DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTANCY I 2025-2026 ANNUAL REPORT
Growing through change
Preparing learners for a changing profession
Leveraging internal audit career paths Through the efforts of our department, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign joined the Internal Audit Academic Alliance, an academic partnership of more than 170 colleges and universities focused on strengthening the internal audit profession through its talent pipeline.
In the years to come, historians may very well mark this past academic cycle as the beginning of a generational shift in accountancy education, research, and practice. And like most change, the shift we’re experiencing now has been accompanied by a great deal of uncertainty. Throughout this report, you’ll learn about the ways our community of expert analyzers, strategic thinkers, and problem solvers came together to help others see past the unpredictability that looms in their future. As the world adapts to an AI workforce, we’re helping learners master new tools and software, and we’re also contributing to ongoing discussions about how and when these tools are most effectively – and ethically – deployed.
Our membership in the alliance reflects our dedication to helping learners amplify their career potential through internal audit paths. Professors Andy Dahle and Ed Rogowski led the expansion of internal audit opportunities for accountancy students, including the development of new courses: • Strategic Internal Audit (Master of Accounting Science course) • Internal Audit for Managers (online for-credit course) • Foundations of Strategic Internal Auditing (online course) • Strategic Value and Leadership in Internal Audit (online course)
As career possibilities expand and contract in response to technological advancements, we’re reiterating the value of graduate education in accountancy that goes well beyond CPA eligibility. And we’re intentionally connecting with learners sooner – showing them more possibilities, helping them plan for alternative outcomes, and giving them the information they need to make the best decisions they can. Change may be inevitable, but our department’s commitment to excellence is unwavering.
Head, Department of Accountancy Irwin Jecha Distinguished Professor in Accountancy
Andy Dahle
Ed Rogowski
Responding to employer demand for technical competencies
Shaping the conversation about AI in the classroom
Over the past five years, we’ve substantially increased enrollment in our Accountancy + Data Science undergraduate major, strengthening the accounting talent pipeline by growing expertise in evolving technologies and data analytics.
Nerissa Brown, executive associate dean of academic programs and H.T. Scovill Professor of Accountancy, shared insights about how AI is changing the status quo at higher education institutions – and how Gies Business is preparing learners to work ethically and effectively with AI, to equip them with new skills that employers are demanding.
We’ve also expanded access to this kind of education through the development of new courses, including: Machine Learning for Accounting This course teaches students to apply machine learning algorithms to accounting problems, including classification, regression, clustering, and text analysis using Python. AI in Business This course explores the transition from foundational concepts to advanced generative AI, robotics, and AI-driven automation in various business sectors.
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Schools must show students how AI reshapes work, how it affects decisionmaking and project execution, and how value is created when humans work alongside intelligent systems.
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Nerissa Brown, Executive Associate Dean of Academic Programs and H.T. Scovill Professor of Accountancy
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Navigating the impact of CPA licensure changes
This year, we devoted significant effort to illuminating how the Master of Accounting Science (MAS) degree helps learners deepen their experience and expertise, build a strong professional network, and boost long-term career opportunities.
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Connecting Master of Accounting Science curriculum with career ambitions Despite industry disruptions, Master of Accounting Science (MAS) curriculum remains relevant, providing learners with deeper knowledge of accounting standards and practices, advanced technical experience, and CPA and career readiness. Modernizing our coursework won’t require a content overhaul; our goal is to help learners think long-term and better understand how the program’s structure offers them the flexibility to build a skill set based on their interests and high-level career goals. To do that, we initiated a taskforce to refine the MAS curriculum while expanding potential degree paths. This taskforce worked with campus stakeholders, including our student population, to develop new pathways that resonate with learners. From these efforts, we hope to help students map their career goals onto a logical course progression without locking them into an option that doesn’t serve their needs.
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It makes sense that when you’re an undergraduate student, and you’re used to planning just a few semesters ahead at any given time, that it would be difficult to imagine what your options might be 10 to 20 years down the road.
A shifting perception of graduate accounting degrees
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Katie Jordan, Senior Assistant Director for Recruiting and Admissions
Helping learners envision their futures A long-standing benefit of the MAS program has always been its potential to expand graduates’ career prospects. But as Katie Jordan, senior assistant director for recruiting and admissions, explains, it can be challenging for prospective students to envision how the degree will pay off over time. “It makes sense that when you’re an undergraduate student, and you’re used to planning just a few semesters ahead at any given time, that it would be difficult to imagine what your options might be 10 to 20 years down the road,” Jordan said. Many learners still understand the intrinsic value of the built-in CPA exam prep that the MAS provides, and Jordan notes that it does seem to be a significant motivator for those who apply to the program. But to reach undergraduates who remain undecided about which path to take after graduation, the recruiting team now focuses on how the MAS program benefits long-term career outlooks for graduates. This year, Jordan led efforts to connect with undergraduates in their first stages of upper-level accountancy coursework, and in some cases, even before they declared their major. Being able to talk with experienced accounting professionals can help students understand how a graduate accounting degree benefits them in the long run, she said. To that end, she strives to connect prospective learners with alumni and faculty members who have real-world experience in the profession.
Why early engagement matters Financial concerns are top-of-mind for today’s graduate learners. Our “first-stage” admissions program allows undergraduates to take up to eight graduate credit hours before entering the MAS program, helping them save both time and money. Course planning around this option requires a significant amount of lead time, making it crucial that students have strong awareness of this opportunity well before their application season.
A graduate degree in accounting – especially one from Gies Business – signals to employers not only career-readiness, but an ability to think strategically and evolve with the profession: in other words, to lead. For many years, it was easy for students to associate the benefit of the MAS program with CPA eligibilty. One year in an accounting graduate program provided the required number of hours to qualify for the CPA exam, as well as dedicated support and time to study. In the wake of new pathways to CPA licensure and federal changes to graduate funding options, more undergraduates are beginning to weigh their options. To help them appreciate the less-obvious, but highly important, value of the MAS degree, we’re intentionally helping them envision a future beyond their first job – and beyond the CPA exam.
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Strengthening human-centric approaches to leadership
The consequences of ranking your employees In recent years, peer-to-peer recognition programs – systems that incentivize colleagues to praise one another – have become more popular in the workplace, ostensibly to help firms improve employee satisfaction and reduce company turnover. In some cases, these recognition programs bestow bonuses, merchandise, or even travel opportunities to employees who give or receive the most recognition.
when employees are ranked on how much recognition they give, the participants are more likely to help one another; ranking employees by the amount of praise they received had the opposite effect. The results of this research provide some preliminary evidence for how incentive programs might be able to improve work culture – and which kinds of rankings firms should avoid.
Professor Alex Vandenberg designed an experiment to test how the presence of leaderboards impacted collegial generosity. The experiment suggests that
The risk of overemphasizing technical skills
In attempting to understand auditors’ growing skepticism surrounding AIassisted work, professors Mark Peecher and Sebastian Stirnkorb, along with PhD candidate Isaac Yamoah, devised a study to examine how seasoned auditors’ own perception of their professional value could affect their willingness to trust AI-assisted outputs.
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Recognition “Peer-to-Peer Leaderboards and Employee Proactive Helping Behavior” The Accounting Review
Left to right: Isaac Yamoah, Mark Peecher, Sebastian Stirnkorb
sound advice from AI tools than those who had reflected on their weaknesses.
“What’s Really Behind AI Aversion in Auditing?”
Their research suggests that auditors’ aversion to AI may be linked to a fear that traditional skill sets will become undervalued by employers in the wake of widespread AI adoption. In an article published in Insight, the researchers offer solutions that can help firms emphasize the human value in the accounting profession to ensure continued audit quality.
Insight, Illinois CPA Society
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For the study, they asked experienced auditors to rank their professional skills, then write about the skills they’d ranked strongest or weakest. In the next part of the experiment, those same auditors were asked to evaluate a fair value estimate produced by an AI agent. They found that auditors who had written about their strengths before conducting the evaluation were much more likely to trust
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During a time when technology is dominating the discourse, we haven’t lost sight of the power people bring the workforce. Our research continues These students proved thattoinvesting in service to others, even to emphasize the human of business. while dedicated toside academic and professional growth, goes hand in
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hand with building a fulfilling life and inspirational career.
The power of disclosing your failures Inspired by a trend of “failure celebrations” in corporate environments, professors Clara Chen and Laura Wang set about investigating how work cultures that encourage people to share their failures could affect project outcomes. They designed an experiment that asked groups of participants to address a task in one of two ways: a tried-and-true, failsafe method or a risky one that offered substantial payoff if successful. To test whether certain conditions would change the likelihood of a person choosing the riskier path, some participants were told they would be expected to share their
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results, and others weren’t. Within those subgroups, some participants were told their performance would be evaluated; others weren’t. Chen and Wang found that under conditions where participants expected to be evaluated, those who had been encouraged to share their failures were significantly more likely to be successful with the riskier approach. This research has implications for how companies approach performance evaluations and team culture, particularly for firms that strive to be innovative – which requires willingness to take risks.
Top to bottom: Clara Chen, Laura Wang
Power of Sharing Your Failures” “The The Accounting Review
Failure disclosure shifts “our attention toward exploration. . . . It changes how failure is interpreted: from something to avoid to something that is valuable.
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Clara Chen, Lillian and Morrie Moss Distinguished Professor in Accountancy
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Another year of excellence and impact
Crandall receives Deloitte Foundation Doctoral Fellowship Fourth-year PhD candidate Richard Crandall was named a recipient of the Deloitte Foundation Doctoral Fellowship, a prestigious honor awarded to 10 top PhD candidates in accounting across the US. Intended to help strengthen the national pipeline of accounting faculty, the fellowship helps learners cover expenses as they complete their final years of coursework and doctoral dissertation.
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undergraduate accountancy program U.S. News & World Report
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research symposia
30 Lyceum series speakers
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Rankings Our faculty continue to hold the top spot in Brigham Young University’s accounting research and relevance rankings. Gies Business also remains highly ranked as one of the best business schools for graduate accounting (U.S. News & World Report).
Engagement
We’re entering a time when the human touch “could be more important than ever. I feel like my background – having these dual paths in humanities and accounting – will be an asset to me as I teach future students that this isn’t just about doing numbers and spreadsheets; .this is really about the human side as well. Richard Crandall, PhD candidate in Accountancy
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Illinois Chapter of National Association of Black Accountants
The department hosted two research symposia, bringing together top experts in academia and industry to disseminate knowledge on a wide variety of topics in accountancy.
This academic year, the department helped re-establish the University of Illinois chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants and grew its membership significantly. The chapter was named Student Organization of the Year by the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center and Most Impactful Organization by the Central Black Student Union. Its members also received several notable recognitions:
We also welcomed more than 30 speakers to our Lyceum series, giving learners a chance to connect with accounting professionals across a wide array of career backgrounds.
• Chapter President Titus Lee (MEDIA ’28) was honored with the Emerging Student Leader Award at this year’s Ebony Excellence Awards (hosted by the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center) • Chapter Vice President Grace Griffin (ACCY ’29) received the Best Presenter Award at the NABA-Chicago Case Competition
From the local community to the national stage, the Gies Business Department of Accountancy is regarded as a strong contributor to education, research, and service.
VITA expands reach in local community The University of Illinois’ Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program – run by the Department of Accountancy – offers free tax assistance to community members with low-tomoderate incomes, limited English proficiency, or disabilities. The program also serves individuals over the age of 60. This year, the VITA program made a record-breaking impact, growing both the number of taxpayers they assisted and the number of volunteers participating in the program. VITA also began new partnerships with two local organizations – Cunningham Children’s Home and The Immigration Project – to increase access to tax-planning education and boost capacity for translation services.
WATCH THE VIDEO
Hear Natalie Ramsey (MSA ’26) describe her VITA volunteer experience.
783
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completed tax returns
student volunteers
(30% increase from 2025)
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faculty volunteers
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alumni mentors
community volunteers
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Shaping the past, present, and future of accountancy
Remembering Jim Cantalupo In 2003, James Cantalupo (ACCY ’66) came out of retirement to serve as McDonald’s CEO and chairman. His objective: revive
New accountancy textbook from Guymon and coauthors
the then-struggling McDonald’s Corporation.
Ronald Guymon, senior lecturer
From 2003–2004, he developed and led a new business strategy
of accountancy, co-wrote a new
that shifted the company’s focus from expansion in new
textbook, Data Visualization:
markets to improvements in store operations and customer
Storytelling with Impact,
experiences. His strategy brought the corporation back from the
available from McGraw Hill.
brink; both revenues and stock pricing rebounded in the wake
Emphasizing the importance of
of the sweeping changes he implemented.
using stories to communicate
Tragically, Cantalupo passed away from a heart attack in 2004.
about data, this book presents
Though he had helped save the company, he was never able to
a guide for the data analysis
see just how fruitful his efforts had been. Decades later, the James R. Cantalupo Scholarship Fund at Gies Business ensures that his legacy of leadership and foundational excellence continues. It has secured more than $150,000 in additional funding from former McDonald’s colleagues, suppliers, and joint venture partners.
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and visualization process. It provides practical labs that can be adapted for beginners or advanced users. This work is an extension of Guymon’s dedication to ensuring that learners develop industry-relevant technical skills as well as the instincts they need to lead. Vernon J Richardson, Ronald N. Guymon, and Joseph V. Richardson. Data Visualization: Storytelling with Impact. © 2026. Textbook cover image courtesy of McGraw Hill.
The contributions of our faculty, staff, learners, and alumni continue to influence business, education, and the advancement of the accounting profession.
A graduate who sets the standard Jake Kanter (ACCY ’25, MAS ’26) will soon be joining an elite group of graduate students at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Kanter was named a postgraduate technical assistant for the FASB. In this role, he will work on major agenda projects and short-term practice and implementation issues. Typically, only about 15–20 applicants per year are selected for this honor.
I think what really makes “the difference is the Gies community and how everyone is there for you. That’s allowed me to thrive, becoming the student I wanted to be and the professional I want to become.
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Professor Cassie Mongold, who herself was a postdoctoral fellow at the FASB, described the interview and selection process for Kanter’s assistantship as a test of a student’s ability to reason and account for situations with no clear solution. “It really stretches their ability to take what they’ve learned in the classroom, synthesize it into overarching concepts, and apply those concepts in ambiguous settings,” Mongold said. Kanter says he is interested in analyzing the root causes of events and trends throughout history to make decisions about what should happen in the future. He looks forward to learning more about the historical context of current standards and hopes that he can have a positive influence on them as well.
Jake Kanter (ACCY ’25, MAS ’26)
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