Alumni Newsletter Fall 2019

Greetings Alumni and Friends, The ACIS Department has enjoyed another very good year with many positive events occurring here on campus and beyond. Some of these events are a continuation of endeavors that take place fairly regularly in ACIS each year, while other events are relatively new to our department and students. It is my pleasure to provide you with an overview of some of these activities, and encourage you to read more details throughout this newsletter.

Some of our beneficial events possess both continuing as well as new attributes. Our faculty continue to make a constructive difference in the lives of our students, as well as make contributions to the overall profession. While these accomplishments have endured for years, the newattribute ismany of the faculty are relatively recent additions to ACIS. As described in previous newsletters, many of our long term faculty have retired over the past few years. Most recently, Debra Salbador (25 years) and Gene Seago (48 years) retired this past summer after long successful careers. To replace the void created by the departure of these excellent professors, we have hired new faculty members who show great promise for the future. In the past four years we have hired 15 new faculty (out of a total of 31 full time faculty), along with 3 new high-quality adjunct professors. These faculty are already making many positive contributions for our students and department. For example, later in this newsletter we describe the national recognition and awards professor Sarah Stein has recently received for the high quality research and teaching materials she has produced and published. We also describe some of the work of professor of practice Nadia Rogers and her recent appointment to the Virginia Board of Accountancy. Additionally, we provide brief descriptions of the five new faculty who have joined us in the past year. I remain very optimistic that these faculty will continue to progressively contribute to the missions of ACIS. A new event for our department is the early August graduation of our first cohort of KPMG sponsored Master of Accounting with Data and Analytics (MADA) students. These students are the first to complete the “Accounting Analytics” option of our MACIS program which we developed to provide state of the art accounting analytics education for our students. We enrolled our second cohort of KPMG sponsored students in late August, as well as 20 additional MACIS students who selected the Accounting Analytics option. Accounting analytics has quickly become one of our most popular Master’s options.

One regular event I am very pleased to describe is the continuing success of our students in procuring high quality job opportunities. This past year we had one of our most successful years ever with respect to our students seeking employment with over 95% of our undergraduates obtaining a full time position by graduation. The starting salaries of our graduates continues to increase with an average base pay in excess of $60,000 for the past year. Many of these students also receive signing bonuses in addition to their base salary. A second positive ongoing event is our Accounting and Auditing Conference that we jointly deliver with the Virginia Society of CPA’s. Each year we have between 800 and 1,000 CPA’s attend this conference presented at three different locations (Roanoke, Falls Church, and Virginia Beach). Our 2020 Accounting and Auditing Conferences will represent the 50 th year that we offer this conference to practicing CPA’s. These conferences represent very positive outreach efforts that provide many constructive externalities for our students and department. We also continue to hold our awards banquet each spring to recognize and present scholarships to our highly deserving and high performing students. Scholarships are awarded based upon demonstrated achievement in classes and activities, as well as on a combination of achievement and financial need. This academic year (2019-20) we will award over $370,000 in scholarships to over 100 students. We are very grateful to our alumni and friends who have donated to our department allowing us to provide these indispensable scholarships to our students. Thank you for your continued help in making it possible for us to present these scholarships to our students.

This past January the ACIS Department received continuing accreditation for five years from the AACSB, which is the primary global accrediting agency for quality schools of business. Overall, the accreditation process went very smoothly, and our department was recognized for several “best practices” among collegiate schools of business. These include the recognition of our Technology Initiative in which we continue to further integrate technology and analytics into all of our courses. The AACSB team also recognized our efforts to recruit underrepresented populations into our MACIS program from HBCU schools, as well as our participation with KPMG in developing our Master of Accounting with Data and Analytics program. Please take a little time to read more about the activities and successes of our students, alumni, and faculty in this newsletter. I wish to take a moment here to acknowledge what a special place Virginia Tech is to be a part of and work. The energy, enthusiasm, and hope for the future that is evident in our students as they cross the drill field is an inspiration to us all as we move forward. Thank you for all your help and support in educating the current generation of Virginia Tech students. Best wishes for a very happy holiday season for you with families and friends. Go Hokies! John J. Maher

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