Welcome from the Department Head
Greetings from K-State Accounting!
It was a great summer and we’re excited to share with you some of the exciting developments at K-State. Our newsletter highlights many of these accomplishments, including:
- Our 4th successful Accounting & Technology Conference. Not only did the conference bring together people from across the country to discuss current developments, but the conference also generated $12,000 in new scholarship funding for K-State students!
- The MAcc students had a fabulous trip to Australia where they learned more about international business and got a great taste of Aussie culture.
- This Fall, we are welcoming a new group of Freshmen students into our Accounting CAT community. These students begin working on Accounting from their first day on campus and build relationships and connections with other Accounting majors, faculty members, and accounting professionals. This October our CATs will take a field trip to visit Huhtamaki and KPMG in the KC area. In November they are off to Washington DC.
- Right after Labor Day we launched our next online High School class. It’s so important that high school students hear and see what they can do in an Accounting career.
I want to give a shout-out to Alexa Palmer, one of our student employees, for her work in developing this newsletter. Alexa is one of our high achieving Accounting majors and, as you can see, she also has journalistic talent!
Thank you for all your do in supporting our program – please know that your financial support is making a huge difference in the lives on the next generation of K-State Accounting Alumni.
Have a great Fall season and Go ‘Cats!
Brett Wilkinson
Department Head, K-State Accounting
Scholarship Gala Awards $433,000 to Accounting Students
An amazing $433,000 in scholarships was awarded to 177 new and continuing accounting students at this year’s Accounting Scholarship Gala held on May 2nd. This Gala serves as an incredible way to recognize the hard work our accounting students put in throughout the year, and we couldn’t be more grateful to the donors and companies that made this possible. Additionally, Mark Lacy was welcomed into the K-State Accounting Hall of Fame (more information below).
Accounting Hall of Fame
This past May we inducted Mark Lacy, partner at Deloitte in Kansas City, into the Kansas State University Accounting Hall of Fame.
Mark Lacy has over 30 years of public accounting experience focused on serving large, complex clients in the retail, restaurant, service, and process and industrial products industries. Currently, Mark is the lead client service partner for GameStop, the largest video game and entertainment software retailer in the United States, with annual revenue of more than $6 billion, for Cinemark, on the largest theater exhibition company’s, and for travel and hospitality company CWT.
Mark has a strong track record of ensuring that his clients are provided with distinctive service tailored to their needs, with the full attention and support of our local, national, and international resources. he has consistently received the highest marks possible from his clients during clients service assessments. Mark’s experience in working with large, complex retail and consumer companies, as well as his demonstrated technical skills, make him well suited to be a value-added advisor to the management and audit committees of his clients.
Congratulations to Mark Lacy for his induction in to the Kansas State University Accounting Hall of Fame!
Faculty Awards
Congratulations to the accounting faculty for their awards. Ashley West, Brooke Beyer, and Amy Hagemen are honored with the Cole Summer Research Award presented by the Cole Family. Dann Fisher and Ashley West received the FORVIS teaching excellence and Pinion research excellence awards, respectively. Sheila Coomes and Rodney Vogt were honored for their outstanding service and leadership contributions with the Koch Industries Leadership Award.
The Department of Accounting is grateful for support from the Cole Family, FORVIS, Koch Industries, and Pinion for their generous sponsorship of these faculty awards.
“What we hope is that this gift will help professors concentrate on their field of study more without being distracted by outside financial and other pressures. The benefit to the college will hopefully be higher retention and attracting the best staff.” ~Charlie Cole
Alumni Spotlight: The Cole Family
Charlie and Jan Cole met while at K-State and have been loyal Wildcat supporters for over 50 years. Natives of southern Kansas, Charlie (Wellington) and Jan (Wichita), Charlie received his Bachelors and Masters in Accounting at K-State while Jan graduated in Elementary Education.
Throughout their careers, they stayed loyal to K-State and supported various alumni and recruiting efforts in the DFW area. They also established the Cole Faculty Award (supporting Accounting Dept Faculty), a general university wide scholarship program, and have supported various Accounting Department scholarship and incentive programs over the last several years including the MAAC Travel Grant program. Furthermore, they have also been KSU Foundation Trustees for several years.
As Charlie remarks, “K-State helped make us who we are today – we’ll never forget that and want to help current and future K-Staters in whatever way we can!”
The faculty, staff, and students of the department are immensely grateful for the generous and high-impact support from the Cole Family over many years!
Accounting and Technology Conference
K-State Accounting held the 4th annual Accounting and Technology Conference in May (for professionals) and in April (for high school students). This year, a record-breaking 144 participants had the opportunity to learn about topics relevant to the industry while gaining 16 hours of continuing professional education (CPE). Professionals were able to connect in-person or virtually and represented companies from varying sectors.
Accounting topics included: Financial Reporting, What Is Plaguing Our Profession, Corporate Tax Update, Sales Negotiation Strategies, Ethics (2 hours), Measuring Things that Matter and a Panel Discussion on Trends in Accounting.
International Experience: MAcc Students Visit Australia
This past May, 33 master’s students, faculty, alumni, and guests traveled to Australia for a two-week international experience. The team had the opportunity to visit Sydney and Cairns where they met with different businesses, took several amazing cultural tours, and participated in fun excursions.
“Overall, it’s hard to describe the amazing impact of the trip. It is an incredible educational and cultural experience. Many thanks to the scholarship donors who support our students, and the organizations who hosted us and made this possible.” ~Brett Wilkinson, Department Head
Alumni Study Trip?
Would you like to experience what our students experience? We are exploring the feasibility of an alumni study trip. If this is something in which you might have an interest, please provide us with your feedback and thoughts here:
https://kstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cSXu34xHpiiGs2a
CPA Award Winner: Rachel Binau
Congratulations to K-State Alumna and former GTA Rachel Binau for being granted the Elijah Watt Sells Award for her CPA performance in 2022.
Rachel shared that “Winning this award was a lot of hard work but the process was made much easier by the K-State accounting program.”
Meet our Incoming Graduate Assistants
The Department of Accounting is beyond thrilled to welcome two Graduate Research Assistants and six Graduate Teaching Assistants for the 2023-2024 academic school year. Learn a little bit more about them below!
Graduate Research Assistants
Graduate Teaching Assistants
Thank you for your support!
We ask that you continue supporting K-State Accounting by giving via the following link.
We greatly appreciate the difference you are making in the lives of our Accounting students. Thank you for supporting our program!
On May 16th, 33 people, including MAcc students, faculty, alumni, and guests will be leaving for Australia. Over the course of two weeks, they will visit Sydney and Cairns. The trip involves meeting with international businesses, a tour of the Sydney Opera House, a day at the Great Barrier Reef, and many other exciting opportunities. This program is led by Brett Wilkinson and Ashley West.