For a barometer on a college or university's performance, don't forget employers.
Allen Blay certainly doesn't.
"The employers who hire our students consider FSU one of their favorite places to recruit because our students outperform when they get into the field," says Blay, the EY Professor and chair of the Department of Accounting . "Our students outperform our competitor universities, because they're well trained, and they've got a fire lit under them."
Blay and accounting colleagues attribute their program and department's success to familiar themes, including eager employers, engaged alumni, beneficial events, supportive administrators and world-renowned faculty members who boast professional experience as accountants and auditors and offer real-world examples and advice.
The accounting faculty ranks No. 3 among U.S. public schools – No. 5 worldwide -- for archival audit research over the last six years; and No. 10 for all audit research among public schools – No. 15 worldwide – over the same time period, according to the 2022 BYU Accounting Rankings for Universities. Meanwhile, Assistant Professor and Dean’s Emerging Scholar Aleksandra "Ally" Zimmerman has won a selective one-year appointment to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
"We've been very lucky to hire what I think is the best faculty in the country," Blay says. "We care deeply about our research, as our rankings show, but we also care about our teaching."
The department once again has earned extended accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the benchmark for quality business schools worldwide, and its MAcc program maintains job placement rate of nearly 100% within six months after graduation and recently received a STEM designation from the State University System.
Also, students Casey Van Dyke, Svetlana Guthman, Yenesis Sotomayor and Trevor DeSchryver recently emerged as finalists in a regional competition and competed in the national finals in the Deloitte Audit Innovation Campus Challenge, for undergraduate students pursuing an accounting and/or finance degree.
"We're proud of our accounting program, especially for the elite students it attracts and the globally respected faculty that keeps our college climbing the rankings toward preeminence,” said Michael Hartline, dean of the Florida State University College of Business.
Hartline appointed Blay department chair in 2021 after the promotion of former chair Richard Morton to associate dean for academic operations. Morton also serves as the Julian V. Smith Family Professor of Business Administration.
Blay eagerly accepted the appointment, he says, largely because of Morton's work to establish a spirit of collegiality and excellence.
"I knew that I was stepping into a place that was working really well," Blay says.
That includes Holly Sudano, assistant department chair and senior lecturer, whom Blay salutes for, among other expertise, her role in keeping alumni engaged and in establishing and building relationships with the companies that keep calling on the accounting department for new employees.
Sudano also directs the Master of Accounting, or MAcc, program and the combined pathway in accounting that gives undergraduate students a head start on a graduate degree.
She and Blay note the importance of the department's Professional Advisory Board, which Sudano says "allows us to work with alumni to ensure our program is continually evaluating the needs of the profession and making changes as appropriate."
She also trumpets networking events, such as student organization Beta Alpha Psi's Meet the Firms, and alumni who are "always willing to speak to current students, whether through recruiting events, classroom presentations or mentoring opportunities."
-- Pete Reinwald
