Department News
Baylor Students Continue to Excel on the CPA Exam
Baylor accounting students have established a national reputation for their exceptional
performance on the CPA exam. In the latest report of CPA exam performance (for the 2010 exam)
released by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA), Baylor students once
again achieved national recognition as top performers. Among large programs (those with more
than 60 exam candidates), Baylor students ranked 8th in the nation and 1st in Texas with their
76.1% first-time pass rate (average score of 80.0). Graduate students had an 87.7% first-time pass
rate with an average score of 82.7
Baylor Students Participate in Competitions
Case competitions provide students an opportunity to apply their technical knowledge and soft
skills in solving a real-world business problem. This year, Baylor students competed in a number of
competitions at the local and national level.
Baylor students have participated in the PricewaterhouseCoopers xTAX challenge since 2004. This
year, 14 teams participated in the local competition, and the team consisting of Matt Digregorio,
Destiny Dike, Jeff Hughes, Lauren Ulcak and Adam Watkins was selected to represent Baylor at the
national level. The teams were coached by Dr. Charles Davis, Mr. Tim Thomasson and Dr. Brett
Wilkinson.
This year marked the second year Baylor students participated in the KPMG International Case
Competition. Fifteen four-person teams competed at the local level. Jeff Hughes, Michael Sepulveda,
Abbie Stonecypher and Whitney Williamson were selected as the winning team in the local
competition and represented Baylor at the regional competition in Chicago, accompanied by Dr.
Jason MacGregor.
Deloitte’s FanTAXtic competition was new to Baylor this year. Two teams traveled to the Dallas
office to represent Baylor in the regional competition. The team of Rachel Brod, Chayse Harvard,
Andrew Petry, Rachel Deere, Abbie Stonecypher and Michael Sepulveda was selected from the
regional competition to move on to the national competition held at the new Deloitte University in
Dallas.
This was also the first year for Baylor students to compete in the KPMG/ALPFA Case Competition.
Isabel Borberg, Veronica Cruz, Kashy Harrison, Angel Rodriguez and Ryan Stange travelled to
Anaheim, CA, with Dr. Jason MacGregor, Baylor’s ALPFA chapter sponsor, to compete against teams
from across the country.
Students Learn About Leadership
Each summer, several accounting firms sponsor leadership conferences for rising juniors who are
interested in careers in accounting. Last summer, Whitney Williamson attended three of
conferences—Ernst & Young’s Inaugural Emerging Leaders Summit, BDO’s Pathway to Success, and
KPMG’s Fast Forward—and Erika Ukkestad attended KPMG’s Fast Forward conference.
“Ernst & Young focused on innovation, vision, teamwork and global mobility,” Whitney said. “BDO
focused on the differences between audit and tax, a differentiation that helped me make my
personal choice for audit. BDO also had a speed networking event with partners to learn about
different elements of their career, such as international work, SEC and SOX.”
“Fast Forward had a huge impact on my understanding of leadership,” Erika said. “It was valuable
to hear opinions from people with such diverse backgrounds and, after just a short time, I had a
better understanding of how I lead and how others can best be led.”
Both Whitney and Erika believed that while the formal learning parts of the program were
beneficial to their professional development, the opportunity to meet and work with students from
across the country was just as important.
Baylor Accounting Continues VITA Program
Continuing a partnership that began in 2005, 25 Accounting majors along with faculty members Dr.
Brett Wilkinson and Mr. Tim Thomasson joined students and faculty of Waco ISD’s A.J. Moore
Academy in the 2012 Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program (VITA). This experience is a true
service-learning project; students learn how to apply the tax code and develop skills in client
interaction while performing a service in the community. The primary role of our students in this
program has been with quality control over the return preparation process and with meeting and
discussing the return with each VITA client.
VITA is a national program administered by the Internal Revenue Service that offers free tax
preparation and e-file services to low-income individuals. The program relies heavily on local
community support. A.J. Moore Academy started the Waco program in 2005, and to date has
generated tax refunds to area taxpayers in excess of $11 million.
Students Awarded TSCPA Educational Foundation Scholarships
Following in the footsteps of several outstanding Baylor accounting majors, four students – Emily
Fuller, Brittany Hunemuller, Jennifer Jaggers and Hannah Linn – have been recognized for their
academic achievements by the Texas Society of CPAs (TSCPA). Based on the nomination of the
Department of Accounting & Business Law, each of the students received a $1,500 scholarship from
the TSCPA Accounting Education Foundation.
In fall 1998, the TSCPA’s Accounting Education Foundation established its Undergraduate
Scholarship Program to recognize the “best and brightest” junior and senior accounting students in
Texas by awarding scholarships, which are renewable for an additional year. Every year, each
university accounting program in Texas is invited to nominate students for the scholarship
program based on their academic achievement and extracurricular activities. The number of
nominations is based on the number of undergraduate accounting majors at each school.
To learn more about the TSCPA Accounting Education Foundation and its programs, visit
www.tscpa.org/about/edfoundation.
Students Foster Faith and Community
A Faith and Community Steering Committee comprised of accounting students and accounting
faculty was established this year to organize departmental events that foster integration of faith
and community. During the fall semester the group collected 30 shoeboxes and $1,500 in donations
from accounting students and faculty for Operation Christmas Child (Samaritan’s Purse), which
provides for needy children all over the world. To build community, the committee planned a yearend Christmas party for senior accounting students and faculty. At Easter, the group raised funds
for underprivileged school children in Uganda. In the summer, the group arranged four facultyhosted dinners for graduate students and faculty to discuss how students’ careers will influence
their faith and how faith can shape their career.
Department Receives PwC INQuires Grant
The Department of Accounting and Business Law received a $10,000 PwC INQuires Grant from
PricewaterhouseCoopers Charitable Foundation, Inc. The grant funded three projects during the
year. Faculty received a LiveScribe Echo smartpen for use in the classroom. The smartpen captures
pen strokes and the accompanying audio to create a narrated set of notes that can be shared online.
Many faculty use the pen as a way to capture problem solutions during class and provide students
with the ability to playback the solution at a later time. The second component of the grant funded
furniture and computer equipment for the department’s career development office. The final
component of the grant helped purchase an LCD panel that will be used outside of the accounting
classrooms to communicate important program and career information to students. Our thanks to
PwC for supporting our program in this generous way.
Gia Chevis Named a Baylor Fellow
This year, Ed Burger—2011 Cherry Award recipient, vice provost for Strategic Educational
Initiatives and visiting professor from Williams College—launched the Baylor Fellows program.
With a theme of “Thinking Matters,” Fellows in this year’s program were encouraged to be
imaginative and bold in making the elements of the thinking processes of practitioners in their
areas more visible and explicit throughout their courses. A portion of each student’s grade in the
course was based on an assessment of the thinking elements.
Chevis included several new cases in her courses, including the non-traditional settings of Title IX in
college sports, and Jefferson and Adams’ debates over how to handle the Barbary Pirates. She used
literature to provide “hidden” perspectives, such as illustrating the difference between liquidity and
profitability with The Last Picture Show. She created online learning modules to teach basic
computations as students’ class preparation and re-thought exam scheduling: outside of class, more
frequent, narrowly focused and self-scheduled.
“I was honored to be a member of the inaugural class,” said Gia Chevis, Accounting Graduate
Programs director and associate professor. “We met periodically and shared our triumphs and
tribulations with our experiments. I was excited to see how much more my students understood
and embraced the complexities of accounting.”
Faculty Earn Campus Organization Honors
Members of Phi Kappa Chi Fraternity honored Cari Edison and Anthony Herrera at their annual
Light Your World Banquet that recognizes faculty members for their outstanding service to
students and for making a difference at Baylor. Cari Edison was also recognized as one of the “Top
100 Baylor Faculty, Staff & Friends” by Alpha Delta Pi Sorority.
Blakie LeCrone was named “Most Popular Business School Professor” by the business professional
fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi. She was also named Pi Beta Phi Sorority’s favorite professor for April
2012.
Alumnus Recognized as a Texas Top 10 CPA Exam Performer
At a recent CPA Swearing In Ceremony, 2009 BBA/MAcc graduate Patrick Smith was recognized by
the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy as one of the top 10 CPA exam performers in the state.
Patrick currently works as an assurance associate in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Private Company
Services group working with retail, manufacturing, service and restaurant clients. The son of two
Baylor alumni, one of which is also a CPA, Patrick enjoys fly-fishing and long-distance running; he
ran his first marathon last December. Congratulations, Patrick!
Bruner Auto Group Honored at Texas Family Business Awards
Bruner Auto Group received the Large Family Business of the Year Award at the 22nd annual Texas
Family Business of the Year Awards sponsored by Baylor University’s Institute for Family Business.
The awards recognize firms whose families demonstrate a commitment to each other and to
business continuity. Baylor Accounting alumnus Greg Bruner, BBA ’84, serves as president of the
company in Brownwood, Texas. Both Greg and his father Dwain Bruner are the dealer principals of
Bruner Auto Group in Brownwood, Texas, and Bruner Motors, Inc. in Stephenville, Texas. Since
1927, four generations and five Bruners have owned and operated Chevrolet dealerships in Texas.
Faculty Publish New Textbooks
Dr. Charles Davis, joined by coauthor Dr. Elizabeth Davis, Baylor executive vice president and
provost, entered the textbook world with the first edition of Managerial Accounting, published by
John Wiley & Sons. Since students in managerial accounting have little to no manufacturing
experience, the book uses a running story about C&C Sports, a fictitious manufacturer of baseball
uniforms, to provide students with a simple context in which to learn managerial accounting. The
textbook also incorporates C&C Sports’ trading partners into the discussion so that students can
understand that decisions made by one trading partner in the supply chain ripple through to other
partners. Written in a conversational style, the book is designed to enhance student learning
through shorter learning units that encourage and facilitate mastery of a topic before moving on to
the next topic.
Dr. Bill Thomas completed the 9th edition of Financial Accounting, coauthored with retired Baylor
accounting professor Dr. Tom Harrison and Dr. Charles Horngren. This edition of the textbook
builds on the solid foundation of previous editions and incorporates examples and problems based
on RadioShack Corporation’s financial statements. Baylor professors Becky Jones and Betsy Willis
also participated in preparing the textbook for publication and authored several of the ancillary
materials that accompany the book.