Kansas State University

Mexico: In November, 2018, ten students from the IMA Student Chapter
along with three faculty members, travelled to Monterrey, Mexico as guests of Kansas City Southern.

The team toured the Kansas City Southern operations, and had the opportunity to learn directly from the KCS team about the challenges and opportunities of conducting business internationally. The team also made a visit to the manufacturing operations of Ragasa, an agro-industrial company producing cooking oil. Social activities included a watch party with KCS employees to cheer on the Chiefs against the Rams!

We are particularly grateful to Mr. Mike Upchurch, CFO of Kansas City Southern and distinguished K-State alumnus and Accounting Hall of Fame member, and to Kansas City Southern, for developing and providing financial support for this amazing trip for our students.

Australia: In May 2019, nineteen students and two faculty members made the long trip from Manhattan to Australia!

Our team visited Sydney and Cairns
over 13 days, to learn about international business and work with students at James Cook University. Blended teams of US and Australian students worked remotely on a case involving a fictitious company from KC looking to expand operations into Australia. When the teams met up in Australia, they presented their recommendations to Dr. Martin Fahy (CEO of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia), who posed as the KC company’s CFO.

Social activity highlights included a day trip to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef, a private tour of the Sydney Opera House, and the chance to get up close to koalas and kangaroos.

We are particularly grateful to the donors of the scholarships that enabled our students to participate in this program, including: the Cole Family scholarships; the ConocoPhillips scholarships; the Department of Accounting scholarships; the Koehn scholarship; the KSCPA scholarships; the Morrison Family scholarships; the Phillips 66 scholarships; and the Upchurch International scholarships.

Our faulty award winners for the 2019 year are:

BKD Teaching Award:                              Dr. Brooke Beyer

Cole Family Summer Faculty Award:         Dr. Dann Fisher, Robert Hagans                                                                     Chair in Business                                                                                         Dr. Amy Hageman, KPMG Professor

K-Coe Isom Research Award:                   Dr. Terry Mason, Koch Industries                                                                   MAcc Director

Koch Industries Leadership
& Service Award:                                    Ms. Jane Bloodgood                                                                                     Mr. Rodney Vogt, EY Teaching Fellow

We sincerely appreciate the financial support from our award sponsors: BKD; Mr. & Mrs. Charlie and Jan Cole; K-Coe Isom; and Koch Industries.

In April, we were delighted to induct Mr. Vern Herbel into our Accounting Hall of Fame. The Accounting Hall of Fame recognizes outstanding alumni who have represented Kansas State with distinction in business, government or academia.

Vern Herbel was Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer until his recent retirement at Torchmark Corporation, a public financial services holding company specializing in life and supplemental health insurance for middle income Americans. Torchmark’s affiliate companies have local offices throughout the United States.

A native of Dorrance, Kansas, Vern earned a Bachelors degree in Business Administration from Kansas State University in 1979. He started his business career with Ernst & Whinney, and then entered the insurance industry in 1983. He was with Torchmark for 32 years and held a variety of positions, including Internal Audit, Operations, President of various Torchmark affiliates, and Chief Administrative Officer.

Vern serves on the KSU College of Business Administration (CBA) Accounting Advisory Council, the CBA Dean’s Business Advisory Council, and is the KSU Foundation Trustee.

He is a member of Our Savior Lutheran Church, and has served on the Board of Directors, including being Chairman. Vern and his wife, Joan, reside in McKinney, Texas. They have a son and daughter-in law, Eric and Blaise, and a daughter, Sara.

Past Inductees

2019     Vern Herbel                                  Executive Vice President and Chief                                                                 Administrative Officer, Torchmark

2018     Michael Upchurch                          Executive Vice President & CFO,                                                                    Kansas City Southern

2018     Johanna Lyle                                 Instructor Emeritus of Accounting

2017     Ken Selzer                                    Kansas Insurance Commissioner

2016     Mark A. Soucie                             Vice President & CFO, Koch                                                                           Chemical Technology Group, LLC

2015     Barry Robinson                             EMEIA Tax Markets Leader, Ernst                                                                   & Young

2014     Steve Lacy                                   Chairman of the Board & CEO,                                                                       Meredith Corporation

2013     Doug Gaston                                Regional Managing Partner of BKD

2012     Jackson Day                                 Ernst and Young’s Americas                                                                           Professional Practice

2011     Paul Edgerley                               Managing Director, Bain Capital

2010     Robert G. Chapman (deceased)     President, Zieman Manufacturing

2009     Julie Bryant                                  Controller, ConocoPhillips

2008     Stan Weber                                  Chief Financial Officer, Tower                                                                         Properties Company

2007     Randall G. Fletchall                       Vice Chair, Assurance and                                                                             Advisory Business Services

2006     Joleen D. Moden                           Retired Senior Vice President,                                                                       Verizon Communications

2005     Maurice “Buzz” Stark                     Retired Professor, Kansas State                                                                     University

2005     Gene Laughlin                               Retired Associate Dean, Kansas                                                                      State University

2005     Ken Fox                                        Retired Professor, Kansas State                                                                      University

2004     Randolph A. Buseman                    Partner, Ernst & Young

2003     Rand C. Berney                             Vice President and Controller,                                                                        ConocoPhillips

2002     Candace Duncan                            Partner, KPMG

2001     Gary Boomer                                 Chief Executive Officer, Boomer                                                                    Consulting Inc.

2001     Roger Sink                                    Partner, Sink, Gillmore & Gordon                                                                    LLP

2000     F. Lynn Markel                               Retired EVP & CFO, Koch                                                                              Industries

2000     Julie Davis                                    Partner, KPMG

1999     Bill Sinderson                                Retired, Baird Kurtz & Dobson

1999     Allen Webber                                 Retired, Kennedy and Coe

In April we held our third Scholarships & Awards Gala. The Gala allows our scholarship winners to interact with our scholarship donors, employers and alumni. We celebrated over $320,000 in scholarships, thanks to the amazing support of our alumni and friends!

Two of our students won major prestigious national and state awards this year:

KSCPA Byron Bird Scholarship: Ms. Michelle Anderson.

Michelle will be serving as a Graduate Research Assistant for 2019-20.

PCAOB Award (student): Ms. Hailey Robinson.

Hailey will be serving as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for 2019-20

CPA Pass Rates

One of the many measures we use to evaluate our program is the pass rate on the CPA exam. For the 2017 period, the most recently available data at the time of writing, we were ranked in the top 40 large programs and 4^th in the Big 12 for first time pass rates. This is a nice accomplishment.

This fall we will host our inaugural Accounting and Technology Conference on October 3-4 in Manhattan. The conference is targeted at accounting professionals seeking to understand the impacts of technology on the accounting profession in today’s business world, and provides up to 16 hours of continuing professional education.

The conference will feature keynote speakers from across the country, including Jackson Day, partner and the Americas professional director for the Northeast Region at Ernst and Young LLP; Lynn Turner, the former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and former K-State football coach Bill Snyder, who will be the lunchtime keynote speaker.

“Our profession is evolving very quickly,” said Dr. Brooke Beyer, lead conference organizer. “This conference is about equipping accounting professionals with the skills that they will need to be competitive in an ever-changing, technologically-focused business world.”

In addition to a series of leading speakers, the conference will address a range of topics from financial reporting, auditing and tax updates, to data analytics, cybersecurity and blockchain. The conference will also feature some hands-on, interactive data workshops designed to help professionals in building current technology skills. One session will feature a comparison of technology options, including guidance on how to select the most relevant technology software to meet business needs. Another session will discuss how to use data analytics applications with accounting firm clients including creating an interactive dashboard for clients to use.

For further information and to register to attend, visit the conference website.

We ask you to support us by giving to K-State Accounting online at the following link: https://cba.k-state.edu/academics/departments/accounting/gift.html

Please include the Department of Accounting Fund number to ensure your gift comes to Accounting!

Your gifts to our program are making a difference in the lives of K-State Accounting students. Thanks for supporting us!

Accounting Alumni and Friends,

It’s been an exciting Fall semester so far at K-State. I’m delighted to share with you our fall electronic newsletter. We appreciate our many loyal alumni and friends and hope you enjoy hearing about our progress. As always, we invite you to partner with us in the exciting things we are doing at K-State Accounting.

Enjoy the remainder of the fall and Go Cats!

Brett Wilkinson PhD CMA

Department Head, K-State Accounting (Twitter: @KStateAcc)

This Summer, a group of 21 students traveled to Australia with a twofold mission: to gain a better understanding of the global marketplace and to work with Australian students at James Cook University. The group, led by accounting department head Brett Wilkinson and faculty member Jane Bloodgood, was also accompanied by two distinguished alumni, Barry and Marcia Robinson (Barry was the Accounting Hall of Fame inductee for 2015). The team spent five days in Sydney and five days in Cairns.

Prior to the trip, the K-State students worked in teams with Australian students from James Cook University on a transfer pricing related case. In Australia, the students met up with their Australian counterparts and presented their project conclusions. In addition to working with the Australian students, the team visited major international accounting firms and corporations, attended a briefing at the U.S. Consulate, and toured a sugar mill in northern Queensland.

Cultural highlights of the trip included a cruise on Sydney Harbour, a private tour of the iconic Sydney Opera House, a visit to a crocodile farm and a snorkeling excursion to the Great Barrier Reef.

This was a life-changing experience for our students, the majority of whom had never previously been outside the US. We are especially grateful to the alumni and friends whose scholarship support defrayed some of the costs and thus assisted our students in making this amazing trip. In particular, we thank Phillips66, ConocoPhillips, the Cole Family, the Day Family, and the Morrison Family for generous scholarship support.

Our MAcc program was recently ranked at number 19 in the Top 50 Master of Accountancy programs nationwide. We were also the highest ranked program in Kansas and third among Big 12 schools. The ranking methodology takes into account CPA exams scores, pass rates, relative popularity for business students and average tuition, and applies to AACSB-accredited graduate accounting programs. For more information and to see the full listing from Online Accounting Degree Programs, see the following link:

http://www.online-accounting-degrees.net/best/master-of-accounting-degree-programs/

K-Coe Isom Research Award: Our research award this year went to Dr. Terry Mason. Terry is an enthusiastic and energetic researcher and has been a great addition to our team. Since joining us two years ago, Terry has pursued an active research program and has been actively engaged in the research life of the department. In addition to his commitment to research, Terry is an outstanding classroom teacher and has made a positive impact at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

BKD Teaching Award: This year’s award went to Ms. Kim Charland. Kim is an accomplished and dedicated teacher who shows a true commitment to our students and to our department. Her evaluations are consistently at a high level and students routinely comment about how much they learned in her classes. It is clear that Kim challenges her students but is extremely fair and always goes beyond expectations in her willingness to help her students succeed. In addition to that, Kim  is an amazing team member who has taught multiple classes, has taken a major role in leading the Student Accounting Society (and Beta Alpha Psi prior to that) and is always willing to help out wherever needed.

This Fall we have welcomed two new faculty members to K-State Accounting.

Dr. Becky Heath joins us from St. Ambrose University. Becky completed her PhD at the University of Nebraska and is teaching the international accounting class in our MAcc program.

Dr. Brooke Beyer joins us from Virginia Tech. Brooke completed his PhD at Oklahoma State University and teaches in financial accounting and accounting theory.

We are excited to have both of them on our faculty team.

As you can see from our newsletter, so much of what we do here depends on the generous support we receive from our amazing alumni and friend base. We invite you to continue to partner with us in the coming year by making a financial contribution to one of our funds.

If you would like to explore the possibility of creating a specific scholarship, we would be delighted to talk further with you about this.

General Accounting Department Fund 

Master of Accountancy Fund

Accounting Scholarships