One thing 91����Ƶ recent graduates often mention about the university’s accounting program is how they benefitted from its small size.

Ashley Hevener ’10 said the close, first-name relationship with her professors was a key part of the education that serves her well in her job as an auditor in Alexandria, Virginia, with Kearney & Company, a firm that focuses on federal agencies.

“91����Ƶ is doing a great job of preparing students to get the CPA certification,” said Jonathan Beckler ’07, now a senior accountant with Cherry Bekaert LLP in Atlanta, Georgia, echoing a sentiment expressed by many of his peers. In nearly every state, though, the boards that regulate the accounting profession have adopted policies requiring CPA aspirants to have completed 150 collegiate credit hours – basically a year of academic credit beyond the usual four undergraduate years – before they can be licensed as a CPA, even if they pass the CPA exam.

Virginia adopted such a policy in 2005, meaning that accounting majors in the years since who want to become CPAs in Virginia – and pretty much any other state – have needed to continue their education at the graduate level.

Enter the master’s of accounting program at James Madison University (JMU), just across town from 91����Ƶ. JMU has a 30-hour master’s program in accounting. 91����Ƶ and JMU have formed a strong partnership in recent years, giving 91����Ƶ accounting majors ready access to a one-year graduate program in Harrisonburg that gives them enough credit to sit for the CPA exam.

“Many of our students go to ‘finishing school’ at JMU,” says Ronald L. Stoltzfus ’75, PhD, head of the accounting program in 91����Ƶ’s business and economics department. “We give them a good foundation, but our offerings are limited. JMU has the resources to offer graduate-level training in taxes, auditing and other aspects of accounting.”

Stoltzfus does recall one honors student, Eric Yoder ‘11, who chose not to enter graduate school and is now a CPA employed by Brown, Shultz, Sheridan and Fritz in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Yoder, however, came to 91����Ƶ with 20 hours of college credit earned while in high school. This allowed him to take a few extra college courses and continue on to the CPA exam and licensing.

“All of the 91����Ƶ students we have had in our program have been successes,” said Paul Copley, PhD, director of JMU’s School of Accounting. “They have been great in the classroom, have all found jobs, and have all passed the CPA exam. This is a testament to the quality of the undergraduate program at 91����Ƶ.”

Besides his own JMU undergraduate pool, Copley says 91����Ƶ is the only university from which his master’s program actively recruits candidates; each year one or two 91����Ƶ graduates typically enroll. The master’s program at JMU allows students to specialize in taxation, audition or information systems.

While 91����Ƶ’s small program size allows students to develop close, beneficial relationships with professors, being small also keeps it off the recruiting radars of large accounting firms. The fact that dozens of employers recruit from the graduate program at JMU – a public university with an enrollment of nearly 20,000 students – makes it an even more attractive option for 91����Ƶ graduates looking for a first job opportunity.

“JMU has superior recruiting power for business and accounting students,” said Monte Glanzer ’07, who connected with his current employer, the accounting firm Hantzmon Wiebel in Charlottesville, Virginia, through one of his graduate professors at JMU.

As Copley puts it, the presence of JMU’s master’s program in Harrisonburg gives 91����Ƶ accounting students access to the “best of both worlds.” Beckler agreed, describing his undergraduate study at 91����Ƶ as a great foundation on which the master’s program at JMU laid the finishing touches that prepared him for a career in accounting.  — Andrew Jenner ’04

91����Ƶ’s candidates passed the sections at a 72.2 percent rate, according to the 2011 NASBA Data and Trends Report, issued in 2012. The University of Virginia (UVa) had an 84.7 percent pass rate in the category of candidates without an advanced degree.

Close behind 91����Ƶ were the students of James Madison University, with a 70.2 percent pass rate, and the University of Richmond with a 68.8 percent pass rate. Nationally, first-time candidates pass the sections at 49.8 percent. The average pass rate for all bachelor-degree-holding students in Virginia was 53.9 percent.

NASBA also reported that 91����Ƶ ranks 18th in the nation in the “Very Small” category. This category includes 239 institutions with five to nine candidates taking the exam.

The accounting program at 91����Ƶ is headed by  ’75, who holds a PhD in accounting and is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). He has overseen the program since 1984. Other faculty members teaching accounting are , a 2000 91����Ƶ grad who holds a CPA and MBA, and , with a CPA and an MS in accounting.

“The five graduates from 91����Ƶ who took this exam in 2011 were a small group of test-takers compared to the test-groups of accounting graduates from much-larger universities in the state, such as Virginia Tech, James Madison, and William & Mary,” noted Stoltzfus. “But I don’t think our size diminishes our achievement. In fact, it may point to the advantages of the one-on-one attention that our students get.”

In a mark of accomplishment in 2012, a four-student 91����Ƶ team competed against accounting teams from university programs around the United States in a contest sponsored by the . 91����Ƶ made it into the final round of 20, from which three winners were chosen. AICPA judges ranked the 91����Ƶ team, along with the other finalists, on its ability to present solutions in 1,000 words or less to the difficulties this nation faces with Social Security, the national deficit and taxes.

In the fall of 2010, 91����Ƶ accounting majors also proved themselves in a regional competition. The 91����Ƶ team tied for fourth place in the final round of competition with a team from UVa in the ninth annual Goodman & Company Accounting Challenge.

The team was one of 33 teams from colleges and universities from Virginia and Maryland. To advance to the final round, the 91����Ƶ team completed two sets of grueling six-hour business exams. Another team from UVa finished first in the contest, followed by teams from William & Mary and James Madison.

To become licensed as a CPA, state licensing bodies typically require 150 hours of coursework. 91����Ƶ graduates aiming for a CPA typically gain this coursework by enrolling in a master’s program. Over the last 10 years, their favorite next step has been James Madison University’s highly ranked MS program in accounting, but some students have enrolled in similar programs at Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University-South Bend, among others.  — Bonnie Price Lofton, MA ’04

If you want to understand the passion of Ronald L. Stoltzfus for accounting – notably getting the numbers right, providing complete and transparent information, and putting the public good first – you need only look as far as the accountant he respects the most in the national arena: Lynn E. Turner.

As chief accountant for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from 1998 to 2001, Turner was a leading advocate of auditor independence rules and international accounting and auditing standards.

“He’s one of my heroes,” says Stoltzfus, who heads 91����Ƶ’s program in the department. “He understands that accounting information helps investors, creditors and other users make good decisions. This is why accurate, transparent financial information is a ‘public good.’”

Stoltzfus admires the way Turner speaks to accounting conventions, “asking the hard questions that need to be asked,“ says Stoltzfus. Turner, for example, has publicly questioned why the investigative budget of the SEC was drastically cut in 2007, hamstringing an agency responsible for enforcing the laws regulating the nation’s banks. (This was at a period when JPMorgan Chase, Citicorp, and Bank of America were implicated in the global financial meltdown.)

Unlike Turner, Stoltzfus is not famous – at least not beyond certain university circles – but he shares Turner’s moral outrage at financial reporting practices that harm the public good.

This is why Stoltzfus is spending his 2012-13 sabbatical examining the way state governments report on the pension benefits they have promised to their employees. “Most state pension plans were fully funded seven years ago,” he says. “Now they aren’t.”

“Instead of following the recommendations of actuaries, many state legislatures have reduced the percentage of funds set aside for the pensions.”

In Pennsylvania, for example, Stoltzfus found that the state workers’ pension fund was underfunded by $14.7 billion as of 2011, partly the result of 10 years of sub-par investment returns and partly as a result of the state legislature cutting the set-aside money from 26% to 11% of payroll. (Stoltzfus cites “State Employees Retirement System, Comprehensive Annual Financial Report,” 06/30/11, p.72.)

Unfortunately, many states report similar patterns, he says: “Why are they [the legislatures] messing with the pension funds? Is this a short-sighted effort to balance the state budget at the expense of state workers?”

Stoltzfus hopes to publish his findings as soon as he wraps up his research. This is not a dry academic exercise; underfunded pensions funds will impact tens of thousands of public employees in the state of Pennsylvania alone.

For Stoltzfus, accounting is a high calling – right up there with being a skilled physician or a wise pastor. “To run a business, non-profit or a government agency, you must have properly trained people who know how to collect the right data and present it understandably, giving accurate answers to a host of questions.”

“Good CPAs [Certified Public Accountants] are problem-solvers for their clients,” he enthuses. “And auditors are like forensic investigators – they have to be very bright and very astute. Behind every major business reporting failure, there was an audit failure.”

Stoltzfus says a flaw in the U.S. audit system is the fact that the auditor is paid by the company being audited. He points to the way Arthur Andersen – one of the “Big Five” accounting firms until 2002 – was getting a million dollars a week from Enron at time when it was fraudulently reporting its financial position, deluding its investors. (Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001.)

In addition to being a CPA and an 91����Ƶ alum, Stoltzfus holds a PhD in accounting from Virginia Commonwealth University, a master’s in accounting from James Madison University, and a master of business administration from Shippensburg University.

“Its very unusual for a university this size to have somebody with a PhD teaching accounting, “ says Spencer Cowles, PhD, chair of 91����Ƶ’s business and economics department. “It’s also unusual to find someone with a CPA and a PhD in accounting who also has an MBA. Ron doesn’t just have a narrow technical perspective – he understands how accounting fits into business.”

PhD-holding scholars of accounting like Stoltzfus are in short supply nationally, according to the American Accounting Association. This may explain the salaries they can command on the academic market. New hires as full professors of accounting received a mean salary of $169,200 in 2009, according to a 2009-2010 salary survey conducted by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

“The highest salary you can get as an accounting professor at 91����Ƶ is probably half what you could get at a major university with a full-fledged graduate program in accounting,” says Cowles. Yet Stoltzfus, long-time treasurer of his Park View Mennonite Church, has stayed put at 91����Ƶ since arriving here in 1984, after a decade of being a controller in the private sector. His motivations clearly are beyond money.

“I believe in the mission of 91����Ƶ. I think we make a difference in young people’s lives,” he says. No accounting student “gets lost here…. I know if you aren’t prepared and if you’re not in class.”

The exams that Stoltzfus puts his students through are intended to prepare them for the multi-day exam marathons that they will need to endure to pass their CPA exams. In short, 91����Ƶ’s accounting exams are really tough. But, as dozens of accounting graduates have told Crossroads, the pay-off is success in graduate school and in getting the coveted CPA license with relative ease.

Stoltzfus also stays put because “I have great colleagues. Our department really values teaching in a liberal arts context where clear thinking and clear writing are very important,” he says. “And so are relationships and understanding the broader context of business and society. It’s not just about accounting.” — Bonnie Price Lofton, MA ’04

Persons can meet the MBA co-directors, Ronald L. Stoltzfus and Anthony E. (Tony) Smith and current students and get information on 91����Ƶ’s MBA program. Light refreshments will be served. Stop in anytime between 6 and 7 p.m.

In addition to 91����Ƶ’s accelerated, steward-leadership MBA program, the department offers concentrations in health services administration, nonprofit entrepreneurial management and a graduate certificate in nonprofit leadership and social entrepreneurship.

For more information or to let 91����Ƶ know you’re coming, call 540-432-4150 (website: www.emu.edu/mba).

Faculty and staff saluted four colleagues who are retiring and cited more than 30 others for long years of service during the school