
• Evaluate the relative benefits and costs of business and accounting accreditation

Accounting Program Leaders

• Explore the impact of the key drivers of change challenging higher education and the accounting profession.
• Identify strategies to continue to educate graduates for successful careers in the accounting profession, broadly defined, and to remain sustainable.
• Respect the opportunities for varied missions and strategies across accounting programs – and how they collectively contribute to a prosperous society.
• Recognize how accreditation can strengthen accounting programs as they fulfill their missions.

Accounting Profession (associations of accountants, professional accounting firms, corporate and government accounting representatives…)

• Facilitate discussion of the challenges the profession (broadly defined) is facing
• Articulate the implications these changes have for new hires, and therefore, the demands for change on accounting programs.
• Identify opportunities to partner with accounting programs to enable the needed changes.
• Encourage discussion of the opportunities/concerns with accreditation as a vehicle for assuring graduate skills – and likelihood for success.

Accreditors

• Understand the concerns key stakeholders have regarding accounting accreditation
• Facilitate a conversation focused on the value of accreditation – and its role in strengthening programs, and, as a result, the accounting profession (broadly defined) to support a prosperous society
• Identify and document different models of accreditation that can support the range of accounting education that is needed to support the profession and society

Government

• Government plays many key roles in higher education
• Oversees accreditors
• Provides funding to institutions
• Provides funding to students
• Understanding these interrelationships and government’s goals, existing guidance, and future plans directs all parties as they strive to continue having an excellent education system that supports the accounting profession, and, therefore, the society at large.

Influencers/partners

• There are MANY additional parties who contribute to and benefit from strong accounting programs and who will be influenced/will influence
• Publishers and Content providers
• Platform providers
• Alternate sources of lifelong education
• Funding agencies…
• These parties are part of the conversation about what is on the horizon and what opportunities they are crafting as part of the transformations that are underway.
• They have an opportunity to inform and challenge other stakeholders of additional opportunities and/or threats that they have identified.