Joe Schroeder, second from left, is the seventh faculty chair of Graduate Accounting Programs.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The Indiana University Kelley School of Business is marking the silver anniversary of Graduate Accounting Programs and the graduation of its first successful alumni.
More than 150 alumni are expected to return to Bloomington for a two-day celebration on July 11-12 at IU Bloomington, which will culminate with a gala dinner at Presidents Hall. Other activities will include coffee and casual meetups and visits to nostalgic spots on and off campus. Registration for the event is now closed.
For a quarter century, Graduate Accounting Programs has presented degree programs that have met the demands and needs of a profession that has evolved from providing accounting, auditing and tax services into one providing a broader range of services.
Many of its 2,265 graduates today help firms to navigate through complex financial challenges and serve as trusted, strategic advisors. Nearly a thousand, 997, have graduated with a master’s degree and another 1,268 have earned a 3/2 MBA degree. Both degrees had their first graduating classes in 1999.
“We used to be focused on practitioner type education and now we’ve pushed forward to creating critical thinkers,” said Joe Schroeder, chairperson of Graduate Accounting Programs, a professor of accounting and PwC Faculty Fellow.
Before 1988, most states only required an undergraduate degree as a prerequisite for Certified Public Accounting licensure. But that year the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants pushed for an increase from 120 credit hours – the number needed complete an undergraduate degree – to 150 credit hours. Over the prior decade, large accounting firms also began moving into consulting.
John Hill, professor emeritus of accounting and Graduate Accounting Programs’ inaugural faculty chair, recalled a meeting he attended in the mid-1980s at Arthur Andersen’s world training center near Chicago, where the firm’s CEO and other senior leaders spoke.
“I have little idea of why I was chosen to attend this meeting, because I was perhaps the most junior professor in the room,” Hill said. “Most sat silent as Andersen’s leaders national audit partner admonished us for not turning out better employees with the following words, ‘If you don’t send me people who can think, I’m going to Bangkok and hire economics majors.’”
Before coming to Kelley in 1986, Hill had served as the vice president of the commercial loan division of the National Bank of Georgia, and as chief financial and administrative officer of another bank. Through his professional experience, he understood what the Andersen executive wanted.
“Perhaps because I had the least professional reputation of anyone in the room to risk, I spoke up along the following lines: ‘If I’m understanding what you are seeking, you want auditors with the requisite cognitive and communications skills to identify problems inside client organizations representing consulting opportunities for your firm, and to communicate those opportunities to both the client and your consultants to facilitate more consulting engagements,” Hill recalled.
“The speaker, who as I recall had avoided stating his desires that precisely, agreed with my brash assessment.”
In 1989, Andersen split to order to establish a consulting firm today known as Accenture. Andersen LLP essentially dissolved in 2005 after its involvement in the Enron scandal. Hill became a vocal advocate for the 150 credit-hour requirement and later worked with a committee of Kelley faculty who established what initially was known as Accounting Graduate Programs. Hill retired in 2010.
Jamie Pratt, center, led the committee that created Graduate Accounting Programs and was its third faculty chair.
A blueprint for success
Jamie Pratt, who later became GAP’s s third faculty chair, led the accounting faculty committee that developed the “blueprints” for a program that from the beginning had an emphasis on cognitive development and leadership skills.
Unlike at other business schools, the Kelley School developed not one, but two, very unique master’s programs in accounting in 1997. From the very beginning, the Accounting MBA (today known as the 3/2 MBA Program) enabled students to earn an undergraduate degree in accounting and an MBA in five years, proving to be very popular.
Originally, it was a very accounting-focused degree, but today also encompasses many elements of finance. Many students go into specialty consulting and investment banking after graduation.
“The benefits of the 3/2 as designed by Jamie’s committee became obvious over time,” Hill said. “Most business school accounting programs elected to offer a fifth year built around a 4/1 model. In implementing these 4/1 programs, most schools simply added a layer on more-of-the-same accounting courses, which did little to facilitate a significantly more broad-based understanding of business.
“Some in large CPA firms were later to say that result was the antithesis of their intent in pushing 150-hour programs,” he added. “Their disappointment in most accounting programs was a boon for Kelley.”
Adapting to meet rapid changes
A second degree, the Master of Public Accountancy, originally was designed for career switchers, but soon became more rigorous and was renamed the Master of Science in Accounting.
In 2020, in response to rapidly evolving uses of digital technology, it became the Master of Science in Accounting with Data and Analytics degree.
Leslie Hodder
“As in other professional fields, leading professional services firms increasingly are employing artificial intelligence, robotics, digitization, data and analytics and are requiring our graduates to understand the technologies and methodologies used in today’s highly complex, data‐centric accounting environment,” said Leslie Hodder, the sixth faculty chair of Graduate Accounting Programs.
“Our curriculum has been on the leading edge of these changes and we sought this name change because it more accurately reflects what our program offers today,” added Hodder, who today is a professor of accounting and the David Thompson Chair Professor.
Many graduates of the Master of Science in Accounting with Data and Analytics program go into consulting and traditional accounting, audit and tax practices.
Other faculty chairing Graduate Accounting Programs included David Greene, a Kelley alumnus who returned to teach at the school in 1997 after serving as CFO of Young & Rubicam and other positions at PepsiCo and Phelps Dodge Corporation; Mikel Tiller, a Kelley alumnus who also chaired the accounting department in 1995-98; and Pat Hopkins, currently the vice dean of the Kelley School at Bloomington and Conrad Prebys Professor.
Change remains a constant. With the emergence of artificial intelligence, the accounting profession is at something of a crossroads, said Schroeder, the program’s seventh faculty chair. With the proliferation of data and analytics techniques applications in the business world, integrated accounting, data and analytics competencies are required for the best job placements.
“Future accountants need to be is adaptable and become what I call translators – someone who can have a strong understanding of accounting and what it represents and also have a strong understanding of data analytics and pull information together and see patterns and help companies make decisions,” he said.
“Our programs have evolved into creating problem solvers,” he added. “Through our experiential curriculum, our international immersions, our local field consulting projects and all the different things that we do, we are training them to take undefined problems that people are facing, use their knowledge gained in our programs and then provide meaningful solutions.
“When you come through our curriculum, you’re going to come out more than prepared to start your career and you’re going to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations, being a leader in the field of accounting.”
Pat Hopkins, vice dean of the Kelley School at Bloomington, led Graduate Accouting Programs from 2014 to 2020.
